Baptism

What Palm Sunday Teaches Us About Shattered Expectations and True Faith

This Sunday is Palm Sunday—the day we remember the crowds waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna!” as Jesus rode into Jerusalem. But here’s what haunts me every year: Less than a week later, many of those same voices were shouting “Crucify Him!”

How does a crowd go from crowning a King to demanding His death in just a few days? And what does that say about us when God doesn’t meet our expectations?

On Palm Sunday, we often focus only on the triumphal entry. This year, let’s do something different. We’ll look at Mark’s account of Jesus entering Jerusalem—and then jump straight to the trial before Pilate on Good Friday. In less than a week, the same city saw the crowd shift from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify Him!” They began the week expecting a crown. They ended it demanding a cross.

The Triumphal Entry (Mark 11:1-11)

As Jesus approached Jerusalem, riding on a young colt, the crowd erupted in praise straight from Scripture:

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:9-10, quoting Psalm 118)

They spread their cloaks and leafy branches on the road, anointing Him as King in a festal procession. These weren’t outsiders. They were good, religious people who knew and loved the Word of God.

From “Hosanna” to “Crucify Him” (Mark 15:1-15)

Fast-forward to the trial before Pilate. The chief priests, elders, scribes, and the crowd—still religious people—now cried out, “Crucify Him!” They chose Barabbas, a rebel and murderer, over Jesus.

In just days, their cheers turned to condemnation. Why?

They knew the Scripture… but they did not understand the Word made flesh standing before them. They wanted a crown on their terms—a political deliverer who would overthrow Rome and restore Israel’s glory immediately. When Jesus refused to fit their expectations, their hearts turned.

The heartbreaking truth is that both crowds were driven by the same root issue: Jesus shattered their expectations.

The Same Struggle Today

If we’re honest, the same thing can happen to us. Many of us are “good, religious folks” who love the Bible and love Jesus. We pray for healing, deliverance from addiction, or for our children to come home—expecting the crown of quick answers and comfortable outcomes.

When God says “no,” or “not yet,” or when the cross of suffering comes instead of the comfort we wanted, our hearts can waver just like that first-century crowd.

Yet here is the wonder of the gospel: God’s “no” to our agenda is often His greater “yes” to a better, eternal life—resurrection life. He does not abandon us to our sin or our pain. He uses even the hardest things to redeem us.

The very thing we think will destroy us, the Lord uses to shape us.

Jesus Knows the Pain of “No”

Remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying, “Let this cup pass from me.” Even the Son of God asked for a different way, and heaven was silent. Not because the Father didn’t love Him, but because the cross was the only way to save us.

That temporary “no” from the Father became our eternal “yes.” Because Jesus went to the cross, the crown comes through the cross—one of the beautiful paradoxes of God’s Kingdom.

Our God is a big-picture God. As He declares in Isaiah 46:10, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come.” He sees the whole story. We see only the painful circumstances right in front of us. But He is already turning our “no” into resurrection victory.

What This Means on Monday Morning

When the medical scan comes back worse, when the phone call brings bad news, or when the prodigal still hasn’t come home—what then?

We have a daily choice: Will I demand the crown on my terms right now, or will I trust the King who leads through the cross?

Here are four practical steps when your expectations are shattered:

Name the disappointment honestly to God. Jesus did this in Gethsemane—pour out your heart without pretense.
Remember you are not abandoned. The same God who said “no” to His own Son is working something far greater than we can see.
Choose to worship anyway. Sing “Hosanna” even when you don’t feel it. Sunday is coming.
Cling to your baptism. Those waters marked you as belonging to the King whose crown came through the cross.

When you feel your heart beginning to waver like that ancient crowd, run back to the cross and whisper, “Lord, I don’t understand, but I trust You. You are still King of kings.”

We Are Barabbas

Nowhere is this clearer than at the trial before Pilate. The crowd was given a choice: Jesus or Barabbas. Barabbas was exactly what they wanted—a man of action promising quick deliverance. Jesus was what they (and we) needed—the innocent Son of God who would take their place.

They chose Barabbas. And Jesus took Barabbas’s place on the cross.

We are Barabbas. We are the guilty ones who deserve judgment, yet because of Jesus we go free. He took our place so that our temporary “no’s” could become God’s eternal “yes.”

We want a quick, revolutionary fix. Jesus offers sacrificial love. We want a crown on our terms right now. Jesus gives us the cross that leads to the crown of life.

The Crown That Comes Through the Cross

One day, the same Jesus will return riding a white horse. On His robe and on His thigh will be written: “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16). The crown of thorns becomes the crown of glory. The cross was never the end—it was the path to His eternal reign.

The crowd had a choice: a crown or a cross. Which choice will we make?

Until next time, keep looking up…

Of all the names/titles given to Jesus, i.e., Lord, Savior etc., this name “Healer” is perhaps the most challenging for us in the 21^st century. What do we mean when we say “Jesus is Healer?”

We survey the ministry of Jesus and depending on how one classifies the event, there are between 30 and 40 healing events in the four Gospels alone. We read a passage like Luke 4:40 that says, “As the sun went down that evening, people throughout the village brought sick family members to Jesus. No matter what their diseases were, the touch of his hand healed every one.”

So, what gives? After all, we pray for healing all the time, but far too often, the healing we seek never comes. If Jesus is Healer, where do we see this healing happening in our world today?

Who needs Obamacare? There certainly wasn’t much of a problem with healthcare with Jesus around. The folks in 1^st century Israel called their health care plan Jesuscare! Got a backache? Go see Jesus! Got the flu? Go see Jesus. Surgery? Who needs surgery? Just go see Jesus! One touch is all you need. Must have been nice, and no increase in premiums. It sure would have been nice to get in on some of those healings. Makes us want to ask: When did Jesus go out of the healing business? Don’t we rate as much as the folks back then? What about my friend with cancer? What about us, Jesus?

FAITH HEALING

I’m going to challenge us for one moment to take all the pre-conceived ideas of “faith-healing” out of our minds. Don’t think about Benny Hinn, and let your memories of Kathryn Kuhlman and Oral Roberts fade. But still it leaves us to wonder why we don’t just go down to the local hospitals and clear the places out in Jesus name.

Boy, I wish I had the power to heal! There are folks in the world who say that I simply don’t have enough faith, or that those who are sick don’t have enough faith to be healed. Just believe a little more—faith of a mustard seed and all that, right? Hey? That’s the kind of faith four friends had one day when they brought their friend to Jesus (see Luke 5: 17 – 26).

Luke tells us when Jesus saw “their faith,” his healing power went into action. Notice, Luke doesn’t tell us anything about the paralyzed man’s faith. Perhaps he had no faith at all, certainly none that was expressed in this episode. Yes, faith is often present when it comes to healing, but whose faith is most important?

Or more, the same people who would say today that I don’t have enough faith would also say the problem must be un-confessed sin. That’s part of the issue on the day Jesus was healing this paralyzed man. Jesus knew the Pharisees and scribes, who were a sect in Judaism who had a strong belief in the idea that if someone was sick or blind, there must be some sin in their life that caused it, were watching. Paralyzed? What did you do to deserve that? Confess your sin and perhaps you can get well. That was their attitude.

I wonder if that’s why Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Young man, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus didn’t address the physical ailment first. He first addressed the spiritual reality, and man, that set the Pharisees off. “Who but God can forgive sins?” The Pharisees question and Jesus’ response might help us understand what was happening then, and what is happening now.

Jesus looked at the Pharisees and said, “Just so you know, I’ve got authority to forgive sins on earth, I’ll say, ‘Take up your bed and walk’.” At Jesus’ word, the young man jumped up, took his bed and ran out of the house. Jesus’ healing power was a sign.

Here’s an important point to understand those 30 – 40 healing accounts in the Gospels—the healings were signs designed to point to the eternal blessings Jesus was bringing, the kingdom of heaven that Jesus was bringing to earth. These healings pointed ahead to the ultimate healing that Jesus was in the process of accomplishing, and that ultimate healing was not limited to the folks back then. No, it is for all of us, too. Yes, every one of us here today–Jesus loves you and me as much as he loved those folks back then. We are at no disadvantage to the people who were healed in his ministry.

So, here’s the deal, as I see it—Jesus is still in the healing business, just not necessarily in the same manner now as then. What do I mean?

MIRACLES AND MORE

First, let me acknowledge that sometimes, for unexplained reasons, God chooses to miraculously heal someone. A tumor is present on one visit to the doctor, and the next scan shows no trace of a tumor. Poof! Just like that, and there’s no other explanation for it but that God did it. All we can say is God surprises us with His mercy, and in those times all we can say is, “Praise the Lord!”

Second, let’s also acknowledge the healing power of medicine. Advances in health care are astounding compared to the first century. There were physicians in the first century. Luke, the Gospel writer, was one. People who were sick sought out physicians for their maladies. Recall the woman with the flow of blood. Luke tells her story, too (chapter 8). She’d spend twelve years going to doctors, but none of them could heal her. The health care advances of just the last 25 years would likely have led to her healing. The Lord uses doctors and medicines to promote healing today in ways never known before. Medical care is a great gift that promotes healing, and we are right to view it that way.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, knew the importance of health care. He even penned a volume that was required reading for his assistants. Wesley’s Primitive Physick was the equivalent of a New York Times bestseller. It went through twenty-three printings and was used well into the 1880’s, decades after Wesley’s death. In that volume, Wesley encouraged the use of doctors, and even promoted the idea that his preachers should offer health care to those in their charge, thus his volume of remedies and advice on health and healing.

For all that healthcare does for our healing, we still face the question, “Why not everyone?” I remind us that Jesus did heal this paralyzed man, and he would heal many others, too, but I also remind us that every one of these persons he healed would later die. Their physical healing was only temporary. Was Jesus’ faith not strong enough? There must be an expiration date on miracles!

ULTIMATE HEALING

We come to Jesus seeking a cure for what ails us, and there is no cure for death…there is only healing. When we proclaim Jesus is Healer, it is a statement that reaches beyond the physical. We go beyond the temporal to acknowledge, even as Jesus did, that healing is first a spiritual process before it is a physical one. Curing the body is a physical process. Healing the soul is a spiritual one. Curing the body is temporal, but healing the soul is eternal. We come to Jesus as healer seeking a cure for something physical. What Jesus as healer offers is something eternal.

Jesus gains the ultimate healing for us, the eternal healing, by dealing with the root problem of sin. Sin. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that a particular disease or illness can be traced to a particular sin. That would be simplistic and wrong. There are a lot of unrepentant sinners who are perfectly healthy, and there are a lot of good, faithful Christians who are afflicted with chronic illness and pain.

I’m speaking, rather, of the general sinful condition that pervades this fallen world, ever since the time of Adam, and the sinful nature that we all inherit from Adam and pass down to our children is the root problem that results in all the damage and disease and misery that afflicts the human family. And to fix this, Jesus had to get to the bottom of it.

And, Jesus did so by carrying our sins in his body to the cross. When Jesus sheds his blood for the sins of the world, that my friends, is big medicine! As Isaiah 53:4-5 says,

“Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.”

Do we know that? Do we know that it was our sins for which Jesus died? Yes, our sins–of not loving God, of not hearing and heeding his Word. Our sins of wanting to be our own god, to make our own decisions about what is right and wrong. Our sins of lack of love for our neighbor. Of being jealous of our neighbor’s success. Of grumbling about those the Lord has placed in our life. Of gossip and greed. Of selfishness and un-forgiveness. Yes, those are our sins that Jesus is bearing, bleeding on the cross.

The fact that Jesus is bearing our sins, that Jesus is shedding his blood for them–Jesus on the cross is purchasing our healing. Sins forgiven means curse lifted. Resurrection ahead. Healing ahead. For you. For me. Forever. It’s as good as Christ’s own resurrection from the dead. It’s ours, through faith in him. He shares his gifts with us.

Don’t misunderstand–death is not the ultimate healing as some have proclaimed. Resurrection is! Resurrection is the gift of healing that Christ offers us all.

How does this gift get delivered to our door, with our name on it? Two words—Word and Sacrament. The ongoing ministry of the church is God’s means of delivering the gift Christ won for you and me on the cross. Word and Sacrament are not clichés. They are God’s delivery system for life and salvation, for healing of the soul, and, yes, healing of the body, too.

God is not just interested in saving our soul. He has also promised to redeem our body. God is committed to restoring creation, and that includes our bodies. God is going to raise up our bodies on the last day. We believe in exactly what God has promised: the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

In the Word preached, the Gospel is heard with our ears and taken into the heart with gladness. In baptism, water is applied to these physical bodies, and in communion, the bread and wine represent the body and blood, and we receive the elements—we eat, we drink—and in so doing we receive Christ. Physical elements for physical people, yet working out an eternal healing that redeems both body and soul because Jesus is Healer. And, because Jesus is Healer, we pray—we pray for healing in the body and in the soul.