Today, Jesus receives your praise and your honor.
Do you realize how many times Jesus chose not to receive the praise and honor of the crowds?
After He fed 5,000, He withdrew from the crowd because He perceived that they were going to make Him king. He even literally walked on water to get away from the crowds.
Time and time again, Jesus heals someone and then He tells them to tell no one anything. Now, they hardly ever listen to Him, but He stills tell them.
It isn’t as if Jesus doesn’t know He deserved praise and honor, but He is also desires praise and honor from a pure heart, praise and honor for the fully right reason.
Yes, He came to heal and feed, but those were signs. And signs point to something. Those signs pointed to who He was so that we might take comfort especially in the truth that the Son of God came to die for us.
Today is Palm Sunday and Jesus is greeted with praise and thanksgiving and honor and glory and worship.
The crowds are yelling out Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. Hosanna in the highest.
Jesus had healed so many, He had fed so many, He had taught so many, He had cast out demons to so many – in sum, this King had come and had mercy on bodies and souls for so many, that a huge multitude had to cry out His praises.
And He receives them this day.
He doesn’t tell them to stop.
In fact, Luke records that some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke Your disciples. And Jesus answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.
Today Jesus receives your praise and honor.
He has healed you, He has fed you, He has taught you, He has cast out demons from you – in sum, He has had mercy on your body and on your soul countless times in this life,
but especially does He receive your praise and honor today, because from your pure heart, the Holy Spirit has worked in you a faith that knows that what He has done for you here and now pales in comparison to what He has done for you in eternity.
The sufferings of this present life and even the joy of knowing that God never leaves us nor forsakes here and now and continues to be merciful to us here and know and continues to give us the Comforter, the Holy Spirit here and now and blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord here and now to give us His Word and Supper pales in comparison to the glory that will be revealed to us in the Day of Jesus Christ.
Today, we began with Palm Sunday and we continued on with the Passion account of Jesus.
Today, we praised Him for being our King and then we continued to listen to His bitter sufferings and death that brought us into His Kingdom.
Today, we yelled out Hosanna, save us, Jesus and then we continued to listen to how He in fact did save us.
I know we can be fickle.
I know our faith can waver, our focus can be too often on the temporal and not on the eternal. I know we can sometimes pray, “Jesus heal me,” and not really mean, “Let me die and fix me in the resurrection,” or we can pray, “deliver me from these enemies,” and not really want “vengeance is the Lord’s on the last day.”
But I also know that God’s Spirit is strong, even when we’re weak.
I also know that it is not you who live, but Christ who lives in you.
I know what God has worked in you a faith that confesses that Creed ….
But I also know that as you hear of His love for you in dying for you, you truly praise Him and honor Him and thank Him.
And do trust in Him and His will and His time.
Today, you praise and honor your God, Hosanna, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
And receives that praise and honor from you today.