And though that Sunday's comin' is an essential part of the Christian faith, there is another essential part that gives us the reason why we need such faith. That message consists of simply reversing the order of Lockridge's message but replace Easter Sunday with Palm Sunday. If we remember, Palm Sunday was the day of Jesus's victorious entry into Jerusalem. His entrance was consider victorious because of how the people greeted him for they were shouting the following(click here for the account provided in Mark 11:1-11):
Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;
Hosanna in the highest
Certainly, with such a greeting, no one could expect what would occur on Good Friday. And yet it did. But in quickly turning on Jesus, the people both revealed who they really were while repeating a pattern of Old Testament worship that was rejected by God. Consider the following from Isaiah 58:1-7 (click here for the account in Isaiah):
“Cry loudly, do not hold back;
Raise your voice like a trumpet,
And declare to My people their transgression
And to the house of Jacob their sins.
“Yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know My ways,
As a nation that has done righteousness
And has not forsaken the ordinance of their God.
They ask Me for just decisions,
They delight in the nearness of God.
‘Why have we fasted and You do not see?
Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’
Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire,
And drive hard all your workers.
“Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist.
You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high.
“Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed
And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed?
Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?
“Is this not the fast which I choose,
To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free
And break every yoke?
“Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
What Isaiah reported was what God was saying to Israel as He is rejecting their worship. That despite all they had put into their worship, because of their lack of care for those in need, God was rejecting their acts of worship.
The warning that God issued to some of the Old Testament worshipers as recorded in Isaiah 58, was also issued to God's people as they were living in comfort as recorded in Amos 6:1-7 (click here for the account in Amos):
Woe to those who are at ease in Zion
And to those who feel secure in the mountain of Samaria,
The distinguished men of the foremost of nations,
To whom the house of Israel comes.
Go over to Calneh and look,
And go from there to Hamath the great,
Then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are they better than these kingdoms,
Or is their territory greater than yours?
Do you put off the day of calamity,
And would you bring near the seat of violence?
Those who recline on beds of ivory
And sprawl on their couches,
And eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall,
Who improvise to the sound of the harp,
And like David have composed songs for themselves,
Who drink wine from sacrificial bowls
While they anoint themselves with the finest of oils,
Yet they have not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
Therefore, they will now go into exile at the head of the exiles,
And the sprawlers’ banqueting will pass away.
And a similar message is given to the rulers of God's people as well. Consider the following from Jeremiah 22:13-17 (click here to read Jeremiah's account):
“Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness
And his upper rooms without justice,
Who uses his neighbor’s services without pay
And does not give him his wages,
Who says, ‘I will build myself a roomy house
With spacious upper rooms,
And cut out its windows,
Paneling it with cedar and painting it bright red.’
“Do you become a king because you are competing in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink
And do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
“He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy;
Then it was well.
Is not that what it means to know Me?”
Declares the Lord.
“But your eyes and your heart
Are intent only upon your own dishonest gain,
And on shedding innocent blood
And on practicing oppression and extortion.”
Whether our comfort and self-affirmation comes from the blessings we've received or from how we worship God, we should note that when we visit injustice on others, God seeks to disturb that the self-assurance with which we bathe ourselves in order to warn us of the truth about ourselves and consequences for our actions. Those truth and consequences put us in the same category as the Jews to whom the Old Testament prophets preached. That because of our idolatry and the injustices we have visited on others, all that we use to ourselves of our own goodness is why we need the message Carter posted in the article being reviewed. We need God's victory that occurred from Good Friday to Easter to save us from the consequences of our treatment of God and others which forever plays the period of Palm Sunday to Good Friday in our lives. That we should never allow our worship of God and the blessings we've received to deceive us as to who we are and what we deserve.
And that message about who we are and what we deserve should control how we challenge the injustices we see in the world. For we can never afford to call on those who unjustly treat and exploit others from a position of moral superiority. We can only call on such people to change as fellow sinners and their peers because we have all treated some of those who have crossed our path unjustly.
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