Lent Meditation

This week, I’ve found my thinking and meditation drifting toward expectation. It’s the week before Palm Sunday, the day we typically set aside in the Christian faith to commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey with symbolic fanfare and celebration. So, what were the disciples thinking? What were their expectations?

My hunch is that the disciples didn’t suffer from low expectations. They seemed to be expecting Jesus to usher in a kingdom to replace the current Israeli captivity under the Romans – a physical kingdom that would be similar to King David and Solomon, only greater. (Check out these links HERE and HERE for some information on the apocalyptic literature, both OT and inter-testamental, that may have helped shape these expectations.)

So . . . . what expectations do you bring into your relationship with God? Sometimes we can have an expectation that if we do everything right and hold up our end of the bargain in the Christian life, God will pour out his blessings on us. So we establish a kind of “if/then” relationship with God.

And then tragedy strikes. A child that we raised in a Christian environment rebels and walks away from all that we taught her. A spouse suddenly turns his back on the marriage and walks away from the faith and out of the family. Life doesn’t seem to be working for us after we’ve worked so hard to be faithful to Him and do all the things that good Christians do.

Therein lies the problem. Our expectations are misinformed. God never promises that if we follow the formula, life will work. He promises us Himself. And He promises to change us, from the inside out. To make us more like His Son. He doesn’t promise to change the circumstances around us and to shield us from the effects of a fallen world. He promises us His peace in the midst of it.

The disciples were perplexed when Jesus insisted on talking about being arrested and killed. On the very night he was taken by the soldiers, Peter lopped off a servant’s ear and the rest of the disciples scattered, like weak animals in response to a stocking predator.

Their expectations were misinformed. And as a result, their world was thrown into chaos. Everything they’d hoped for in the last 3+ years of following their Rabbi who was to re-establish the Jewish nation. Gone. Taken away from them. From their perspective (at least for the next few days), they had been wrong to trust in this miracle-worker, this self-proclaimed Messiah.

As Palm Sunday approaches, I think it’s a good opportunity to evaluate the expectations that we have in following the ways of Jesus. They may need to be adjusted. Indeed, they may need to be abandoned. If anything else, we need to be honest with ourselves about our expectations and open to the idea that maybe they're misinformed.

Categories: God, transformation