Palm Sunday Teaches Us to Trust

Fears encompass us every day. What’s scaring you nowadays?

Technologically, the advance of highly effective AI expertise holds promise but additionally peril (such because the expertise “tak[ing] over,” as AI’s founder worries). Politically, there are doubts as to how for much longer a democracy will be sustained, a priority heightened in an election yr. Wanting overseas, conflicts on a number of fronts lead us to wonder if we’re teetering on the sting of the following world conflict. There’s additionally the continuing pinch of sin we expertise in our communities and lives.

Belief is vital for weathering our fears. It acts as a trellis within the tumult. The issue, although, is that we don’t have a lot belief left. Sarcastically, the trail towards mistrust is motivated by self-protection. Belief, so the considering goes, will harm us ultimately. So we construct a buffer of skepticism towards others, particularly towards establishments and people in energy.

As we tread additional down mistrust’s path, what started as self-protection finally ends up hurting us and our communities. The hedge of skepticism that was supposed to guard turns into a jail. We’re left remoted and afraid in a world that seems to be careening towards doom.

Jesus’s triumphal entry on Palm Sunday teaches us that regardless of how unstable and harmful the world feels, we are able to belief him.

Jesus’s triumphal entry on Palm Sunday teaches us that regardless of how unstable and harmful the world feels, we are able to belief him.

Such belief requires two substances: command and care. You belief a great plumber as a result of he has a command of the commerce and cares for you. If he has no command of plumbing, you in all probability shouldn’t belief him, regardless of how a lot he cares. But when he doesn’t care, then regardless of his command, he isn’t searching in your greatest pursuits and can in all probability attempt to reap the benefits of you.

Command and care are each important for belief. Take one or the opposite away and wholesome skepticism is smart; in spite of everything, Jesus instructs his disciples to be “shrewd as serpents” (Matt. 10:16, CSB).

Jesus’s Command

For Jesus’s disciples, the lead-up to Palm Sunday was marked by trepidation. They dreaded the return to Jerusalem, for Jesus narrowly escaped stoning the final time they have been there (John 11:8). Tensions have been excessive and the world felt unstable. On high of all that, Jerusalem was buzzing with exercise as pilgrims flooded town to have fun Passover.

Nonetheless, Jesus has command of the scenario. He instructs his disciples,

Go into the village in entrance of you, and instantly as you enter it you’ll discover a colt tied, on which nobody has ever sat. Untie it and convey it. If anybody says to you, “Why are you doing this?” say, “The Lord has want of it and can ship it again right here instantly.” (Mark 11:2–3)

Jesus’s prediction and its success remind his disciples he’s accountable for the scenario. As Holy Week unfolds, the depth will solely heighten as his energy and authority conflict with the rulers and authorities in Jerusalem. When he’s arrested, his followers will abandon and deny him, fearing they could be subsequent.

Nonetheless, these directions remind his disciples of one thing essential: when it appears like every thing is spiraling uncontrolled, Jesus continues to be in cost and his commanding kingship guidelines over the smallest element.

When it appears like every thing is spiraling uncontrolled, Jesus continues to be in cost and his commanding kingship guidelines over the smallest element.

Jesus’s ministry had already demonstrated his command over illness, storms, demonic forces, and loss of life. As he enters a chaotic and hostile Jerusalem underneath a cover of waving palm branches, he basically says, “I’ve received this. I’m in management.” Commentator James Edwards places it like this: “[Jesus] doesn’t enter Jerusalem as an unknowing sufferer, however with . . . foreknowledge and sovereignty”—or we would say, competency and command.

Jesus’s Care

Maybe we don’t doubt Jesus’s command however query his care. In spite of everything, if he’s in cost, why is the world (or my life) full of such ache? Palm Sunday exhibits us Jesus additionally has the second ingredient obligatory for belief: care.

Zechariah 9 tells of a righteous king, humble and mounted on a donkey, who’ll deliver salvation to Jerusalem. This king’s peace will prolong to the ends of the earth. Lest Jesus’s three years of ministry go away any doubt he was bringing forth the “yr of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19), his entry on a beast of burden speaks loudly of his salvation and care.

Luke’s account offers a further element that factors to Jesus’s care at his triumphal entry: his tears (19:41). Jesus weeps over Jerusalem’s rejection of him and his kingdom. He isn’t in a huff; he’s brokenhearted. Not lengthy earlier than weeping for Jerusalem, he wept over the loss of life of Lazarus (John 11:35). In each cases, Dane Ortlund observes, it’s sorrow for others that pulls out Jesus’s tears, for he’s the King who cares.

However do Jesus’s command and care maintain up in opposition to the threats we face—nuclear conflict, a unstable market, one other pandemic, AI, a precarious democracy, a college bully, an overbearing boss, a tough partner, besetting sin? Contemplate a diver plunging into shark-infested waters. How does an individual do such a factor? He has a cage of safety that may fend off any assault.

Jesus’s triumphal entry teaches us that his command and care, just like the shark cage, outweigh and overpower each risk we face. He will be trusted, and so our governing posture in a chaotic world will be galvanizing belief. Whereas the world, flesh, and Satan bang and chunk in opposition to our lives, our refuge is within the mighty King on the donkey.