Palm Sunday

Jesus enters Jerusalem. It wasn’t like when the President enters a city. There were no motorcades. No security. No road closures. No television cameras. No great big masses of people. Just a guy on a colt with some of his friends walking beside him. But it was a moment of triumph for Jesus.

It reminds me of the story of Terry Fox. He was a twenty-one year old with cancer. With one leg amputated, he touched his foot in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John’s, Newfoundland and began running across Canada toward the Pacific Ocean. His goal was to run a marathon a day and raise twenty-four million dollars: one dollar for each person in Canada. The crowds that greeted him were sparse. By the time he got to Thunder Bay, he had run over 3,000 miles in 143 days. He also had developed lung cancer and could no longer continue. The last dozen or so of his marathons were run with cancer—two tumors—one the size of a golf ball in one lung and the other was the size of a lemon in the other lung. He died shortly after he stopped running and today is one of Canada’s greatest national heroes. At the time he had finished running, he had raised less than two million dollars – about seven percent of his goal. Today over 500 million dollars has been raised in his name. In September, 2010, the 30th Annual Terry Fox Run will take place with millions of people participating from over 80 countries.

With Jesus, a few people kind of understood what was going on. Others supported him because they loved him. Others were there because they had nothing better to do. As he entered Jerusalem, he cried because of the lack of peace in God’s holy city. He died with a broken heart shortly after he entered Jerusalem.

And the world hasn’t been the same ever since. His work today includes billions of people of most every tribe and tongue. People discover daily that:

• His tears bring peace to our lives.
• His brokenness brings us wholeness.
• His emptiness gives us fullness.
• His grace conquers our sin.
• His power is greater than our weakness.
• His courage covers our fear.
• His heart becomes our heart and his love becomes our love.

With all these and more—our world will never be the same again. With Jesus, we will be able to do more and to become more than we could ever imagine. Just as Jesus entered the great city of Jerusalem, I invite you to allow Jesus to enter your life.

The best is yet to come…

Craig