Jesus got it all wrong.
Wasn’t He was supposed to come as a king? That’s what everyone was taught. They were taught that Someone was coming to rescue them from the oppression of their enemies; out from under the thumb of the Roman Empire.
He comes to the earth with neither pomp nor grandeur. Born in an animal shed, amid the smell of goats, sheep, donkeys and the press of humanity. There were no heralds with silver trumpets; no white horses pulling a gilded carriage through the city followed by a celebratory parade; there was nothing to announce to the masses that the king of the universe had come to earth. Across the sky, an angelic choir sung to a bunch of lowly shepherds in the middle of the wilderness.
I thought, “For real? That was God’s media plan? Clearly He forgot to talk to the marketing team.”
So the kid grew up. Living in relative obscurity, he was apprenticed to his father, a carpenter. Working with his hands, he lived a simple life. It was clear he was brilliant though. On one pilgrimage to the big city, this 12 year old kid sat down with the learned adult scholars in the temple and had intelligent discussion and debate. And his parents were upset about it!
Seriously? No one said, “Hey, this kid is brilliant — a prodigy! He needs to be apprenticed to the scholars of the day.” Today he would have gone viral on YouTube!
Then one day he starts traveling around and talking to people. A wild man in the wilderness starts talking about him (he was his cousin) like he is some sort of revolutionary.
And people start listening.
And people start following him from place to place.
And people start getting healed.
And he starts telling these stories that causes their heads to shake in amazement because they are about heart-hitting issues that are counter to the ways they were used to living. Naturally, this disrupted the religious order and they sought to put this revolutionary down. But everything they did couldn’t compete with the crowds following him.
He told his closest disciples to go get a donkey. They brought it back and he rode into the city on a donkey, with crowds shouting “glory to the king.”
Riding a donkey. Not a stallion. A braying donkey. I mean, have you heard the less-than-kingly sound a donkey makes?
A week later he was in court, publicly beaten to a pulp, and then killed in one of the most horrific ways ever devised. The king was dead.
It. Was. All. Wrong.
Who plans it this way? He didn’t overthrow the government. He didn’t sweep in and change the world. They killed him. What in the world? This was not a good plan. Maybe he was just a good teacher who did some unexplainable things and we got it all wrong. That would make more sense, wouldn’t it?
I was thinking about Palm Sunday and the week leading to the crucifixion of Jesus, and how God’s plan is so vastly upside down and backwards to our human way of reasoning and acting. He chose to do things way differently than we would have. He came as a servant to demonstrate that those who lead must learn to start small, to know humility. From his birth in a stable, to his death with the criminals on the cross, his life was contrary to any expectations than anyone had of their coming king.
Yet this humble man; this tender rabbi who healed the sick and broken, who talked with those in society who never were given the time of day; this intelligent, well-spoken teacher who spoke in stories and touched the hearts and lives of thousands in a small country just a bit larger than New Jersey … changed the world. Word spread across the globe and two thousand years later, we still talk about Him. Millions follow His teachings, and this year on April 1, millions will stand all around the world and proclaim their faith that Jesus Christ is the son of God; He is alive; He defeated death and hell and that LOVE WON. That is good news!
So maybe that media team, the carriage, the white horse, and the big palace was not all that necessary. And maybe, just maybe, God’s plan is a little more far reaching and over-arching than we can see in our finite little bubble of time. Because of His gift of salvation, I am changed. I am saved. And for that, I am grateful.