Don’t Miss It.
This Sunday, if you don’t know, is what is called Palm Sunday. It’s the Sunday before Easter, where across the world, Christians celebrate the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem as a King. We give out palms in order to remember and represent the palms that the people spread out on the road as Jesus rode into the city. It’s supposed to be a Sunday where were celebrate him as King, as they celebrated him then.
But there’s something so interesting about Palm Sunday: right in the middle of all of the festivities, we find Jesus weeping.
Luke tells us that the religious leaders had told Jesus to cut out the parade and all of the nonsense, and Jesus tells them that if the crowd didn’t celebrate, then the rocks would cry out. And then the very next thing Luke (19:28-44) writes is that,
“As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it…”
Jesus is kind of the party pooper here. Why is he weeping in the middle of his own parade? As Luke records for us, it’s because the ‘city’ (i.e., the people, particularly the religious leadership) completely missed the boat on Jesus. Jesus lamented,
“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”
It was right in front of their eyes, and they totally missed it. God’s savior, the bringer of peace, the fulfillment of their deepest hopes and dreams and desires…right in front of them and they couldn’t see it even though it all but hit them in the face.
In Jesus’ chilling words, they “did not recognize the time of God’s coming” to them.
They missed the time of God’s visitation completely.
It made me think.
Do we ever miss the time of God’s coming to us?
Do we ever miss God’s works, God’s actions, God’s miracles – that are right in front of our faces, but we still just can’t see them?
I bet we do. And I bet we do more than we can imagine.
Why?
Well why did Jerusalem miss it? Because its eyes were fixed on the wrong thing, expecting a different Messiah, bearing a different message, going in a different way.
Why do we miss it? Same reasons. Because our eyes are fixed on the wrong thing. Because our expectations are off track. Because we are listening for a different frequency. Because our vision is out of focus. Because we’ve already decided in our hearts that God is not going to show up because He hasn’t yet.
And all the while, we miss what God is doing.
This Lent, this Palm Sunday, and this Easter season:
don’t miss what God is doing.
Take time this week to pray, in earnest, that God would give you eyes to see Him in, around, and through your life. Pray for your eyes and ears and heart and mind to be reformed and transformed to be able to not miss Him. Pray that God would act in a way that would be unmissable for you. And pray the same thing for us all.