GETTING STIRRED UP ON PALM SUNDAY

Today as you may know is Palm Sunday. This is an event that marks the day Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem as a king. It is an event that is found in all four gospels.

It was October 29, 1896 when Charles Lindbergh was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City in honor of his solo flight of the Atlantic Ocean. 750,000 lbs. of ticker tape poured onto the streets. BUT THE BIGGEST TICKER-TAPE PARADE was on March 1, 1962, for astronaut John Glenn after he became the first American to orbit the earth in a spacecraft. The sanitation department cleaned up 3,474 tons of ticker tape, confetti and other paper along a 7-mile parade route.

EVERYBODY LOVES A PARADE. And it was no different when Jesus came to town. Josephus, a Jewish historian, estimated the crowd to be as high as 3 million! That’s a big crowd!

Matthew 21:10, “When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, ‘Who is this?’" (NIV)

On Wednesday, April 9th, the United States military entered the city of Bagdad to liberate it’s citizens from the tyranny of a merciless dictator name Saddam Hussein.  For the most part they were welcomed into the city by crowds of people cheering for them and excited to see them.  All of us watched on TV as statues were toppled and people ran throughout the city.  Some of them were so stirred up that they began looting and stealing.  What happens though when Jesus stirs your heart?