Home Again

Today marks the day the church remembers as the day of Jesus' final entry into Jerusalem.  It was not His first time in the city, but it would be His last.  It would be the one most remembered as the days and weeks turned into years and centuries.  On this Sunday the church remembers the triumphal entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem.  It was a day when a king's crown could have put on His head.  For Jesus this particular issue was settled long before that day in the wilderness when Satan offered the kingdoms of this world in exchange for His allegiance.  He would have no part of the offer then and neither did He covet the crown on this Sunday when the crowds would have made Him King.   

Before the week was done, Jesus would wear a crown, but it would not be a golden jeweled crown which sat comfortably on His head.  Instead, it would be a crown made of thorns.  It did not sit gently on His head, but was pushed down causing pain to course through His body and blood to run from His wounded head.  As the crown of thorns was pushed down violently on His head, He was verbally mocked and abused by tormentors who took pleasure in humiliating Him.   It can be said without exaggeration that the legion of angels which Satan declared to be at Jesus' disposal on the day He was tempted in the wilderness after His baptism would have come to His aid had He called for them.  

But, He chose a different way.  He was a King, but not a king like any the world had ever seen.  The Holy One born vulnerable as an infant child would die as a suffering servant.  It is both mockery and travesty if we forget where this week ends.  It ends on a cross where the Holy One suffers and then dies in our behalf.  His death was an act of service for us.  It was a divine and mysterious, impossible to explain act, which made it possible for us to know oneness with the Creator who brought us into being.  Our wandering away from home to become a slave to the power of sin did not deter Him from paying the price necessary to bring us home again.