This Sunday is Palm Sunday. For 2,000 years Christians have gathered on this day and remembered Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem just days before His crucifixion. This event is important: after all, it has a 2,000 year history of tradition in the church and is recorded by all 4 Gospel writers (Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-10, Luke 19:28-40, and John 12:12-19). However, this event is also confusing. How is it that crowds of people can honor Jesus on a Sunday, then shout “crucify Him” on a Friday? What was really going on there?
This Sunday at Wildwood Community Church, we will be celebrating Palm Sunday together. In our morning services at 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00, we will sing songs together, have the kids join us waving palm branches, look back at last week’s baptism service, look ahead to next week’s Easter services and this summer’s Pine Cove “Camp in the City” . . . but also we will be reflecting on the historical events of Palm Sunday to see WHY people rejected Jesus in the final week of His earthly life. Some rejected Him because of what He did. Other’s rejected Him because of what He did not do. This pattern is amazingly consistent with what we see in our lives and in the world today.
The Jews in Jerusalem in the first century needed to receive Jesus for who He was and is . . . and so do we. Let’s look more closely at Jesus together this Palm Sunday as we sing “Hosanna” together. See you Sunday at Wildwood!