Daily Lesson for March 15, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 6 verse 15:

"When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself."

In a little under two weeks time we will celebrate Palm Sunday -- the day which commemorates Jesus' "Triumphal Entry" into Jerusalem, with all of the people celebrating him as king.

Reading the Gospels through new lenses -- especially through the lenses of the socially marginalized and oppressed -- many scholars now say Jesus did not accept kingship and his entry into Jerusalem was not so much triumphal as it was protestant (small p) and dramatic -- a kind of theatre of the oppressed.

I can't say for certain whether Jesus rejected kingship altogether. But I can say for sure he was skeptical of them. Read the Gospels and you see again and again Jesus' critiques of the "kings of this earth".

Jesus' kingship, if there was a kingship, was not of this earth. It was cut from a different cloth and planted from a different seed. Thus when Jesus came into Jerusalem He came not on a mighty war horse, but on a young donkey. If you were wanting a traditional king, it was indeed absurd. And the Bible says not even the disciples could understand it.

I'm sure we would have all been disappointed also. And maybe that's what separates Jesus from all the other kings of this earth -- he had spent time enough on the mountain, as in today's lesson, in prayer and meditation and in aligning Himself with the will of Heaven that He wasn't afraid to disappoint.

"Ride on King Jesus" we sing on Palm Sunday morning. And this year I'm asking myself, "Do I see Him on a warhorse or a donkey, a mighty, powerful steed bred for a centurion or a peasant's pony?"

The answer says a lot about what kind of king I would want if I were there.

PS -- I'm going to take the rest of the week off from Daily Lessons in order to spend more Spring Break time with family. See you all next Monday.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.