May your will be done

We are in the middle of Holy Week. Lots of emotions this week, a real roller coaster. I’m thinking the disciples did not have a lot of what happened this week on their bingo cards when they dropped their nets and started to follow Jesus.

These 12 guys must have felt some vindication as they were with Jesus as He rode into the capital city on the back of that donkey on Palm Sunday (Luke 19:35). They must have thought, “Okay we did the right thing, leaving everything behind us to become a disciple of a Rabbi named Jesus.”

There were probably about 100,000 people waving palm branches yelling, “Hosanna!” at what I call the Palm Sunday Pep Rally. In John 12:12-13 it says, “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!’” Palm Sunday excites me, but it also bums me out to know that some portion of the 100,000 yelling, “Hosanna!” shouted, “Crucify Him!” (Luke 23:21) just a few days later.

Je sus under s t o od the people’s hearts were jacked up because He wept. In Luke 19:41, it says, “And when He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it.” He wept for a couple of reasons but one of the reasons was He knew these people were fake. They weren’t authentic in their worship of Him. They did not want a Savior but rather a liberator, a political messiah, someone to free their country from the Roman occupation.

Jesus offered something much more than a free country. He offered freedom from sin and death. He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday so He could hang on a cross on Good Friday and then rise up out of a grave on Easter Sunday. Jesus would not stoop so low to be an earthly king because He is the King of kings.

The King always sets the example, doesn’t He? He kept His focus even when in deep despair. In Luke 22:42 Jesus prayed for a Plan B but included “I want your will to be done, not mine.” The unfocused Jews wanted saving from the Romans, but they needed saving from themselves. We tend to be distracted by low hanging fruit, don’t we? This is why we are told, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on earth (Colossians 3:2).” Can we talk? What’s got you distracted? Why are you so focused on selfish, fleshly, temporal earthly things?

Holy Week always causes me to take an inventory, to press reset, to confess and repent. It’s the catalyst for me to pray like Jesus, “Lord, may your will be done in my life.”

Are you willing to recommit your life to Christ this Easter season? I’m so glad Jesus didn’t call in sick on Good Friday or sleep in on Easter morning. Is your life that surrendered to God’s perfect will? In Matthew 16 Jesus told us, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” Is that you? It can be. Happy Easter!

He told me to tell you that.