Cold Blooded Hot-Potato

This Week At Windsor E-News 1.04.2023

When we come to worship this Sunday, we'll celebrate Jesus's entrance into Jerusalem as King on what Christians have come to call Palm Sunday. This is because the crowds that day waved palm branches and laid their coats before Jesus, who rode into the holy city on a colt, as prophesied in Scripture (Ze 9:9, Ps 118:26).

Jesus's chosen mode of transport was fit for a conqueror; a victor whose battle was already won. The irony, however, would be that just one week later another crowd -- filled perhaps with some of the same people -- would cry for his death.

In the hours before his death, Jesus would be passed around in a cruel and cold-blooded game of "hot-potato" as the powers that be decided his fate. Yet unlike the child's game, when the music stopped there was blood, and blame, on everyone's hands. 

How do we make sense of this? Proverbs 14 offers some clues:

"Fools mock at making amends for sin,

but goodwill is found among the upright". (Verse 9)

"Each heart knows its own bitterness,

and no one else can share its joy" (Verse 10)

"There is a way that appears to be right,

but in the end it leads to death." (Verse 12)

Jesus's death may seem like a great travesty. But for Christians, the cross is the wisdom of God. Can you see God's goodness here?