Welcome your Savior-King!
“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9)
For many of us, the concept of a king is something we’ve read about in books or seen portrayed in various types of media. From those sources, we likely imagine a king as someone who lives in luxury and has people waiting on him hand and foot. And when he speaks a command, everyone snaps to attention and does what he says.
To understand the verse above and the events of the first Palm Sunday, we need to erase from our minds any previous concepts of a king that we might have. King Jesus is unlike any other king. Instead of pomp and circumstance, he comes in humility and service. That’s because King Jesus didn’t come to rule over an area of land and a group of people. Rather, he came to rule in our hearts with his saving Word.
Sadly, since the beginning of time, people have misunderstood the work of God. Even when Jesus lived on Earth, people thought he was going to solve all their earthly dilemmas and give them everything they wanted. God’s ultimate end goal is to help people to come to know Jesus as their Savior and to know that an eternity in heaven is theirs.
One word in Zechariah’s prophecy of Jesus’s coming as the Savior-King is often glossed over or misunderstood. That word is “salvation.” So often people think of things only in terms of earthly or physical things and miss out on the far greater spiritual need and meaning.
People want their earthly woes and challenges resolved. When people understand the salvation they have in King Jesus, their lives will fall into line. When we understand what the forgiveness of sins means for us, we begin to understand that God resolved our differences and guilt through King Jesus’s perfect life and innocent death. King Jesus gives us everything we need for our daily lives, and often so much more. We understand that our goal is not to accumulate the most toys in this life but rather to make sure that we are ready for and looking forward to our eternal home.
In short, even though he comes very humbly and gently, King Jesus rules everything in our lives for our physical and eternal good. When you look at things in this way, it is very easy to welcome Jesus as your King, to look forward to what we are going to see him do, and to go through the rest of this Holy Week.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, thank you for coming as our humble King to serve us and bring us our salvation. As this week we watch and review all that you did to be our humble, serving King, impress on us the depth of your love and the blessings of your service to us. Thank you for all you did for us. We ask that you guide us to live our lives to show our appreciation for your gracious love for us. Amen.