Psalm 51; Jer. 12:1-16; Phil. 3:1-14; John 12:9-19
Tough love. That is what the Lord practices with His people. When they have gone so far astray that they no longer think of Him and will not listen to His prophets then He allows their enemies to have their way with His people. In the midst of announcing this, however, the Lord says that they remain His people, they are important to Him but this judgment must be carried out. He renews the promise to restore them if and when they repent of their sin and turn to Him. That has always been the promise and yet rarely do they repent on their own. Rarely did/does righteous spontaneously spring up, it is more often birthed of hardship and pain that drives us to seek answers to why. We don’t often ask that question when things are good for us, we think we deserve it because of hard work or some special gifting. The reality is that most of us need tough love from time to time.
The word has spread and the noose is tightening. The crowds come to see not only Jesus but also Lazarus about whom they have heard. The rumor spreads that He will be in Jerusalem at the Passover and the Synoptic Gospels tell us of part of the journey Jesus and the disciples make, healing people along the way. The crowds provide Jesus a welcome fit only for a king and He obliges by riding into the city a la the prophecy of Zechariah, riding on a donkey, a sign of a peaceful kingdom unlike a horse which was regarded as symbol of war. The people strew the road with palm branches and cry out “Hosanna”, “Lord save us.” That is exactly His mission but it won’t look like it, He is coming more peacefully than they can ever imagine yet nothing will look peaceful in the end. Jesus knows what is coming and yet He allows them to welcome Him in this way, knowing that they will also escort Him out of the city in a different fashion in just a few days’ time.
Could I suffer the loss of all things and consider them rubbish? Paul truly lost everything that had defined him for most of his life in order to accept the call of God on his life. He lost his respectability and his prestige in order to follow Jesus but he never regretted it because he knew the surpassing value of Jesus to all else he could possess. Paul was one of the most extraordinary men who have ever lived, a man truly zealous about Jesus and about loving a world that often hated him. Paul had his eyes only and always on the prize, the upward calling of Jesus, and he allowed his life to be always directed and available to God. He knew the truth and the distinction between things temporal and things eternal and was content in all things because the source of his contentment couldn’t be found on earth.
When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.
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