The Stones Will Cry Out Series

And I wonder if today, if any of us here are clueless¡K The crowd that spread their cloaks and cut branches were on that when Jesus rode in on that donkey! They would not have celebrated if they knew that their Messiah would be killed very soon. Yes, As the people shouted "Hosanna," or ¡§save us¡¨ they didn¡¦t realise they were choosing Jesus as the Lamb of God, as their sacrifice for the Passover. They did not know that Jesus would be killed so that their sins could be forgiven. Yes they would be saved, but saved from their penalty of sin not from political powers. All they wanted was instant gratification, oh, they wanted a political Messiah. They want to rid themselves of the hated Roman Empire and the vicious iron-grip rule of the offensive merciless Jew hating Gentile Pontius Pilate away.

Are we just as clueless¡K to what God is doing here with us? So we go for instant gratification. Drowning in our current misery, we are oblivious to what God is accomplishing thru out history. Are we too missing out on what God really wants to do for us? Just as Jesus¡¦ disciples missed out and were out of tune with their Master, are we missing out on the fact that God wants more than anything else to work out the ultimate saving event while they were bogged down with the Romans. Just as we are today, we are bogged down with what the Government of BC or Canada or the US is doing. Bogged down by our worries if the US will crush BC¡¦s economy because of the softwood quarrel. Bogged down by so pollution, suicide bombers, ¡K Do we not live in a world where there are problems galore here right now?

Just as the Roman empire declined and their glory became a blip in history, so shall our concerns for the day in comparison to the on-going story of eternity that the eternal God is weaving for us. With all our current problems, or eyes seldom have the perspective of the eternal. Our eyes are fixed on terra firma here. And it sure feels like we are the weakest link, just waiting to be snuffed out by a careless driver who believes he is a Michael Schumacher, or by disease or a terrorist plot or by a hockey puck ¡KWe visualise a world that will be safe but the realism of history teaches us, that there is no safe place. There are folks who are building panic rooms with the latest high tech computers and camera surveillance equipment in their houses just in case bad guys or home-invaders come. There are folks who would buy old army bunkers to prepare for the end of the world. There are folks who pin their hopes that a political system called ¡§democracy¡¨ will save them¡K There are folks who are doing big-time business manoeuvres as if the whole world is hanging on it and then the Enron scandal shatter their confidence¡K We feel totally victimised, helpless, looking for a Messiah, so we cry like the crowd in Jerusalem ¡§save us¡¨.

Thank God, Palm Sunday reminds us we are not just the weakest link in history of this world. Somehow through the events triggered by Palm Sunday leading to Good Friday and then to the Resurrection victory of Sunday, we are soon to be restored to become the sons and daughters of God co-heirs and co-rulers of the earth with the Lord Jesus, as we were meant to be, as we were created to be. We were created not to be insignificant pawns of history, manipulated to prop out a government with our taxes, but be significant world changers.