Passion / Palm Sunday
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!
-- Luke 19:38
The Pharisees' response to this acclamation was to say, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." Why did they want Jesus to silence his disciples? The Jewish leadership and the Roman government had reached an accord in which the Romans would take care of civil law and the religious leaders would rule in the area of religion. It was a cozy arrangement not unlike what we speak of as separation of church and state. Now Jesus' followers were disturbing the peace. They were talking politics and shouting for a king. There are always some who refuse to accept the dividing wall between private faith and public life. The disciples kept shouting, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!"
They refused to play by the carefully worked out rules. They heard Jesus asking them to prepare his entry into their public lives. This Jesus, they said, could break down the dividing walls of hostility, so they wanted to become involved in volatile social issues. This Jesus challenged a wealthy man not to be a slave to his money, so they wanted to speak on economic issues. This Jesus insisted that little children showed us how to enter the kingdom of God, so they wanted to become involved in public education.
Jesus responded that you could not stop such a witness because God was sovereign over all the world. The normal assumption was that the civil leaders held the real power, and they permitted an area of religious authority. The gospel proclaimed the opposite. That which could really effect change, that to which even the king would bow, that to which even nature was obedient was God whose voice Jesus' disciples expressed. If they were silenced, then nature would shout out.
-- Luke 19:38
The Pharisees' response to this acclamation was to say, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." Why did they want Jesus to silence his disciples? The Jewish leadership and the Roman government had reached an accord in which the Romans would take care of civil law and the religious leaders would rule in the area of religion. It was a cozy arrangement not unlike what we speak of as separation of church and state. Now Jesus' followers were disturbing the peace. They were talking politics and shouting for a king. There are always some who refuse to accept the dividing wall between private faith and public life. The disciples kept shouting, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!"
They refused to play by the carefully worked out rules. They heard Jesus asking them to prepare his entry into their public lives. This Jesus, they said, could break down the dividing walls of hostility, so they wanted to become involved in volatile social issues. This Jesus challenged a wealthy man not to be a slave to his money, so they wanted to speak on economic issues. This Jesus insisted that little children showed us how to enter the kingdom of God, so they wanted to become involved in public education.
Jesus responded that you could not stop such a witness because God was sovereign over all the world. The normal assumption was that the civil leaders held the real power, and they permitted an area of religious authority. The gospel proclaimed the opposite. That which could really effect change, that to which even the king would bow, that to which even nature was obedient was God whose voice Jesus' disciples expressed. If they were silenced, then nature would shout out.
