The Four People Of Palm Sunday

How does Jesus do this? He does this by removing anything that could block us from relationship with God. The Bible tells us that “There is no condemnation for those in Jesus”. That is the most freeing thing that I could imagine – not being condemned. At all. That is what we celebrate in Jesus.

Building on this, one final promise that we celebrate in Jesus is that this relationship is far more than anything we deserve – or would ever expect. God – the creator of the world is all-powerful, and yet Jesus’ coming made it possible for us to be God’s children. It’s this simple: “You are God's children because of your faith in Christ Jesus”. That is something worth worshipping God for.

This is why we follow and worship Jesus. If you’re here today to see what Jesus is about, I hope you’ve been able to see something like the people of Palm Sunday saw that led them to worship Jesus.

Over the last few years I've aimed to come in contact with all sorts of potential onlookers. There's been all sorts of ways I've done that - going to festivals, eating together, praying - and one other way is doorknocking. Doorknocking can get a bit of a bad rap - but our purpose wasn't to force anything on people, rather to see if they were potential 'onlookers'. We wanted to interact with people who might be interested in ‘onlooking’ to Jesus, but who – for many reasons – might not walk into a church. And I have to be honest with you – there were lots of them!

I know there’s people out there exploring Jesus, just as there was at Palm Sunday. I hope we can meet them and give them that chance – no matter where they may be.

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'Outsiders'

There’s a third group of people I see there on Palm Sunday and that I know are in our lives today. They’re people I call ‘Outsiders’. Now the main difference I see about them is that they have chosen not to even explore God in a meaningful way, but have made choices to ignore what He has to say. They may even be aggressive against the message of God, or living a life that would seem to make it difficult for them to hear that message.

In today’s passage, these people were called ‘Pharisees’. The Pharisees in Jesus’ time spent a lot of time arguing against what Jesus’ message was – and in the long run it was them who convinced the rulers to kill Jesus on a cross. On Palm Sunday there they were, demanding that Jesus rebuke his followers – they did not want Jesus to be given the incredible honour He was being given. Jesus’ response to them tells us how He sees those in this world today who also attempt to take away His glory by choosing to live outside His love.

“He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out."”

Let me put this another way. No matter what obstacles people may put in the way of finding Jesus, His glory will shine through. No matter what reasons you may have for avoiding Jesus, or the reasons of people around you, Jesus’ love will shine through. Even the Pharisees – who some would call Jesus’ enemies – saw God’s glory that day.