Palm Sunday... is it just a parade?

I am a parade guy. I have always loved parades. From the Oktoberfest Parade to the Christmas Parade, in fact one day I hope to go to the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving Day in New York. I particularly love those parades where they throw goodies from the floats. I like the feeling that you get when you catch a goodie and you get something for nothing.

I have analysed why I love parades, and I think it all comes down to this one fact: They are free; they don’t cost anything. You don’t have to buy a ticket to see a parade. A parade asks nothing from you. There is no commitment required; all you have to do is show up, have a good time, and go home.

There was a parade on Palm Sunday. Granted, it wasn’t much of a parade. There were no bands or floats or dignitaries riding in convertibles. There was just a solitary man riding on the back of a donkey with a few people walking beside Him. But a crowd of people had lined the streets and was waving palm branches and was glad to see the Jesus Parade. At the first Palm Sunday Parade people showed up in great numbers.

They shouted for Jesus and quoted scriptures and they clapped for him and then they went home. They were spectators who had come out for the free show. They had a good time, and they went home. The truth is that very few in the crowd that day stepped off the curb and joined in the parade following Jesus. They had come merely to be spectators. Jesus could have changed their lives that day. He could have helped them find life in ways in which they have never found it before because that is what He said He came to do.

That Palm Sunday Parade reminds me that Palm Sunday is really about commitment. It is about being more than a sideline Christian in a main line church. Palm Sunday is about stepping off the sidelines and getting into the parade walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

Palm Sunday is about giving and loving and sacrificing and forgiving like Jesus. Palm Sunday is about our truly beginning to do life the ‘Jesus way.’ But the truth is it is easier to be a spectator of Jesus and just stand on the sidelines and clap and cheer for Him. It is really hard to follow Him. It’s costly.

It is only when you are willing to stop being a spectator of Jesus and give your life away to Him that you really begin to live. It was William Wallace in the movie “Brave heart” who said, “Every man must die but not every man really lives.” Are you really living?

On this Palm Sunday get off the curb, join in the parade, follow Jesus, and really begin to live.