As I sit here in my mancave and type out this column, it is Palm Sunday – the day that, according to all four Gospels, Jesus entered Jerusalem for the final time, riding on a donkey as the prophet Zechariah had foretold hundreds of years earlier. The people of the city came out and lined the roadway, carpeting His path with palm fronds and shouting praises to God.
The local religious leaders didn’t think too highly of all this public fanfare and adoration – particularly when it wasn’t directed at them – so they demanded that Jesus tell His followers to pipe it down. As Luke reports in his Gospel, Jesus replied: “I tell you … if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
Less than a week later, those good, upright clergymen would be calling for Jesus’ execution, as would many of those who had been shouting praises from the roadside.
All the events of that week (commonly known as Holy Week) are recorded in scripture: Jesus’ cleansing of the Great Temple, His final teachings and healings, the conspiracy to have Him killed and Judas’ involvement in that plot, the Last Supper, Jesus praying and sweating blood in Gethsemane, His arrest, the late-night trial at Caiaphas’ house, the hearings before both Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas, and His scourging, crucifixion, death, and burial in a donated tomb.
Fortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Just like He said He would, Jesus came walking out of that tomb on that first Easter Sunday.
Now some say that all that is just a story – just some made-up mythology that has led to a lot of religious nonsense down through the centuries. Others suggest that it’s a mixed bag of actual history, embellishment, and outright fiction cooked up by Jesus’ followers after His death to keep the movement going under their leadership. Still others say that there’s really no way to know for sure what’s true and what’s not.
But I say it’s all a true story from beginning to end.
I believe Jesus really was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin; that He lived a perfect, sinless life; that He really died on that cross; and that He actually, literally came back to life on the third day.
I believe that He really is the Son of the Living God, that He currently sits at His Father’s right hand, and that He will one day return for His people as He has promised to do.
And I believe that what Jesus accomplished through His life, death, and resurrection has created a passageway through the barrier wall of sin that separates us all from God – a door through which we can have forgiveness of all our sins and failings, real reconciliation with our Creator, and spiritual rebirth into a new kind of life that will keep on going eons after our physical bodies have ceased to function and turned to dust.
I believe He is that door … and the way and the truth and the life.
Can I prove any of that? Not really. Sure, I could toss out some rationalizations and apologetics – but nothing that would truly satisfy a dedicated skeptic.
All I can say is that, for myself, Jesus has provided me with enough to make a choice – and I have chosen to believe. And, as a result of making that choice and walking through that door, He has continued to reveal Himself and prove Himself to me on a daily basis in more ways that I can count.
And I would dare say it involves more than just subscribing to a belief system or affirming certain theological precepts or doing a bunch of churchy stuff in churchy places. I believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit really have taken up residence inside me (don’t ask me to explain that), and that this has changed and continues to transform who I am on a fundamental level and in ways that I don’t fully understand.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not claiming to be Captain Super Saint or hyper-spiritual or any better or more righteous than anyone else. Truth is I’m just as screwed up as the next guy (and maybe more).
But it’s not about me or anything I do or say. It’s about Jesus and who He is, what He has accomplished on my (and everyone else’s) behalf, and the work He continues to do in and through me.
And I believe that this same door – this door named Jesus – stands wide open for anyone willing to walk through.
