The Triumphal Entry

I have been reading up on Palm Sunday all week trying to determine appropriate songs for this years service. As a child Palm Sunday was always one of my favorites. The music was always upbeat and exciting, we would get palm branches and would run around pretending to worship Jesus as he rode in on a donkey. Of course there was never a literal donkey, but the theory was still there.

The trouble is, that this week as I study the passages in the gospels(Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:29-44 and John 12:12-19) I keep thinking about how I would feel if I were Jesus, riding in on a donkey being praised and treated like the King that I was. All the while knowing that those very same people were going to be the ones that in just a few short days would be my betrayers, the people calling to have me crucified, or denying any knowledge of me at all. I thought about what my reaction would be, which would probably not be terribly gracious. Yet somehow in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed (Luke 22:42)   ⁴²Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. 
Or how on the cross looking into the faces of the people that begged for his death and said:
(Luke 23:34)³⁴  “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

How or why we deserve such a Savior is completely unknown to me, but as it says in Romans

Romans 5:7-8 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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