Empty

Sometimes the impact of an action is found not in the nature of the action itself, but rather in the way that action was done. I’ve found in my walk with God, that it is often not just about what He does, but how He does it.

 

This Lenten season, we as a church have been focusing on the theme of Empty. We’ve focused on the element that our hearts are violently empty, and because of an empty cross and tomb, God has filled our souls with His Spirit. We are empty and He, in His grace and mercy, fills us to overflowing.

 

This Sunday we celebrate Palm Sunday, a day when Jesus came into Jerusalem and all of the city was filled with praise. The power of Jesus’ coming is not just that He came, but how He came,“Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold your King is coming to to you. Lowly, and sitting on a donkey.” The cries of Hosanna that ensued were from a people looking to be saved, or filled if you will, by a political king. Yet what they got was a King not on a majestic horse, but on a lowly donkey. The missed the what because they couldn’t see the how.

 

Their King came in a way that they couldn’t see. Though Isaiah prophesied 900 years earlier that their messiah would come as a servant, they missed Him: not because He didn’t come, but because He didn’t come how they thought. They missed their day of visitation because their eyes could not see how Jesus would come to them.

 

This Lenten season as we acknowledge our emptiness and ask for God to fill us, may we have eyes to see not just what God does, but how God responds to us. May our response be a wholehearted, “Hosanna to the Son of David, Hosanna in the Highest!”

 

Pastor Joel