Hosanna!

“The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,

‘Hosanna!’

‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’

‘Blessed is the king of Israel!’

Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written:

‘Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey’s colt.’

At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realise that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.” – John 12:12:16

The above Bible excerpt described Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on the week leading up to the Passover and His impending crucifixion. Nowadays we remember and celebrate this event as Palm Sunday. It’s where we remember the truth that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.

I wonder how you celebrated Palm Sunday during this time of social distancing and self isolation. I’m pretty sure that a lot of people celebrated via the internet, with online church services and social media gatherings.

We held another great online ‘Redefine‘ Sunday evening Bible Study group. We are currently working our way through the gospel of Mark and we looked together at Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and the beginning of His public ministry. It was a really great evening as we discussed what the short passage we looked at revealed to us about Jesus. There was a lot of good discussion and revelation.

We are so grateful that we can still meet up with the young people in some shape or form during this time. We are also holding live instagram meetings for the young people on Thursday and Friday evenings at 7pm.

Going back to the Palm Sunday passage, something really stood out to me. It says that Jesus’ disciples didn’t fully understand what was going on during the Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem. It was unclear to them at the time everything that was going on. It was going to be even more devastating and confusing for them in a couple of days as Jesus was betrayed, put on trial and then crucified.

For us and the young people going through this global pandemic, it can feel at times confusing and anxious. We don’t know what is going on, but we need to trust in God through it all and believe that He was be bringing life and redemption in a world where there seems to be so much fear and death.

Perhaps like the disciples we will see, when this current global situation is resolved, the God’s hand at work in love bringing life and redemption to the world, just like Good Friday wasn’t the end of the story, but as we will be celebrating next Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead, defeating sin and death and bringing life, love and liberty.

Please do continue to pray for young people at this time of uncertainty. Pray that they would come to know Jesus and trust in Him.

Have a great holy week.

Be blessed!