Palm Sunday: Our Expectations and Our Good God

We are toward the end of the season of Lent.

Not the season we thought it would be, but it has been the 40 days leading up to Easter.

So we are toward the end of the season.

And for most of us, this has not been the season we thought it would be.

We thought March would be one thing.

We thought April would be one thing, and March ended up a different thing altogether.

When my wife Christy, when uh we got married, she expected, she expected a husband that would wake up early in the morning with her and sit coffee with her and uh have a morning devotion with her, read that Max Lucata morning devotion, and we were gonna ask each other questions about each other's hearts, and we're gonna pray for each other.

This is what she expected.

This is what she grew up thinking a Christian husband did within a Christian marriage.

We never talked about that, but that was the expectation that she had.

But the problem is I don't like coffee.

That's that was the first problem.

The second problem is I don't like to wake up early.

Like I like college early.

College early 7.30, right?

I mean, in college, 7.30 was the break of dawn.

So I like college early.

I still like college early, but she likes adult early, and adult early is like 5.30, and to me, that's some insane numbers.

I better be going on a big trip if I wake up at 5.30.

And so this is one of the many ways I have failed her.

I haven't lived up to this expectation because even when I do wake up an hour or two after her, I still don't want to talk to anybody.

I have a long kind of wake-up period.

Like it takes me a while to warm up.

So she expected one thing, and then she ended up getting another thing.

How easily something like this, even as silly and small as that example, right?

How easily something like that can create disappointment and can even create resentment.

There's a saying, maybe you've heard it.

Resentments are premeditated expectations.

So when you have an expectation early on and you project it onto somebody or some season or even God, how easily those expectations, if they're not true, they end up being disappointments and resentments.

And you know what I'm talking about because you thought March would be one thing.

You thought the month of March was gonna hold a great month of business or sports or activities with your kids or your own activities or graduation or travel or stuff with friends or a wedding.

And then it ended up something else, or maybe some real suffering hit, some real disappointment within this month.

Lost some money, lost some freedom.

Maybe you lost your job, maybe you became sick, or your cousin became sick, or your neighbor, we thought it was going to be one season and we expected that season, but we ended up with a different season.

So we enter Palm Sunday in this context that we have had for the last month, right?

And we also entered this Palm Sunday just with that idea, with that idea that we can easily hold an expectation that was never promised to us.

And so the story of Palm Sunday we can find it in Matthew chapter 21, and it's Jesus, he's become a well-known rabbi, well-known teacher.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

And he's a teacher at this point that has status, like he has gone from being a nobody to everybody knowing who this guy is, because he is like rock star status coming into Jerusalem here during the Passover feast.

And he has had miracles, and people have heard about him, and he is teaching, and there are crowds coming.

All this momentum behind Jesus as he comes into Jerusalem.

So two disciples go ahead of him, and they bring him a donkey for him to ride on into the city.

And here's what we get in Matthew 21, verses 4 and 5.

Matthew 21:4

This took place of Jesus riding on this donkey.

This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the full of a beast of burden.

So he's on a donkey, and thousands and thousands of people have lined these streets during this festival because this Jesus, this leader, this teacher, this Messiah, they believe, is coming into this city.

But the first clue that they have a little bit of their expectations wrong is that he's on a donkey and he's not on a horse because a donkey was a symbol of humility, but kings who came to overthrow powers that be would have been on a horse.

A person of power would have been on a horse to show dominance, but Jesus comes into this crowd, entered on a donkey, and this is a confrontation with people's expectations with what they wanted him to be.

And we can see what their expectations were in verses 8 through 11.

Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and here's where we get some context of some other people's expectations, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road, and the crowds went before him, and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this?

And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

So two points today to make sense of all of this.

Point number one is this as we resist what is true, as we resist what is true, we welcome increasing measures of disappointment.

As we resist what is true, we welcome increasing measures of disappointment.

So now that's a general truth, and that's a good general truth.

But let's make sense of it so it applies to our hearts.

Now, as a church, what we've been saying for maybe the past six months, and we've been learning over and over again, is that our idolatry is at the intersection of our woundedness and our sin.

And these people on these streets, these are wounded people.

These people have been under the thumb of Rome, under the power of Rome, and there's been corrupt taxation.

A lot of these people are burdened in debt.

They've had it.

These are our wounded people.

And so they cut branches, not just any branches, we know they are palm branches.

And they lay them in the streets.

And here's the context of expectations.

It's that the context is that the palm was a symbol of national, nationalism, nationalistic symbol.

So many are saying here with this statement, this context for us to understand their expectations.

Many are saying, Jesus, take power, take national political power, because that will save me.

That'll give me peace.

That'll make me whole.

And we can see it right there.

You can see this intersection of their woundedness and their sin, and then they get this idol, they get a projection onto Jesus for him to be a functional, national savior of which he never promised or intended to be.

How easily we end up with a God that he never promised or intended to be.

Now listen, this has everything to do with our hearts.

Because in these days, if you're anything like me, you're looking for just the next bit of information that'll finally really give you relief.

And how has that been working?

Well, for me, it's never enough.

There hasn't been an Instagram post yet that's actually given me relief, and yet I keep going there to see if one will.

So many ways that our woundedness and our sin intersect and create an idol.

So many ways that we have expectations and project them onto even God.

That He never promised.

Point number two is this we don't just need better circumstances.

Now we we want them.

We desperately want them.

And we pray for them.

I mean, I can't wait for our circumstances as a community, a church to change, where we get to actually be together.

How sad it is for us to walk into our sanctuary here during the week and nobody's been in there for a month.

That we can't wait for the day where we can hug each other.

Not just see each other, but hug each other.

So we want better circumstances, but we don't just need better circumstances.

We need a savior and a healer for our hearts.

So Jesus is on this donkey, he's making his way into Jerusalem.

These people, some are laying down their cloaks, some are laying down these palms, and the people are singing, and they're singing a psalm.

Hosanna.

It's from the Psalms.

Hosanna to the Son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

But it's clear because of these branches, some of them have it wrong.

We don't know how many had it right, how many wrong, how many understand what's going on, and Jesus is headed to the cross.

Not a lot, apparently, because not a lot came to his side.

Seems like a lot of them had it wrong.

Because they're trying to get Jesus to fit into their idolatry and their woundedness and their sin, wanting him thinking, hoping that he could save them from their political oppression, their overtaxation, from their circumstance.

Thinking just like we do, just like I do, that if my circumstance or if my idolatry is satisfied, then I would be okay.

And this has everything to do with my heart.

And yet I wonder if we could accept everything that is true.

For some real suffering, for some grief.

If we could accept it, not resist it, not cope against it, it doesn't mean you have to like it.

It doesn't mean you have to like it, but accept it so that you can dare to feel it.

To ask the God of comfort to help you process through it.

I do wonder what sort of peace and healing and freedom there might be even inside of the difficulty.

I read this week that last year, last year, The Guardian reported that there were 40 million slaves in our world today.

40 million.

These are people in our world today, 40 million, that are forced to work against their will, they're exploited, they're even sold as products.

Suffering is not new.

Suffering's been going on all the entire time.

Suffering was going on before COVID, and there's all sorts of suffering going on other than COVID.

Centuries ago, during the transatlantic slave trade, some of the greatest songs of hope were written.

PBS reported, I read this on PBS.org this week, they they reported that slaves used songs to express their feelings in that gray area of experiencing slavery and yet experiencing freedom.

Maybe you know this one.

There is a bomb in Gilead to make the wounded whole.

So they're singing about a healing from God that makes wounded people whole.

That makes us whole.

We're the wounded people, we're the sin sick people that can be healed.

So I think it begs a few questions of our hearts, at least it did for me when I was processing this, asking the Holy Spirit for greater awareness.

God, in what ways do I rely, in what ways do I rely on circumstance for my worth or my stability more than you?

What a great question for these days.

God, in what ways do I rely on circumstance for my joy and my peace more than you?

God, how might I, how might I, in these days that are a bit slower, how might I quiet my soul in increasing ways that I might know your peace?

These past few weeks have been filled with bad news, certainly, if you look at the headlines.

And yet at the same time, there's these incredible sightings and passing around of just really great humor and love.

The funniest one that I saw this week was watching Jack Black dance in his spandex.

I think he had a cape on in his backyard.

He does a karate kick.

It's amazing.

We probably shouldn't try it, and yet he's doing it.

It's an amazing dance.

You should watch it, and you will laugh.

It's amazing.

The most endearing thing that I read and I watched this week was about Dr.

John Klein and Montgomery, whose wife has had Alzheimer's, early said Alzheimer's for 17 years.

And she's been in a nursing home, and his schedule's been very routine for these years, where he goes and he teaches his students at Troy University, and then in the late afternoon he goes over to the nursing home and he sits next to his sweet wife Anne with her in the late afternoon and to the evening till she falls asleep, and then he returns home, and then he does that same day again, and he's been doing this for years and years and years.

But last Friday they had to close the doors to visitors.

And so Dr.

Klein shows up and stands outside her window.

Like you've seen so many of these stories.

And he stands outside her window, and you can see her inside in her bed, and he leads her and singing Amazing Grace.

Here's what Dr.

Klein said to the USA today.

I've always said how much I love her till death do us part.

But I'm trying to make the statement that no matter what happens, there's no reason to give up on love.

If she gets where she doesn't know me, I will still go see her.

Because I will still know her.

What an image for us to behold.

See, the love of God is given to us in the person of Jesus.

And we see it in this march into the city where he is even loving these people.

Forgive them, they know not what they do, he says, from the cross.

And on the work of the cross for our sin and all of our lack of understanding, our woundedness, our shame, our sin is cast upon him.

His righteousness is given to us.

We're forever beloved despite our condition or our behavior.

The love of God is given to us despite us how well we know him.

He knows us.

That's what we have in Jesus.

That's what we're beginning to celebrate in Palm Sunday, and we're gonna celebrate it with Good Friday, and we're gonna celebrate it with Easter.

We're gonna celebrate it every single Sunday in this church.

That Jesus is the forever statement to us.

The forever statement that, yeah, maybe we're not as we should be.

Maybe you haven't handled this past month as well as you would have liked to.

That's possible.

And maybe you think you don't even know God as much as you should know God, but here's the good news He knows you.

And he knows all of you.

And in the cross of Jesus, he redeems all of you, and he loves you.

Let's pray again.

God, thank you for the good work of the cross.

That in this holy week, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, that we get to remember even more in these historic events that this was given to us for us to understand the relationship that we have with you because you pursue us and you know us.

Help us to learn what it means to grow and be quieter in these days, to quiet our soul before you, to remember how much you know us and that you still love us and you still redeem us.

Help us not to wait upon our idols or even our projection of who you should be, but help us to wait upon you.

The God that doesn't just come in all the victorious moments, but the God who actually shows up to comfort inside of disappointment and difficulty.

And to that we are so grateful that you walk with us in all things.

And to that we say, Hosanna, that you are the king of all things and the savior of our hearts.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.