Real Hosannas

This weekend is Palm Sunday. It's the time when we focus on the humble Servant riding into town on a donkey, and the people anticipating salvation...of some kind. He gave such hope, such power and such zeal for a cause. Then He died.

I often wonder what it must have been like for His disciples during that time. Ignoring Jesus' warnings that He would suffer and die, they continued to look for a different kind of victory. A more worldly, physical kind of victory. Hoping He would take over the world then and there, and they would be right by His side. "Hosanna" being shouted in the pep rally...save NOW! What disillusion must have been felt at His death. What doubts and fears must have invaded. When things die, or appear dead, we lose faith and give up. The impossible...miracles...don't enter our thoughts. Regret, confusion and fear seem to be our response of choice. Why can't we trust Him? Why can't we expect divinity and wait for Him to do the impossible?

We want good, righteous things...but we want them NOW...and we want them as we imagine them. This veil of humanity, our limited imagination, our carnal desires prevent us from thinking like Him. They prevent us form seeing reality...beyond this world and it's definitions of success and goodness. We are bound by time and perceptions. To see reality we have to trust and wait. When God speaks, it is as good as done. We have to learn how to press the hold button and listen to the elevator music until He delivers. Doubts are ok as long as they don't derail us from believing what God has already said.

That moment when our dream bleeds, moans and cries "It is finished", can be a defining moment for the follower of Christ. Did I hear Him wrong? Didn't He say "I have come to set the captive free"? I think that time between the crucifixion and the resurrection would have been emotional torture for me, had I been there. Sometimes I am there though. That time between the promise and the fulfillment. When we disciples often get depressed, hide and grope for direction. All we see is a grave, all we hear is silence and all we smell is mhyrr. I want the Easter story to remind me of unseen victory. To keep the invisible in sight and to learn how to walk through the lying images all around me, yanking at my faith. Palm branches make me think of a different world and a warmer climate...unlike the one I see now. Save me now Lord, from worldly perceptions and the captivity of it's lies.

God is never a liar. He cannot disappoint and will not fail you. No matter how wrong we are, how we mess up or how dead a promise may look. Shout hosanna, wave whatever party favors are in your reach and lay them at His feet. He is in town bringing victory...a kind of victory we cannot imagine.

 "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

 Ephesians 3:20-21