Well today, of course, is Palm
Sunday. It’s the day we remember Jesus’
triumphant entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, with people wave palm
branches and putting them in front of Jesus, sort of like making a red carpet
for him to come in on. And according to
Luke, their shouting “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the
Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
But of course, we’ve been doing this sermon series during
Lent called “Let’s Give It Up!” We’ve
been looking at various feelings and attitudes that we need to give up, not
just for Lent, but for all of our lives.
And so you may be wondering, how do those two things tie together? How does Palm Sunday have anything to do with
giving things up for Lent?
Well, imagine that you were Jesus. All these people are lining the streets. Their waving things at you. Their shouting praise to you. They’re putting down this carpet of palm
branches for you. They’re telling you
that you’re the greatest thing they’ve ever seen and the greatest thing they
ever expect to see.
How would that make you feel? Well, it’d make you feel good,
obviously. We all like to have
compliments. But too much of anything,
even compliments, can be a bad thing.
Think about it. What happens when
we constantly have people telling us how great we are? We start to believe it, don’t we? What happens when it seems like everything is
going right for us? We start thinking
we’re the ones who made them go right.
In other words, we become arrogant.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about giving up today. We’re going to talk about giving up arrogance.
Now, I want to make clear that Jesus himself was not
arrogant. Jesus did not need people to
tell him how great he was. Jesus knew
who he was. In fact, it looks like Jesus
was the only one on earth who really did know who he was. And Jesus also knew that a lot of these
people who were telling him how great he was were not really serious about
it. In fact, some of them would turn on
him less than a week later and demand that Jesus be killed. So I don’t think any of this praise and
hoopla and hullaballoo affected Jesus at all.
But it had to be tempting. It had to be tempting for it to affect
him. And after all, this triumphant
entry into Jerusalem was not the first time something like this happened to
Jesus. It happened lots of times. Every time Jesus healed someone, people marveled
at him. Every time Jesus spoke, people
were amazed at his words. There were all
kinds of times when people told Jesus how great he was. It had to be tempting for him to start
thinking he really was pretty great.
And it can be tempting for us, too. Now, maybe you think, well, nobody’s ever
thrown a parade for me. I don’t have
people around me telling me how great I am all the time. And, probably you don’t. But still, have you ever had a period where
it seemed like everything was going right for you? Maybe it was at your work, or maybe it was
with your family, or maybe it was in a relationship, or whatever. Have you ever had a time when things were
going right? What happens?
Well, I don’t know what happens for you, but for me, when
I have a hot streak like that, it’s really easy for me to start thinking I’m
responsible for it. It’s really easy for
me to think this is happening because I did this or I did that. Or, even worse, it’s really easy for me think
that things are going well because I’m such a wonderful guy that, well, of
course things should go right for me.
It’s the sin of arrogance. When we were doing our sermon series on the
minor prophets last fall, one of the themes that kept coming up over and over
again was that the people had become arrogant.
And what happens when we become arrogant? We forget about God. We think we’ve got things covered by
ourselves. We think we don’t need God
any more. That’s what arrogance comes
down to really—thinking that we don’t need God.
Jesus was not arrogant.
And I think, as we look at Jesus, we can see a good example of what
arrogance is and what it’s not.
Jesus was well aware of who he was. He was well aware of the power he had. He was well aware of the ability he had. Jesus knew he could do things that no human
being could do. He knew had knowledge
that no human being had. And yet, Jesus
was not arrogant.
What that shows us is that we can have confidence in
ourselves without being arrogant. It
shows us that we can be proud of our abilities and talents without being
arrogant. We can know that we’re better
than most people are at something—and believe me, everyone here is better than
most people are at something—but we can know that we’re better than most people
are at something and not be arrogant.
When it becomes arrogance is when we start thinking that
we can do it all ourselves. It becomes
arrogance when we start thinking that we have the abilities and talents we have
because of how great we are. When it
becomes arrogance is when we think we don’t need anybody else to help us, and
we certainly don’t need God to help us.
When it becomes arrogance is when we forget that every ability we have,
every talent we have, every bit of knowledge that we have, comes from God and
is a gift from God.
Arrogance is a trap.
It’s an easy one for us to fall into.
And it’s also a curse. Because
you know what? Nobody has everything go
right all their lives. No matter how
great we think we are, no matter how much we accomplish, we all have times when
things start going wrong. And sometimes
they go really wrong. Sometimes things
fall apart completely. And if we think
that we were the only ones responsible when things went right, then we have no
one to turn to when things go wrong. Our
arrogance, and even our self-confidence, can be destroyed. We thought we knew it all, and it turned out
that we did not know anything.
What if Jesus had become arrogant? What if Jesus had decided that all the things
he did on earth, the teaching and the healing and the miracles and all that,
were because of how great he was? What
would he have been when Judas betrayed him?
He’d have been confused. He’d
have been a mess, really. His entire
view of himself would’ve been shattered.
Here he’d been doing so well, and now it’s all falling apart. Who would he have had to turn to?
That was not a problem for Jesus. When the crowds welcomed him on that first
Palm Sunday, he never started thinking about how great he was. He knew that anything he achieved was because
he had followed God and had done God’s will.
And he knew that anything he ever would achieve would be because he had
followed God and done God’s will.
And he also
knew that following God’s will does not always lead us to what humans would
consider success. In our services on
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we’ll be following Jesus to the cross and to
his death. That was God’s will for
Jesus—to die on the cross in punishment for our sins and then to rise again,
conquering death for all of us who believe.
But the thing
is, an arrogant Jesus would never have done that. An arrogant Jesus would never have been able
to go through with it. He’d have though
he deserved better. He’d have thought he
was too good to be killed on a cross like the worst of the criminals. An arrogant Jesus would’ve done things his
own way. And in fact, an arrogant Jesus
might have had what humans think of as success.
He might have taken control, overthrown the Roman government, seized
power. Humans would have thought he was
a huge success. But that arrogance
would’ve led to failure in God’s eyes. An
arrogant Jesus would never have gone to the cross. But the Savior Jesus did.
Following God
will not always lead us to what humans consider success, either. Sometimes following God’s will leads us into
some tough situations. And if we’re
arrogant, we won’t be able to go through them.
We’ll think we deserve better.
We’ll think we’re too good to have to go what God wants us to go
through. Our arrogance will lead us to
do things our own way. And in fact, our
arrogance might lead us to what humans think of as success. But it will only lead to failure in God’s
eyes. An arrogant person won’t follow
God into the dark valleys. But sometimes,
that’s where God wants us to go.
Jesus had the
whole crowd telling him how great he was.
Yet, he did not become arrogant, because he knew who he was. He knew he was the divine Son of God. He knew that he could only succeed if he
stayed faithful to God and did what God the Father wanted him to do. And he knew if he did that, he would succeed,
whether he looked like a success in human eyes or not.
That will work
for you and me, too. We will not become
arrogant if we know who we are. We will
not become arrogant if we know we are children of God. And we will not become arrogant if we know
that we can only succeed if we stay faithful to God and do what God wants us to
do. And we won’t become arrogant if we
remember that if we do that, we will succeed, whether we look like a success in
human eyes or not.
Let’s remember
that we are children of God. Let’s do
what God wants us to do. And let’s give
up arrogance, not just for Lent, but for all our lives.
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