Today, my daughter and I got to celebrate Palm Sunday with a beautiful congregation in Costa Rica. It was almost transcendent to stand in that space, worshiping one Savior in two languages, simultaneously.
I thought it must be a tiny taste of what Heaven will be like.
Then, I thought about how easy it is to sing “Hosanna” when life is good, when God shows up in powerful ways, when we are anticipating victory in Jesus.
It was easy to throw down palm fronds while watching Zechariah’s prophecy fulfilled. On Sunday, the crowd supposed He would bring an end of suffering, so they worshiped Him as their Messiah.
But after He flipped the tables on them, instead of the Romans, their self-worshipping hearts also flipped. Not in humble repentance, but in angry indignation. He had grossly disappointed their misguided expectations.
Within days, the crowd went from singing His praises to wanting Him dead. By the end of the week, Jesus heard the crowd’s mantra turn from “Hosanna in the highest!” to “Crucify Him!”
I’m afraid if we valley-walkers aren’t careful, our unmet expectations can lead us to do the same.
It’s easy to praise on the mountain top. It’s easy to be “all in” when things are going our way. But when prayers go unanswered, unthinkable things happen, or others seem to get away with egregious wrongs, we are tempted to start questioning the character of God. We flip our internal script, revealing the harsh reality that we also have the propensity to be self-worshippers at heart. And in so doing, we end up disparaging the very One we were created to worship.
His goodness, love, and sovereignty, which we preached and sang about in our yesterdays, is now suspect in our hearts. Before we know it, we’ve become like that fickle crowd, crucifying Christ on the altar of our own disappointed dreams.
The precious saints I sat amongst today know well the pain of disappointment. I know this, because I’ve had the privilege of sitting across from them and hearing their stories over the past five days. Refugees, single moms, young widows, living in the humblest of conditions, struggling with grief, chronic illness, sick children, loss of employment, etc…yet still joyfully following Jesus.
How is this possible? Because they know something the people on that first Palm Sunday didn’t know.
The One on the colt on Sunday,
The One in the Temple turning tables,
The One beaten beyond recognition,
The One clothed only in the sins of humanity, hanging in shame for all to see….
He is the same, yesterday, today and forever.
He is faithful.
He is love.
He is good.
He is Lord.
And He is worthy of honor.
No matter what.
And so, this morning, I once again searched my own fickle heart.
I praise Him on the mountain, but do I praise Him even louder in the valley? Or do I allow disappointment and disillusionment to change my mantra?
I’m not saying I can’t grieve my losses. He invites us to grieve. He even offers to grieve with us. But we grieve differently, because we grieve with the hope of a death-defeating, redeeming, restoring Messiah!
So go ahead and lament. Wrestle with your faith. Run into the waiting arms of your Father and weep and wail and kick and scream if you want. Take every last doubt and disappointment TO HIM.
Then, leave it there. He’ll hold it for you in his nail-scarred hands, along with that bottle that collects your tears.
Let’s not allow the darkness to make us recant the things we knew to be true in the light, and in so doing, preach a false gospel of a Lord who cannot be trusted.
If our Jesus-loving Nicaraguan refugee brothers and sisters can still sing His praises, can we not do the same?
We can, and we must.
No matter what:
Hosanna in the highest!
