Palm Sunday - "Hosanna!" Let's Serve!

I will be blogging each day of Holy Week - Join me!


Last night I had a dream that I remember clearly. This is not always the case for me.


John and I were living in a castle with several other couples. We were there to train to be missionaries. Something John and I have never considered. The main activity in this castle was performing. We would all take turns putting on costumes that we found in an enormous costume room and perform scenes. I don’t know how many of there was of us, but we filled a small auditorium, both performing and watching. I don’t remember the training but I know that was the purpose of being at the castle.

The scene that stuck out to me in the dream was one in which I ran into a woman who said she had seen my laundry in the dryer and it had finished drying so she put the pile onto a table beside the dryer. No big deal, I told her.

I went to get our laundry and noticed that hers was finished drying, too. I took it out and folded it for her.

This is when I was overwhelmed with a truth. The same truth that hit me and stayed with me as I woke up to John getting ready for church.

Serving in humility as a normal, regular act is so much more important that performing.

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. This is a week of remembrance and gratitude and celebration. It is Resurrection Week.

It is easy for me to be a performer. It’s in my blood to act and entertain. I have a natural sense of humor my folks gave me and an emotional constitution that can create drama in a second. Just ask John. :0)

And I know God made me this way and in certain circumstances I glorify God through these talents. But “performing as a Christian” is inconsequential. “Performing as a Christian” is a talent many of us who say we love Jesus have perfected. But it is trivial and well, wrong.

To love Jesus and to truly make this week a wonderful time of remembering what Christ did about 2000 years ago is to serve. To be thankful that God sent His only Son to die for me, for you, is to serve without making it a big deal. To celebrate that Jesus, the Christ, the Savior of all mankind, rose from the grave that you and I may have life, is to serve God this week by loving others.

It can be a phone call to someone just to say they matter. It can be going the extra mile to make sure your child has a sweet, meaningful Easter. It can even be folding someone’s laundry as a normal act of love.

Today, oh so long ago, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem. A donkey, not a horse. That in itself communicated humility. People lined his path with palm branches, waving them and saying, “Hosanna!”

I wonder who picked up the palm branches. Random, yes. But the kind of thing that God noticed.

Happy Holy Week, everyone!