There are things in my heart that I want to share.  This time every year my heart yearns for a place of solitude to wrestle with this week.

I want this to be a dialogue where we share our thoughts and questions and insights.  I need this, don’t you?

I need to reset my mind and my heart on the eternal.

I ask that if you feel comfortable when you reply to reply to all.  It will help our dialogue.  It will build our community.

We are all friends here and this is a safe place to be.

And so it begins…Jesus enters Jerusalem.

Ever wondered why a donkey?  I have.  It was perfect, of course.  Mary rode a donkey a long way to get to Bethlehem just so He could be born.

Jesus could have chosen any animal – donkey, horse, camel, elephant.  Yet, he chose a common one.  One that the people would not shy away from.  One that was familiar.  One they could relate to.  One where he could look into their eyes.  Any other animal would have put Him above them, out of their reach.

“Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their robes on the donkey, they helped Jesus get on it.” Matthew 19:35 

It never occurred to me that Jesus would ever need help to do anything.  Yet, His humanity shines here.  There was no saddle for this donkey, only robes which may have slid while He was trying to mount the sweet beast.  It makes me smile.  This moment in time when Jesus and His closest friends are trying to get Him on a donkey to enter Jerusalem to fulfill a prophecy about the Messiah.

“As He was going along, they were spreading their robes on the road. Now He came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen: Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!”  Matthew 19:36-38

How many of you read these words and in your mind the images were of a Palm Sunday service at your church?  Me, too.  Then, I closed my eyes and did a reset.  Picture Jesus laughing with His disciples.  They were heading into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.  Then it happens, the joy over takes them and they burst into praise.  This was not rehearsed.  Jesus didn’t give them their cue to lay down the rest of their robes and sing.  It was spontaneous.  It was an outpouring of offering to God for all that they had seen and Jesus had done in their midst.  Have you ever been overwhelmed by the glory of God?  Have you ever burst into praise because your being could not contain your joy?  Ever danced in your kitchen or bowed on your living room rug because you were overwhelmed by His kindness to you?  I think those moments reflect what the disciples felt and if we had been there among them would we not have grabbed a palm branch and danced alongside Jesus?

“Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told Him, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” Matthew 19:39

There is always a hater, a doubter or a mischief maker.  There is always someone that wants God to fit into a man-made box.  You and I know…He won’t fit.  Jesus taught on the steps of the temple, on the hillsides and beside the sea.  The Pharisees had been in the throngs that Jesus had taught.  What Jesus taught scared them.  They couldn’t praise Jesus because their hearts were filled with fear.  Fear of a message of redemption for all men.  Perfect Love casts out all fear.  So, Jesus responds as the Messiah He will soon show himself to be.

“He answered them, ‘I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out!” Matthew 19:40

That verse resounds with my soul.  Jesus answers with a fact.  The rocks were a created thing just like we are.  Like the wind and the waves that obeyed His voice, I have no doubt that the stones can sing.  There is a part of me, a big part actually, that would like to hear the stones sing.  But I would never want that to be because I wasn’t praising Him.

Thank you for walking with me here today.  I needed to talk through this.  I needed to live this moment in time.  I hope you did as well.  It isn’t the full account of what Jesus did on what we call “Palm Sunday” or the “Day of the Triumphal Entry” but it is a start for my heart.  A place to dwell until we walk a little further tomorrow.

Let us sing with the stones, shall we?

Grace,

Laura Lea

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