God Walking Among Us

This weekend we celebrate Palm Sunday. This was the day Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem while the crowds laid down palm branches in the road and shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mark 11:9 NKJV).

There was an air of expectancy in Jerusalem. The name of Jesus was on everyone’s lips. In fact, Luke’s gospel tells us, “The crowd was listening to everything Jesus said. And because he was nearing Jerusalem, he told them a story to correct the impression that the Kingdom of God would begin right away” (Luke 19:11 NLT).

In other words, they thought this was it. They thought Jesus would establish His kingdom then and there. The Jewish people had been conquered by the Roman Empire, and they were under Roman control. They expected Jesus the Messiah to overthrow the power of Rome.

But they failed to understand the prophecies that said before the Messiah would come and rule the Earth, He would die for the sins of the world. Before He would sit on the throne, He would go to the cross.

Jesus wasn’t coming to overthrow Rome; He was coming to establish His kingdom in the hearts of men and women by dying for them on the cross. There’s never been a man who walked the earth like Jesus. He was fully God and fully man. He was God walking among us.

He still had human emotions and felt physical pain. He felt hunger and thirst like human beings do. In fact, the Bible says of Him, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15 NKJV).

This reminds us that Jesus knows what we’re going through right now. He understands, He cares, and He wants us to give our burdens to Him.