April 10/22 GOOD NEWS: EVEN BETTER THAN EXPECTED

Today is the sixth Sunday of Lent, which is Palm Sunday, and our theme is Good News. We will be reflecting on Zechariah 9:9-13 and Acts 2:39, Good News: Even Better Than Expected. The king approaches Jerusalem and the crowd shouts for joy as they had for generations and call out for salvation. This is a king of peace who is also a king of might who comes to his struggling people to bring hope. We are struggling in many ways too. Zechariah echoes ahead to Palm Sunday and Jesus coming as a king. The crowd then expect the Messiah to be an earthly king who would restore the Davidic dynasty. While they were wrong about the kind of king Jesus would turn out to be, they were absolutely right to connect Psalm 118 to Jesus (see vs. 22 and 27, for example). The good news of the gospel for us today is that Jesus saves us from our sins even as he is with us in our struggles. We can cry out “Hosanna!” to him (“Save us!”) and know that he will.