For over 2,000 years the world has been changed.  Yet many of us don’t even think about it.  How is it that, a carpenter from the Middle East, brings about the Spirit of God to the world?  Yet this very world can’t recognize either the Spirit or the carpenter; mostly because the fact of Jesus the Christ can only be known through divine revelation.  Because of this, Jesus, the carpenter, remains only a character in a story.  In fact, taken only as literature, the story seems amazingly absurd.  Virgin birth–come on!–to the world this is only a fable to be tossed on top of the heap of mythology.  As for healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, curing the lepers, making the crippled get up and walk, and feeding the hungry, well that’s only wishful thinking to the world.

I feel great compassion to the unbelievers of Jesus Christ.  Not for my sake, but for the sake of their immortal and eternal souls.  The greatest of this worldly-perceived foolishness, is that this carpenter was sent to be executed by his Father, death on a cross, by the Romans, to be brutally beaten and scourged.  How foolish can that be?  To have the lifeless, mutilated, corpse of the carpenter taken down off the cross terrified even his closest followers.  With no one there to lead them, these so called disciples had their hopes dashed.  The world still can’t make sense of this, so to them it is foolish.  Yet, that was Friday and Sunday’s coming.  On the third day, the two Marys came to the tomb to care for the corpse of the carpenter.  But the corpse was not there, because there was no corpse.  The Christ, the Son of the one true God defeated death and conquered it.  Jesus, the son of God, reigns triumphant over sin forever and ever.

I have no worldly evidence of the forgiveness of my sins, yet I know that my soul has been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb of God.  I have no worldly proof of the resurrection.  But I do have evidence of the crucifixion, and the events of that day.  And this is the biggest stumbling block to all, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son (John 3:16), to be savagely beaten, crucified and left to die there.  And my soul groans to reach out to that dying Jesus, to plead that I don’t turn my face in horror.  My mind cannot grasp this great evil that has descended upon the carpenter.  I just want Sunday here, oh please just let Sunday be here.  Why can’t I be of the world, to think that this is only foolishness?  Why must I hear the sneers of the world, their hate towards me, their mockery, because I believe that over 2,000 years ago a Middle Eastern carpenter was brutally tortured and nailed to a wooden cross, and left to die like any other criminal.  Because I know that this is foolishness to the world, but it is my hope of eternal life with the one true God.  Because I know that the story isn’t over; it’s still being written.  I am not of this world no more, and I want so much for the world to know the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:18-31 (DRA)

¹⁸For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God.  ¹⁹For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject.  ²⁰Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?  ²¹For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world, by wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe.  ²²For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:  ²³But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness:  ²⁴But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.  ²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  ²⁶For see your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble:  ²⁷But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong.  ²⁸And the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that he might bring to nought things that are:  ²⁹That no flesh should glory in his sight.  ³⁰But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption:  ³¹That, as it is written: He that glorieth, may glory in the Lord.

Happy Palm Sunday.