So excited!!

Today -- hopefully--worship services across the Christian faith will be filled with jubilation as we begin the most sacred week in the life of a Christian. What the waving palms and children's choirs may not convey is what a sad day Palm Sunday is--a tribute to how superficial our enthusiasm can be. What was the expression on Jesus' face when he rode that donkey into Jerusalem knowing full well that he was not going to be the Messiah they were excited about? People get very excited about what they need and who can give it to them. All through the last few weeks, I have been meeting with church groups telling me what they need. I try to bring to those consultations an open mind and an attentive heart. And these conversations of a district superintendent are not confined to appointment season. My first calls that a pastor had to be moved came my first year just three weeks after Annual Conference--just days after all good Methodists had made their annual move! People aren't waving palm branches in our consultations, but they are often pretty set on what they need in a preacher. And what they are asking for is very often not what they need to build a future for their church. People get very excited about what they need. I have no trouble picturing the enthusiasm of the crows on Palm Sunday. You can listen through any medium on the culture and hear the same insistent language about what people need. The problem is not that people don't speak up for what they need. (Our airwaves are certainly a testimony to that.) The problem is that people don't know what they truly need. The needs that people waved palms over were real needs--but not their deep need. They were waving palms for an end to Roman rule over their country. Jesus was coming to Jerusalem to save their souls for eternity. If Jesus had acquiesced to their shouts of hosanna, I have no doubt that He had the power to overturn the Roman rule. But, had He gone for the real-but-very-short-term cry of their hearts, we would not be celebrating Palm Sunday. Some of us who are history buffs might have noted that Jesus of Nazareth rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as the beginning of the overthrow of the Roman rule in the first century. But, if the cries of the people led to the action of God, Palm Sunday would only be a historical footnote. God took the longer look. Today, the church and the culture is still looking for saviours--politicians, preachers, philosophies--that will solve their problems. Palm Sunday is a chance for us to examine the cries of our hearts and the symbols we raise. What do we give our excitement to? Do we lift our voices for the short term relief as we define it or do we offer our needs to God for his always-broad-scope redemptive action? I pray that our Palm Sunday worship services are uplifting and exuberant. I also pray that Palm Sunday is a time for us to examine what we clamor for in light of God's redemptive desires for the world.