{"id":326,"date":"2014-04-13T10:31:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-13T10:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.org\/blog\/?p=326"},"modified":"2015-03-03T18:44:37","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T18:44:37","slug":"a-sabbath-pause-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/a-sabbath-pause-6\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sabbath Pause #6"},"content":{"rendered":"

“A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of Him and those that followed shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, ‘Who is this?'”<\/em> (Matthew 21:8-10)<\/p>\n

Today is our last Sabbath rest in our Lenten season and we, once again, turn our hearts to celebrating the many blessings we have received from the sacrifice of Jesus. This is known as Palm Sunday which refers to the crowds waving the palms branches as our Savior enters the city one week before His resurrection.\u00a0 The people have heard that Jesus was coming and when the moment had arrived they went out to give Him a “hero’s” welcome!<\/p>\n

Be sure to know that there were many other big welcomes that week to the city.\u00a0 After all it was the annual Passover feast and anybody who was anybody would normally be in attendance.\u00a0 It was probably similar to our red carpet at an awards event.\u00a0 But there was something distinctive about this arrival that set it apart…that got the citizens talking and asking…”Who is this?”<\/p>\n

First, the actions of those lining the streets as Jesus entered were treating Him as royalty.\u00a0 The waving of the palms, the laying the cloaks in the road and the riding of the donkey while His entourage walked were all things done for a king.\u00a0 This, of course, was a bitter-sweet moment for Jesus knowing what was coming but it was a warm welcome and up until now that was rare.\u00a0 It may have reminded Him of His days in Heaven as angels praised Him wherever He went and He was recognized as Lord.<\/p>\n

The second aspect of this welcome and most important was what they were saying.\u00a0 The crowd was quoting a verse from Psalm 118:25 which spoke of the Messiah to come.\u00a0 They were expressing their hope in Jesus as the Messiah!\u00a0 The word “hosanna” literally means “save us”.\u00a0 They were crying out for help…they were crying out in hope!\u00a0 This guy could be the one who was prophesied to come and save us from our enemies.\u00a0 They saw Jesus as The Savior who would free them from their bondage…and He was.<\/p>\n

They were miserable.\u00a0 They had waited so long for the Messiah.\u00a0 They wanted to be set free.\u00a0 So, they cried out in desperate jubilation…”Save us, Son of David, Bless you!\u00a0 Come and fulfill the prophesy!”<\/p>\n

We all need salvation.\u00a0 We all need a Savior.\u00a0 Jesus was everything that the crowd said that Sunday but not everything that they expected.\u00a0 He was coming to set them free but, not from Rome…from sin.\u00a0 What do you need this day from Jesus?\u00a0 Do you need Him to save you from the struggle you are in?\u00a0 Do you need Him to save you from your own selfishness?\u00a0 He stands ready to give you whatever you need but it may not be what you expected.<\/p>\n

Today let’s raise our hands and shout hosanna!\u00a0 The cross was God responding to our need to be saved and providing the way to restoration!\u00a0 Thank you, Jesus!\u00a0 Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of Him and those that followed shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-inconvenient-faith-2014-lenten-blog","category-all_posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}