From the Pulpit: He gives us freedom from the tyranny of sin
This coming Sunday, April 10, is the beginning of a major week in the church calendar called Holy Week. Worship on that day typically includes waving (of all things) palm leaves or palm branches. We do that in the church on that day because it is a day we remember when Jesus rode into in Jerusalem on a donkey (five days before he was crucified) and the people waved palm branches in the air and placed them on the road in front of him. As they waved the palm branches the people shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” The palm branches and the “hosannas!” were a way for the people to honor Jesus, as they looked expectantly for Jesus to fulfill their hopes; hopes that Jesus would return things for them to the way they were under the powerful rule of King David. As Jesus entered Jerusalem on that day, it was “rolling out the red carpet” for the one they expected to save them from Roman tyranny.
Tyranny. It is an ugly word. It brings to mind dictators and autocratic leaders, despots of every kind. It brings to mind suffering that is imposed upon people. Tyranny is a way that many rulers, kings or dictators have ruled over people many times through the history of the world. When tyranny is carried out, causing great suffering and pain in the lives of common people, there usually is a cry that goes out for salvation, for things to change, for the tyranny to end, for the rule of the tyrant who is causing such pain and anguish to come to an end. It was the cry – the prayer when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on that first Palm Sunday. “Hosanna”, which the people were shouting to Jesus, means: “Save, Lord!” They were pleading for salvation. It was a plea that was made in the 1940’s, and a few thousand years before that when God’s people were slaves under the tyranny of an Egyptian Pharaoh, and a plea that has been made countless times between and since. It is the cry that is going up all around the world for the people of Ukraine as they suffer under Russian and Putin’s tyranny. “Save, Lord!”
The Ukrainian people are looking for Europe and the United States and other nations to help save them from the tyranny of Russia. Hopefully, peace will come soon for the people of Ukraine – that the tyranny over them will end.
As horrific as the tyranny is that is being executed upon the Ukrainian people, there is a tyranny that people have suffered ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord. It is a tyranny that Jesus came to save us from. It is a tyranny in the lives of every single person because of sin. Sin robes us of peace and destroys lives. The tyranny of sin is what Jesus came to deal with. He did so by suffering the anguish and pain of sin when he gave his life in place of ours on the cross. It is what the events of Holy Week are all about, when Jesus came to answer our plea for salvation, so that by faith in Jesus as our Lord, he destroys the tyranny that sin has over our lives. He gives us, as we put our trust in him, freedom from the tyranny of sin. He gives us eternal life.
