Thursday, April 5, 2012

Reflection: Getting Nowhere with Jesus (April 1, 2012)

Palm Sunday
Zechariah 9:9-12; Philippians 2:5-11; John 12:12-19


When Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, He was met by large crowds of people shouting triumphant slogans. Their words represented hundreds of years of anticipation. They were acknowledging Jesus as the promised Messiah — their King, Deliverer, and Savior all wrapped up into one. But not everyone was welcoming Him. The Pharisees, who had become Jesus' fiercest adversaries, rejected the thought that He could be the Messiah. They had tried to persuade the crowds that Jesus was a hoax. They had attempted to trap Jesus to discredit Him. They even confronted Jesus with their rules and traditions. Nothing worked. Looking over the jubilant crowd, the Pharisees realized that all of their efforts had failed to get Jesus to do things their way. "See, this is getting us nowhere," they lamented.

While we are more willing to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah than the Pharisees were, we can share their frustrations over Jesus. Like them, we have our ideas of what Jesus should do, how He should act, and what teachings He should promote. We try to persuade Him to see things our way. We work out deals with Him that would trap Him into a course of action that we prefer. We try to conform Jesus and His Word to the rules and traditions of our human experience. Nothing works. Despite our best efforts, we get nowhere with Jesus.

The Pharisees realized that they needed a change of tactics if they were going to get things back to the way that they wanted them to be. They plotted together and found a way to turn the crowds against Jesus so completely that they were shouting for His crucifixion within days of His triumphal entry. To get what they wanted, the Pharisees had Jesus put to death. When we are getting nowhere with Jesus, we need to change our tactics as well. But rather than seeking the death of Jesus, we must seek our own deaths. Dying with Christ in Baptism and rising up with Him in His resurrection enables us to abandon our old ideas about Jesus that got us nowhere with Him and embrace Him as our Savior, Deliverer, and King on His terms. When we receive Him in this way we can get somewhere with Jesus: the place and circumstances that He intends for our good.

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