challenging...

john lindell has been teaching through the book of luke for a while now, i dont know how long...but a long, long time!  the last few months or so has been really good to dig into luke 19 through 23 or so.  something keeps bothering me, it keeps challenging me, so...i decided to do a little digging on my own.  let me just tell you the part that has been bothering me...Jesus rides in to jerusalem, on a donkey, to the praises of almost everyone in the city.  they sing praise to Him, they shout Hosanna to the highest!  then, not a week goes by, NOT A WEEK! and the jewish leaders have Jesus arrested, pull a sham of a trial, take him to pilate, who takes him to herod, who sends him back to pilate...both find no guilt in anything he has done, BUT the jewish leaders still demand to crucify him.  so, where are all the people that were shouting Hosanna in the highest?  there are crowds yelling to crucify him, but where are all the people who were praising him not even a week earlier?  had the religious leaders convinced all of them that Jesus was not who he claimed to be and needed to be crucified?  

here is what i am finding.  i dont know exactly.  i dont find all the specific answers.  to be honest with you, it hacks me off, i get very angry when i think about where in the world could these people have been?  i mean seriously, Jesus had just healed some people, he was teaching in the temple and the people were amazed...so where in the h-e double hockey sticks were they? why didnt they come to at least stand up for Jesus?  i dont know.

here is what i do know.  my anger towards them, it can be directed towards myself a large part of the time.  this is what i am learning...  Jesus healed me, i have stood in awe of Jesus...and when there are people who are living lives for so much less than Jesus, it is very rarely, if ever, that i speak up and tell them why my life matters now, why my life has purpose, who it was that saved my soul and gave me purpose!  so my challenge is to take some of that anger and some of the frustration towards people that i dont know, nor do i have much of an idea of what the circumstances were, the people, who i don't know where they were when the mobs were yelling to crucify.  i am going to take some of that frustration and anger to fuel my fire.  to love people who are not so lovable, and to say something!  our faith has to have action ... otherwise, how much can we say that we really believe what we believe?  that is my challenge to myself...to not be like the people that didnt speak up...

would you join me?  in not being like the crowds...not in some judgmental, hypocritical way...but with love.  would you join me?