Looking for the Real Thing

John 12:12-19

If you are a citizen of the United States you may have noticed the Republican primaries, and how fickle the voters were.  They are much like the girl in high school who wants to date the big guy on campus until she has the first date and finds out that he is not what she wanted at all.  This truth has played out with my governor, Rick Perry who on entering the race went to the top of the pack, until he could not recall two of his three main points in a debate and it was somewhat embarrassing.  Mitt Romney took the lead and looked like he could be the silver-tongued person to beat the current holder of the White house, but that silver-tongue let him down when he said he did not care for the poor; now he came back quick to explain what he meant, but those fickle voters seemed to wonder about his intentions.

All over the world we have people worried, angry, and even taking to the streets, we refer to them as a crowd, but when things do not seem to go as planned, (their plan, their expectation) they become a mob, we might say they are fickle, or changeable, much like the high school girl we referred to earlier.  That is what Jesus was encountering, the Jewish people had very high expectations of the Messiah, and in earlier times the prophet Isaiah had been telling them of the promised One.  Isaiah foretells His coming in Isaiah 2:2-4, 7:14, 9:6-7, 25:8, and chapter 52:13- 53; these people that met Jesus that day as He entered Jerusalem, had high expectations of Jesus and on that day the crowd found the One who they had been looking for a long time.

We must be wise like our Lord, who knew the thoughts and heart of man, and never put faith in any man, never looking to men for his approval, and we also need to recall that another crowd had asked if John the Baptist was the Messiah, Luke 3:15. 

It is the next day, the day after having dinner with Lazarus the one who Jesus raised from the dead, and this is what is recorded in John 12:12-15, “The next day “the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.  So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”  And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

We are told that Jesus’ own disciples did not understand these things at that time, but later after Jesus had been resurrected they remembered these things that had been written about Him.  Now this is an important fact about why these people came and did these things; they had been listening to eyewitnesses reporting on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  Picking up the story in verse 18, “The reason why the crowd went to meet him was they heard he had done this sign.”   Not much has changed it is not long before this crowd turns into a mob, calling for Jesus to be crucified.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice