“Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the King of Israel!”  John 12:13

 Last Sunday was Palm Sunday and we celebrated Jesus’ journey to the cross.  Jesus is the touchstone for every human heart.  How people react to Him, to the cross is the test of their hearts, because the cross is the center of the gospel and the center of history!  There is no salvation apart from the cross and it brings a crisis of decision!

It was Passover Week in Jerusalem!  Josephus, the historian, estimated the crowd at 2.7 million.  It was celebration time!  A festive occasion!  The crowd along the way was shouting!  The Pharisees were furious!  “Look how the whole world has gone after Him!”  Jesus was coming!  There was a frenzy of excitement!  Anything could happen!  Just days before, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead!  Was He coming to the city to take over and set up His throne?  Was He the conqueror?  Death by crucifixion was the farthest thing from their minds!  They wanted a powerful Messiah!

It was lamb selection day!  Jesus as the Lamb of God was coming into the city and over 250 million lambs were being driven in at the same time!  The true Passover Lamb was riding on the colt of a donkey!  He was presenting Himself as the Lamb of God.  The colt had great significance!  If a king came as a conqueror, he rode on a stallion.  (Later in Revelation 19:11, Jesus will come back as King of Kings and Lord of Lords!)  If he came in peace, he came on a donkey, King of Peace.  This was an animal that no one had ridden on!  Experts say this is an impossibility!

A few days later, the crowd would say, “crucify Him, crucify Him!”  If this is what God is like, we don’t want Him!  In Luke 19:41, as Jesus approached Jerusalem, He wept over the city.  “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace….”  What a test of hearts!  The religious leaders sold Him, all the people rejected Him, His disciples abandoned Him, one denied Him and one even sold Him.  Who did it?  As Martin Luther said, “We all carry the nails of His crucifixion in our pockets!”

The hour had come for “the kernel of wheat to fall to the ground and die…  But if it dies, it produces many seeds,” John 12:24. The hour of crisis for which He came had come….now He will die on a tree.  “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”  Galatians 3:13.  He took the curse of a broken law for us, nothing remains for us, but love!  If there is anything we should be passionate about, it’s the cross!

He would not go back to heaven empty-handed!  He wanted YOU!  When He was on the cross, He had you in mind!  All of your sins, so great so many in His blood were washed away!  His love for you was totally personal!  Your sins and mine!  We were not observers at the cross, we were participants!

God’s glory is wrapped up in the death and resurrection of Christ!  The cross is the victory obtained!  The resurrection is the victory announced!  Hallelujah!  What a Savior!

Your friend, Jean  (taken from one of Terry’s sermons)