Hiking with Jesus...Matthew 21:1-11...An inconsistent world

 

My very crude and not to scale map is why I titled this blog post "Hiking with Jesus."  The elevation gain and loss over the next week of Jesus' life is tremendous.  He will make multiple trips from Bethany to Jerusalem gaining and losing 300 to 400 ft of elevation each time.  In the sermon I shared about a hiking trip to Lake Nokoni and Lake Nanita last summer.  After hiking about 10 miles to get to Lake Nokoni you have to make the decision if you are going to go another mile to Lake Nanita but what lies between is a 300 ft. elevation climb and then the same drop to the lake and then back again.  Many stop at Lake Nokoni but if you put in the extra effort you will not regret it.  We will see Jesus putting in a lot of effort over this last week to the cross.

The passage is very familiar.  I have covered it at least 40 times in my preaching career.  I blended the gospel accounts together to get a fuller picture of what is going on.  One thing stood out more clearly after returning home and hearing of the news of a church service disrupted with a protest in a city that has been getting a lot of attention lately.  In the passage the people flop from calling Jesus the actual Son of David, meaning the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant as their long awaited God appointed Messiah to He is a physical man named Jesus, a holy man like a prophet from the physical town of Nazareth in the region of Galilee.  They have changed their tune to Jerusalem's question of "Who is this?"  He is the Son of David coming across the Kidron Valley and entering the gates of Jerusalem but then He is demoted to a man with a position from a place.  

Watching the video of a church service being disrupted by those protesting raised my emotional level.  What really struck me was the reaction of the children present and the lack of reaction of those who were protesting.  The children were in visible distress and the protestors just kept on with their disruption.  Some where saying that they were doing this in the name of Jesus.  When do you change course?  I am all for having strong convictions but when the presentation of those convictions affects the vulnerable in a visible negative way then I need to adjust my mode of conveying those strong convictions.  Over the years I have seen this even within the walls of the church by fellow church members.  We hurt one another, it is visible, but we keep right on going like nothing is happening.  We chalk it up to being passionate about something but our mode of conveying it doesn't show much compassion (sympathy + action).  Why didn't one of those protestors say to the other protestors, "Hey, there are kids in here who are crying.  We should take this outside."  I am sadden today that we many times pronounce we are following Jesus in what we are saying but we are not following Jesus in what we are doing.

I am praying for that congregation and especially the children who have the fear in our days of something bad happening at their schools to now having the fear of something bad happening at their churches.  I know there are many layers to this story but when do we look around us and see hurting people and shift gears with our tactics?  We have a right to protest peaceably in our country on public property but it seems some protests don't stay protests.  They flop into something else that is not a promoter of peace and positive change.  

It has made me ask a lot of questions I have asked myself before.  What would I do if a group of protestors came into a church service while I was leading on a Sunday morning?  How would I treat them?  How would I protect the children?  How would I conduct myself to stand on my strong convictions of the God given commandment for God's children to gather for worship of Him and not be drawn into something else during that time?  

I noticed in one of the videos that one of the church attenders lost it for a moment and starting using the tactics the protestors were using.  I was thankful that a couple other fellow attenders came alongside him and he listened to them and stopped following the protestors' lead and became more like his brothers in action.  I would guess that those couple of men reminded the attender of appropriate Scriptures when dealing with opposition.  He stopped.  He changed course.  His brothers in Christ helped him to not just say but also do.

It will be interesting to see what happens from this event.  How will this church respond?  How will our justice system respond?  How will our culture as a whole respond?  All I know is that it hit close to home to me because I stand behind that pulpit and in front of a congregation every week to keep us laser focused on Christ.  I guess the responses to this event will show how far we have flopped as a nation of our view of Jesus as just a holy man from a small town in the country of Israel or does He still hold the title of Son of David, the Messiah, God's anointed and sent One?

Adam