Our Finest Hour

 

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, when we remember Jesus’s celebrated return to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. By this time in his ministry, Jesus had become well known for his healings and other miracles, including raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, and so the people outside Jerusalem greeted him with great enthusiasm, laying their cloaks and palm branches before him as he made his way into the city.

Here’s the story as told by John, one of Jesus’s 12 disciples and friends – you can find it in chapter 12, verses 9 - 19, of John’s account:

Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him.

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”

Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:
“Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”

At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.

Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word.  Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him.  So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!”


I think there are a couple of remarkable aspects to this story –
Firstly, there’s Lazarus, of course – raised from the dead! And there’s the reaction of the chief priests to Lazarus being around. Not from them a declaration of praise to God, but instead a plot to kill Lazarus!

Secondly, there’s the fulfilment of Zechariah’s prophecy. Over 500 years before Jesus’s ride into Jerusalem, the prophet Zechariah had foretold the coming of the king, riding on a donkey – a colt, the foal of donkey. Again, what was the reaction of the chief priests? Not “Hosanna in the highest!” but the beginnings of a plot to kill Jesus himself. A plot that would of course come to fruition with the events of Good Friday.

The high priests had nothing but murder on their minds. But the ordinary people took Jesus at face value – they saw things that only God could do and they called Jesus blessed. Oh, the priests would soon turn many of them against him but their first instincts were that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the promised King, the Chosen One, coming in the name of Lord.

The ordinary people spread the word about Jesus. When you think about it this is quite typical of Jesus. Born in a humble feeding trough, revealed to rough shepherds, he went on to choose ordinary fishermen as his first followers. And he returned to Jerusalem for the Passover feast riding on a donkey.

Maybe you feel inadequate to spread the word about Jesus. Maybe you don’t feel important enough, special enough, to carry his name into your neighbourhood. Well, Jesus picked a donkey to carry him into Jerusalem, surely he can pick you and me to carry his name into our conversations?

Humility is a great attribute – but let’s not hide behind it, or rather, let’s not hide Jesus behind it.

A long time ago, some of you may remember, there was little five-minute TV programme on the BBC called Five to Eleven. A celebrity would come on and read a poem. It was on that programme that I first heard this poem by G. K. Chesterton. It’s a wonderful poem for Easter-time though to be honest I’d tuned in because it said in the TV listings that Joanna Lumley was going to be the reader and even if I’d never really heard of G. K. Chesterton I was pretty keen on Joanna!

The poem’s called “The Donkey” and it goes like this –
 
When fishes flew and forests walked
   And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
   Then surely I was born.
 
With monstrous head and sickening cry
   And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
   On all four-footed things.
 
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
   Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
   I keep my secret still.
 
Fools! For I also had my hour;
   One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
   And palms before my feet.
 
I wonder if, like the donkey, this might be my finest hour and yours. The hour for us, most unfitting as we may think ourselves, to carry Jesus into people’s lives.

With every blessing,
Simon
 

Simon Lace, 03/04/2020