Hey, Mister Messiah, finally you got the right angle on all of this. Get the people excited for a big party. After all, it’s spring break time. Use the right props, send out an advance team, let Jerusalem know you are on the way. It will be the parade of all parades, taking you to right where you were meant to be.



Appearance vs. Reality:

Commonly thought to be a literary device or a philosophical question. What you “see” points to something greater, that is, what is not necessarily visible or experienced with the usual senses. You can read up on and/or play a mind game with it if that’s your thing. What’s required is an awareness that the concept is more frequent in our perceptions than generally considered. This day was one of them. Cheer from the sidelines or join in the parade. But store your expectations for another day.

Parade vs. Protest

All accounts record it. It must have been quite the procession. Everyone came out to see the spectacle of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a young donkey. People spread their coats on the ground, and the road was strewn with leafy branches, all to make the ride smoother and keep down the dust. Clamorous voices called him a king, the one who would establish a new kingdom on the level of their greatest hero, King David. Best yet, he came “in the name of the Lord,” fulfilling what the ancient prophets had promised. Not lost on anyone was the celebration of Passover only days away, the commemoration of the Israelite deliverance from slavery and oppression by the Egyptians. Part parade, part protest, however you see it, God was on the move and doing it again!

When you heard what had happened in Bethany, a small town outside Jerusalem, you couldn’t help get even more excited and believe now was the time. Life was going to change in a big way for the Jews. The story went that Jesus actually had raised a man from the dead. Dead not just for a few minutes and revived, but four-days-dead. They even had to open up the tomb, and in a loud voice Jesus had shouted for him to come out. And the guy did, grave clothes and all! If Jesus could do this, those Romans might as well pack up and run for the hills. Hope was so big you could taste it. 

Now that we have our forks in hand, bet we know what’s coming. What this looks like isn’t what it is. Tell us then, what’s really going on?

It may not have been noticed by everyone, but when Jesus got there, the guy’s sisters sort of put the blame for their brother’s death on Jesus. “Lord, if you had been here…,” they kept saying. Grief over the death of a loved one, and likely a young guy, too, is understandable. People like to think Jesus understood, and his compassionate love spilled over. He “wept” is what is said. But in reality, if you look behind what you see to what is real, there’s more to the story.

Truth is, Jesus cried, but his tears were mixed with anger. Not the five-stages-of-grief kind of anger, but anger out of how those closest to him, after all this time, just didn’t get it, just couldn’t see what all the preaching, teaching, healing, even raising someone from the dead was really about. Frustrated to the point of tears, he was.

Reality vs. Reversal

When the parade was over, when the shouting had quieted, when the people were gone finally, Jesus went into the Temple in Jerusalem and looked around carefully at everything. After the day he just had, maybe he cried again. The most significant week of his life was before him. People wanted so much from him, but what they wanted was not that for him to give. When they watched him, heard his words, put their hopes in him, they saw only what they wanted to see, wanted to hear, not what God was offering them for their souls.

“Hosanna,” they had shouted. Their cry is not as it seems, what we want it to be, even what we have been told it is. Hosanna, lifted in word and song, hymn and liturgy, is not so much a praise but a plea. What the crowd called out for but did not know in truth was, “Save us!”

He would. He would be their king, more so though of their hearts than their country. He would bring about a new kingdom, in fact, through him it was already beginning, the kingdom of God. Raising someone from the dead was only a sign of the new reality he would establish. He would make that reality full, answering their plea to save by turning it into their salvation.

Appearance vs. Reality may have been the toughest fight Jesus had, reversing how things look into what God means for them to be. Before the week was out, those to whom he had the most to give would reject him, betray him, destroy it all.

That is, if you accept how it appears to be…

Mark 11:1-11

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