How to Use That Time You Spilled Sauce on Your Shirt to Proclaim Jesus
What did you miss the first time?
John 12 says: 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!” 14 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!” His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.
It’s great to watch America’s Funniest Videos and see the montage of videos with funny things that go on in the background that the people who think they’re the focus of the video are completely oblivious to and unaware is happening to draw attention away from them.
Such is part of the narrative of Palm Sunday. There is a lot of symbolism going on that the disciples missed the first time around and were oblivious to that made sense later. They missed how the prophecies of the Old Testament were being fulfilled right before their eyes. They misunderstood Jesus’ conversations about what was to come and how it was going to happen. They misinterpreted the signs that Palm Sunday, and they certainly misinterpreted the word king.
But hey, so would we, had we been there. We all talk about how things would be different if Jesus had picked us to be His disciples. We know how it would be different if the Messiah came in our midst instead. But, the reality is that generations from now, the world would be telling the same narrative of how we missed what was going on in the background and how we should have understood the signs.
Be glad you weren’t one of the disciples on that one.
On Zion’s Facebook post for Monday, March 21st, I spent a lot of time making that picture look great; I tweaked the font about 20 times, added effects to get the perfect touch, adjusted the colors to blend beautifully, but as I saved and re-saved the picture 4 times, and the 50 times I looked at the picture after posting it on Facebook, I somehow missed that I had spelled tomorrow as tommorrow. And then I saw it. And then I couldn’t un-see it. I fixed the picture when I got to the office, but Facebook doesn’t allow you to just take a picture out and swap another one and keep the momentum of shares and likes. I’d have to start all over again. So, I kept it up, in all of its misspelled glory, a monument to my blunder.(You can go and check it out) But, apparently no one else noticed it. It kept getting likes and shares without any comments on the spelling error. Maybe people were being kind, I don’t know.
So, what did you miss the first time? Did you spill something on your shirt that everyone else saw but you? (happened to me) Did you miss that tartar sauce on your lip during the big sales presentation? (didn’t happen to me) What was it, because it was something?
Missing things like that have a way of strengthening the memory of what we were doing at the time they happened. They can be humiliating as they’re going on and we might not realize it until we’ve been immortalized with a nickname to commemorate our blunder, but we’ll always remember those times.
I bet the disciples would never forget Palm Sunday and all those shouts of hosanna; I bet the disciples would long remember the exact color and shape of that donkey that Jesus was riding on; I bet they would never be able to pick up a palm branch without having the imagery of the resurrected Jesus seared into their minds.
But is that really a bad thing? Long forgotten was the I didn’t get it guilt-trip that they undoubtedly projected on themselves. Their focus was on the new life that Jesus had birthed in their hearts and the absolute necessity of getting that saving image stored in their heads into the heads of everyone they came in contact with. They could describe with breath-taking accuracy all of the emotions, sights, and sounds associated with Jesus coming into Jerusalem for that last time. They would know what would connect with the people they were trying to reach. Is that really a bad thing when they had so much to look forward to?
So, what did you miss that was painfully brought to your attention about a time when you thought you were on top of the world? May I suggest that you think back to one of those fails of epic proportions and consider how you might use that experience to further the Gospel of Jesus. How might that endeavor be a way to start or further a conversation this week? How might your being humbled enhance your spirituality? How might it have the power to point to Christ? You know you have that memory that haunts you. Perhaps today is the day it stops haunting you and starts being the basis for your next testimony. Amen.
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