On Palm Sunday it is both customary and tradition at the very least observe the Triumphal Entry in the Bible.  We see Jesus going away during this time to the cross. In fact, Jesus is much closer than you think during all of this.  In this article, we are going to take a bit of a turn from tradition and take a look at Luke 24:13-27.

We know the story well of how Jesus makes at Triumphal public entry into Jerusalem.

The very people who were singing His praises would be yelling “crucify Him” five days later. Which is not much different than in our current time and day, people give their life to Jesus and when things don’t go their way they blame Him and become angry.

If many of those same people from today were present during the Triumphal they too would be joining in and yelling “Crucify Him!”

We see the mob mentality at its finest here during the Triumphal Entry.  The people thought Jesus would come as their political savior. When in fact He was not the  political savior they were hoping for and in need of during that time, it was a savior who was there to deliver them from death, cleanse them from all unrighteousness, give the gift of salvation.

Jesus walked into the middle of the crowd in Jerusalem during His Triumphal Entry and people did not recognize Him for who He was.  He was their savior for sure, but not the one they wanted.

We are often blind and cannot see the simplicity of God’s love and His magnificent provision of grace and mercy because we as people are to busy looking to have our own agenda’s satisfied.

God’s Purpose and Agenda

God Had a purpose and an agenda when He sent His Son into the world, and that was to redeem His people and free His children from the bondage of sin.  And in order to do this it would take a savior, a sinless, spotless sacrifice.

The problem with this was there was no such thing in all of God’s creation except for His ONE AND ONLY BEGOTTEN SON!

God’s agenda was to save us all from death by delivering His own Son in our place to the cross.  It is not possible for anyone to take our place like Jesus did. He was actually taking every person’s place when He made the entry into Jerusalem. And Jesus Christ went willingly.

The story we are looking at today in Luke is very similar.  While it is post resurrection, Jesus has risen and is walking with the people here on earth before His Heavenly assent.  We see that the people Jesus is walking with do not recognize Him.

The main reason for this is because they (A) not looking for the Messiah any longer, or (B) their vision of God has not changed in which case their blind and deaf to the Messiah.

This is representative of our condition in today’s present time.  People become conditioned based on their own view of God and what He has done.  They are challenged to deepen their understanding of God and the work Jesus Christ did on the cross.  

People today are challenged to not only deepen their understanding but also their relationship with Jesus.  Jesus deepening relationship with us and a deeper understanding of Him did not end at the resurrection. Instead it continues today through the work of the Holy Spirit.

It is God’s desire that we get to know Him more and more every day.  As we do so, we are not caught off guard in failing to recognize His presence in our life and His glory.

To often we are trying to fit God into our own understanding and framework, when it needs to be the other way around.  We need to allow the Holy Spirit to come and do the work in us that God desires.

Our greatest need every is to accept the gift of salvation and the eternal life that comes with the transaction of accepting Jesus into your heart as your savior.

Our relationship does not end there.  It only begins. Once we have accepted Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, we are then engaged in a relationship with God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit.

It is God’s desire that we continue in this relationship with Him and allow the Holy Spirit to deepen not only our understanding of God and who He is, but our relationship as well.

The problem as I see it is that we are to busy wanting to live life on our terms and conditions when in fact it was Jesus that has died for us so we can live with Him on His terms.

We call Him Lord but often we do not submit jus like the people who laid palm fronds and garments on the road as Jesus made His Triumphal Entry sitting upon on a donkey.

Jesus Had a Purpose

Jesus came glorify the Father by bringing many son’s and daughter’s to glory

⁰ For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Hebrews 2:10

Jesus came and died in our place so we would not be condemned to the penalty of a second death.  Because of this work on the cross we now have a God-given right to be called His children and live with Him in eternity.

If you can imagine with me for a minute, Jesus being Holy and without spot or sin, took our sin stain on Himself and paid the price for it.  Jesus went into the second death and was raised from there and now resides in glory at the right hand of the Father.

Hell could not  hold or imprison Jesus, the Christ because He is without sin or stain and is Holy.  Because of Jesus doing what no else but God could do we are recipients of the benefits of His work on the cross.

Jesus walks with us, we don’t alway recognize Him

As we go through life we face certain sorrows and heaviness.  As we do we often feel very much alone. In fact this loneliness often feels like isolation and Christians fall into a depression.

It is not uncommon for people to question God and feel abandoned.  They will question their situation and begin to think that God is punishing them for a wrong or sin through a situation in their life.

Like Cleopas we respond in the same manner.

V.18 Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem?

Jesus can be working in and through a situation and you can be completely unaware of it.

Just like in Luke where Cleopas did not recognize Jesus, we don’t alway recognize Him either.

In this setting where these people are walking and are sad they are looking to their sadness of what happened to Jesus.  They had forgotten the scripture that prophesied his death and suffering for them.

And because of this understanding they were not ready to see Jesus.  They still needed to get to a place and allow God to do some more work in their life in order to see Him in His glory.

Jesus was there with them and was not looking to the past but to the future that His work had made possible.

Cleopas and the other did not see because they were not trusting and walking in faith.  They were looking at things through the lens of their own understanding. They had blinders on.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct^[a] your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6

God wants to do an amazing work in your life. People don’t see it because they are to tied up in their own agenda, in their own understanding.

Because of Jesus we have a newness of life

When we try to understand what Jesus did and rely on our own explanation it doesn’t make sense.  But when we turn to Him and lean on Him we begin to see things in the world from a whole different perspective.

We begin to walk in a newness of life that allows us to see Jesus working and walking in our life in ways we were never able to see before.

⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4

When Jesus rose from the dead and returned to the Father, it was not the life He had before He came to die for us.  Jesus Himself rose into a newness of life that made a way for us to be with Him.

Cleopas and the others with him were not able to understand or see Jesus at that time because they had abandoned God’s word and promise.  If they had recalled it they would have been able to see things differently.

Because we have God’s inspired word with us and in us we begin to understand what God the Father did when He sent His Son to die for us.

Because of God’s work and agenda we are able to walk in a newness of life with Jesus.  

We cannot continue to live in the Status quo.  The newness life requires we seek God in all things and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work God the Father desires in our life.

² as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should^[a] give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. John 17:2

The Holy Spirit is the one who continues to apply the power of the atonement to our lives.  The atonement was not an event, but an eternal work of God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ.

Paul gives us and example of how he wanted deeply to know more of this work and abiding presence of God through the Holy Spirit.  Paul wanted to know more of the deep work of Christ.

¹⁰ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, Philippians 3:10

The work at the Cross Makes All thing possible

The work at the cross made the impossible, possible.  The power of the empty cross and Jesus atonement their made it possible to die with Jesus Christ and be baptized with Him in His death.

Because of this amazing miracle and power we are able to be cleansed from all unrighteousness, forgiven of our sin and trespasses, and be raised with Christ into a newness of life.

In the fall we see things all around us die.  Now it is spring and we see things all around us grow into a newness of life.

This Palm Sunday and Easter, thank Jesus for His death on the cross and the life for us that came out of that death and resurrection.

Allow the Holy Spirit to do the work in your life that He desires and don’t put constraints or conditions on what God can and cannot do.

Sing from your hearts

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’^[e]
Hosanna in the highest!”