When you think of Jesus, do you think of calm and quiet? Pastor Chance McMullin paints a different picture of Jesus in this Palm Sunday sermon.
Before being crucified on the cross and raising from the dead, Jesus started the week by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. While He was riding into town, people gathered, shouted “Hosanna!”, and laid coats and palm branches on the path for Him.
Pastor Chance defines Hosanna as save us or deliver us. So, does shouting Hosanna sound peaceful and quiet? Quite the opposite.
Hosanna is a protest. It’s a march. It’s an uproar.
Jesus rode into the city on a beast of burden, a donkey. This is how kings rode into town in a time of peace, and Jesus is riding into the city of kings declaring “I am the King.”
Can you imagine the scene this caused? There were roughly 2.5 million Jews in Jerusalem at this time celebrating Passover and expecting to have a religious experience.
“Do you think Jesus, Mr. Intentional, was accidentally causing a ruckus?” Pastor Chance asks.
“Do you think the Prince of Peace understood peace better than us?”
Pastor Chance McMullin states there is a difference between peace and quiet. They are not the same.
Quiet, he explains, is the result of fearfully avoiding problems.
Pastor Chance illustrates with cows and buffalo. When these animals sense a storm coming cows run away from the storm and thereby prolong their time in the storm. Buffalo, on the other hand, face the storm head on and move toward it thereby shortening their time in the storm.
To explain the illustration, Pastor Chance states, “If you want to experience peace, you face the thing that is stirring you up head on. You don’t crucify it to find quiet.”
If that didn’t stop you in your tracks and make you say, “oof”, Pastor Chance’s following statements surely will.
Quiet is heard by the ignorant. Peace is experienced by the bold.
To take the message a step further, Pastor Chance points out that the storm that Jesus walked into was not the Romans or any other outside force. He didn’t go up to everyone else. Jesus went to His own people. Jesus stirred up His own people.
So, when you wave the palm branch, you are protesting the quiet and marching towards peace.