Palm Sunday, 2025

Title: Join the Crowd

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Holy Week has such a triumphant beginning. The crowds, the procession, the palms, the singing and the shouting…  Who doesn’t love a parade?

Wouldn’t it be great if Jesus still drew crowds like this today?

Wouldn’t it be great if people flocked from all around to sing and praise and worship Jesus?

We bemoan the lack of crowds today, as church after church dwindles and closes, but why were those crowds there in the first place?

John tells us that the main reason is Lazarus, or rather, what Jesus did for Lazarus.

Jesus called Lazarus back from the dead, even after he had been in the grave for four days.

There was no disputing this miracle.  There was no arguing that Lazarus wasn’t really dead or didn’t really come back to life.  This was clearly something extraordinary.

And Bethany was just down the road from Jerusalem, so word spreads fairly quickly among the pilgrim crowds about this Jesus fellow and the amazing sign that He has just performed.

A Jesus who can raise the dead?  That’s a Jesus they can get on board with.  That’s the kind of Messiah they can follow.

But by the end of the week, by Friday afternoon, Jesus has been abandoned by the crowds.  As He hangs dying on the cross, all they can do is mock and rebuke Him.

A dead Messiah, that’s just too much. That’s not what they had signed up for.

How about you?  You’re here for the celebration on Sunday.  Will you still be here on Friday afternoon when this Jesus is hanging dead on the cross?

Or will you just skip over that suffering and death stuff and cut right to the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

There can be no resurrection without a death.

And that goes for you, too, and your life.

We do well with the moments of joy and celebration, the moments of the great and spectacular.

We don’t do so well with the moments of pain and suffering.

We’re on board with the Jesus who does big miraculous signs.

We’re not on board with the Jesus who looks for all intents and purposes like a failure.

But there was a reason, a purpose for that cross. It wasn’t a mistake.  In fact, it was the whole reason why Jesus had come.

Jesus didn’t come as a miracle man.

Jesus didn’t come as an earthly king.

Jesus didn’t come to meet the expectations of the crowds, the Pharisees, or even you.

Jesus came to be the Savior of the world.

And even when the world stopped coming to Him, Jesus kept coming to the world.

Not in power and glory and might, but in humility, in silence, and in death.

And because of that death, because of that great sacrifice, you have the hope of something greater.

You deserved the death that Jesus died for you.

But you receive the glory and honor that He gave up for you.

In the end you will be a part of the great crowd gathered around the throne of God.  You will be wearing a white robe with a palm branch in your hand.  And you will be singing Jesus’ praises.

But only because of Friday, because of the cross, because of His suffering and death for you.

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