Today I threw off the shackles of homework and responsibility and I cleaned my room. What a concept, huh? When I get busy I start stacking things in piles. Let’s just say my corner of the room was becoming one big pile. I had a pile on my dresser that was more than a foot high. So I spent my Sunday afternoon cleaning and organizing. Sometimes it’s nice to devote Sundays to something besides what you do the other six days of the week. If only I had the time to treat Sunday like a Sabbath day.

Palm Sunday. Several times today I saw people walking around with palm branches. Once was on the way home from church when we passed another church that was just getting out. The second time was while we were eating at Perkins and a family came in after a Palm Sunday service and the kids were still carrying their palm branches. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt and the people laid down their coats and cut down palm branches to lay in the road. Make way for the king. It’s quite an act of praise, and something a lot of churches try to reenact. But what gets me is the attitude of those people who were praising Christ. A week louder a crowd was shouting for Christ to be crucified. Was it the same crowd? If it wasn’t the same crowd, where were the palm branch people when Jesus was on trial? We see it as quite a triumphant entry, but it wasn’t really that triumphant. The people were hoping for a king who would overthrow Rome. Jesus wasn’t interested in that. Furthermore, Christ knew what the people were thinking. He knew what would happen in a few short days. Can you even imagine the emotions that had to be playing in his heart?

Easter is an immense time. It’s very difficult to understand exactly what we’re celebrating. I think it’s very rare when we actually understand what Jesus did. We like to lay it out in a simple four step plan, print it up in a fancy little pamphlet–but it’s not that simple. It’s one of the most profound and amazing things. And thank God for it.