Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields (v 8)
Passover time was party time. Jerusalem and it surrounds would be teeming with up to 3 million people from all corner of the then know world. The Jewish diaspora was already widespread. It was a time pregnant with political and religious expectation. Celebrating the miraculous exodus of Israel out slavery in Egypt centuries earlier, when would God similarly deliver first century Jews from the tyranny of Roman occupation. Would it be this year?
Jesus has spent most of his public ministry up to this point in rural and regional Judea and Galilee. Now he was entering the centre political (Roman) and religious (Jewish) power. He was also entering a scene heavy with expectation. Was he the One the prophets foretold? Was he the Messiah - the One who would save? The people responded wit shouts of acclamation and actions worth of a king. We know form the story that unfolds that there acclamation was like vapor - it would disappear on the wind. Nevertheless they knew that Jesus' presence demanded a response. And it always will.
When you come marching into my world Lord, what is and will be my response? Will it be acclamation, ignorance, indifference? Or will it be the surrender your Lordship requires?
Jesus, you are my Lord. May my knee always bow, my tongue always confess, my life always bear your cross until that day I see you face to face.
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