Do you believe Jesus is powerful?

So often we refer to Christ as a “servant king,” yet I believe we struggle to feel the full weight of these paradoxical words. In fact, general familiarity with this phrase removes from us the inherent tension and contradiction contained within. We may understand the nature of servanthood, as well as a ruling power, yet what do the two have in common? 

What king triumphantly enters a city on a colt, only to then willingly walk the way of shame and embrace the scandal of the cross?

For most of human history, humility was not seen as a virtue but a vice to be avoided at all costs. The humble were weak and easily exploited or dominated. To serve was to live subordinated to someone else’s agenda and vision of the good life, or at least their good life. 

Perhaps, then, the problem lies less with service and is more closely tied to the one being served?

Power is the ability to enact the choices you make. People in power see a certain outcome, and bring that vision into being. If their heart is darkened by sin and ordered towards self, power is used to a disastrous end. Yet if we believe God to be the fountain of all that is good and true, his power is profoundly good news, working to bring about a perfect end.

Jesus has the power to bring into being the most radical of ideas: humility allows us to see God and our neighbor, weakness is the way of strength, death is the way of life.

Hosanna is the deepest longing of the heart for deliverance and rescue. As we enter Holy Week, we are reminded of the ways in which our Lord uses his power to save us from every force of destruction and disorder, and perhaps most notably, to save from ourselves. He acts decisively for our good by showing us the true nature of power. He is the servant king who embodies the virtuous and redemptive nature of humility. 

Jesus envisions a world in which we are free from self-love and liberated to give ourselves away in service and sacrificial love, and he has the power to bring that world into being.

Prayer of the Week

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer for the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

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