Yesterday, on Palm Sunday, we began Holy Week. On Palm Sunday we recall the triumphal entry of our Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. Truly, Jesus came to claim His throne, and to receive His crown. And as the Liturgy of the Palms reminds us that His throne would be a cross, and His crown would be one of thorns.
Jesus accepted this willingly, for us. He would enter Jerusalem knowing His pathway out would be one unique to Him, death and resurrection. C. S. Lewis would argue for the proof of God by the witness of a Nature Law at the most basic level in his book Mere Christianity. This “Law” encourages people to do such unconventional things as risking one’s life to protect another’s, even when the two do not even know each other.
Jesus would say (John 15:13, ESV) “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, except when loving one another is greater than self. We Christians are to imitate Christ Jesus, we are to grow more and more like Him as we walk day by day, and this is His example of what it truly means to love one another.
As we enter into Holy Week, observing the depth of the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving His life freely for those who are even in the moment turning away from Him and condemning Him, we should be moved deep within our souls.
His love changes our hearts, His love draws us to Himself, His love is everything. He didn’t suffer and die for no reason, He suffered and died for you.
Our verse for today is from Ephesians 2:8 (ESV):
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
Almighty God, pierce our hearts anew today, pierce our hearts like the nails pierced our Lord Jesus Christ’s body, pierce our hearts as the spear pierced His side, that we may know the magnitude of your love made known to us as a gift given us through our Lord Jesus Christ. AMEN.