Day 40 - It was worth the wait

As I stood in the crowd for several hours there was an air of anticipation. The camaraderie in the crowd was fantastic, everyone friendly and a carnival atmosphere. Then suddenly a shiny black limousine with blacked out windows appeared on the road in front of us, stopping outside the hotel in front of us. A short pause and then the doors opened and suddenly he was there, just a few feet away, as was his other band members. My hero! My idol!

And just as quickly as he arrived, he was gone again, hardly looking back at the crowd as he made a dash along the red carpet outside the hotel. I managed to glimpse the back of him as he went through the rotating hotel doors and was gone. It was all over! A total of 30 seconds maximum. After all that waiting and anticipation the experience was down to seconds!

What a disappointment, an anti-climax. I’m talking here of my teenage years when I was a Bay City Roller fan and had travelled to a hotel in Manchester to catch a glimpse of my pop hero, Les McKeown, a member of the boy band.

As it dawned on everyone there that it was over, the crowd started to disperse in silence, left with only the accolade of being able to say, ‘I was there’!

Looking back now, I admit that it hadn’t been worth the wait.

Contrast that with Jesus arriving in Jerusalem to fulfil prophecy detailed many years before:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”.

Zechariah 9:9

No crowd control there. People walking alongside Him as He made His way towards the city, the crowd size increasing on route, chattering as they went.

Others waiting by the side of the dusty road, hoping to catch a glimpse of Him as He passed by. Others hoping that they would witness the miracles they had heard about. Some had been waiting for hours, having travelled great distances to be there, hungry, thirsty, and tired from their journey. There was a tangible anticipation in the air? But instead of waiting for a pop idol, as I had done, they were waiting for the Son of God. Wow!

And then suddenly the shout would have gone up from the front of the crowd, ‘He’s here! He’s here!’ And then all at once He would have come into view. Jesus, arriving in Jerusalem, riding not in an expensive limousine but on the back of an ordinary donkey. Unlike my pop idol, Jesus was not in a hurry, slowly approaching the waiting crowd, probably surrounded by others as He approached the city of Jerusalem, the crowd getting bigger as He went. As they walked alongside Him, almost touching, the children running alongside Him excitedly with peals of laughter and chatter.

“A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road”.

Matthew 21:8

How resourceful to use the leaves from the palm trees to pave the way, with some people even giving up their cloaks to create a pathway underfoot? There was certainly no need for a red carpet!

What I would give now to have been part of the crowd. I wonder whether the people there understood the full significance of what they were witnessing. Probably not. But they were there. And Jesus didn’t disappoint. He slowly made His way through the crowd, probably stopping several times to speak to people as He went. People got more than a glimpse. They saw Him, heard Him speaking, saw His actions as He moved forward towards the gates of the city.

“Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Mark 11:9-10

Jesus was accessible then and He is accessible to us today.

Hosanna!

We have so much to thank God for on this important Sunday in Lent known to us as Palm Sunday.

Kathy Shaw