This past Thursday, I went to get a haircut. While I was waiting, I began looking in the newspaper at the personal ads. Now, I normally do not read these, but that was the only part of the paper that was there. And I spotted this ad:
VERY WANTED: 30-ish drummer in rockabilly band, with a romantic spirit, professional career, blue eyes, and Catholic! (Now, is it just me, or does that seem a bit too specific?)
So I began to think about how much those people who welcomed Jesus with shouts of hosanna resemble those who place overly specific and optimistic personal ads in the newspaper. I think that they are setting themselves up for a fall. Their dream of a “knight in shining armor” (or rockabilly Catholic drummer with blue eyes) is unlikely to exist; because the messiah they’re looking for isn’t the messiah they are likely to get.
When the people welcomed Jesus that morning, they cheered him and gave him a hero’s welcome. They saw him as someone who could remove the heavy Roman boot from their backs. They applauded him as someone who could lead a revolt against the Evil Empire, someone who would lead them to freedom.
But Jesus disappointed them. He was not 6-feet plus with abs of steel. He rode into town on a baby donkey, not a warhorse. He went to pray at the temple, not protest at the palace. Jesus did not turn out to be their idea of a savior.
And by Friday, the joyous shouts of “Hosanna, Hosanna” had turned into blood thirsty cries of “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!” So what happened? As the week wore on and Jesus taught day after day in the temple, it became more and more clear, first to Judas, and then to many others, that Jesus was not the messiah they had been looking for. What they failed to realize was that Jesus was the messiah that they needed!
I think that we modern Christians are sometimes like that too. Sometimes, we’re not sure who this Jesus really is, but there is something about his life and teaching and witness and death and promise of life again that keeps drawing us back, back to the place where we pray and hope and look hard to see God in our lives.
That is what Holy Week is all about. It’s a time to look for Jesus. To look for Jesus in the Scriptures, to see what he was all about. To get rid of our preconceived notions of what a messiah, a savior, a Christ, is supposed to be like so that we can see and receive Jesus just as he is. It’s a time to look for Jesus in prayer. To meditate upon his call to follow him, to give up ourselves and serve the needs of others. It’s a time to look for Jesus in our worship, to join our community on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, where we recall the passion and death of Jesus, culminating in the celebration of Christ’s resurrection at the Easter Vigil.
Most of all, Holy Week is a time to look for Jesus in our lives. In order to see the real Jesus, we must look to the cross – where Jesus died for us. There is where Jesus revealed what God is really like.
This Holy Week, may we find Jesus – maybe by using our own personal ad that reads like this:
VERY WANTED: faithful and loving Savior, Forgiver, Deliverer, Redeemer, and Friend!
