Halfway through the Palm Sunday church service, all the World Racers were called up on stage to sing and dance. Where were we? Colombia? Nope. Ecuador? Nope. Peru? Not anymore. Cote de Ivoire? Not yet. This particular Sunday the entire 57 person squad was in the middle of a 30 hour layover in Spain. Madrid to be exact. Madrid is beautiful, and this church was absolutely wonderful!
Approximately 2 weeks earlier we learned that on our way from South America to Africa there would be a long layover in Madrid, and we would need to find a place to stay for the night. All the hostels in the area were full. All the hotels were to expensive. So what were we going to do?
Well, I have an amazing teammate named Danielle. She spent two summers in Madrid as an au pair, so she had a few connections there. Pair that with the fact that her parents are officers in the Salvation Army, and we were set. Danielle was able to get in touch with the Salvation Army Church in central Madrid, and they invited the entire squad to stay over night in their chapel! Not only that but they had showers we could use, and they even fed us! Isn’t God amazing? He provided my squad with the connections we needed, so that we had a place to stay, when a week earlier it had looked like we would spend the entire 30 hour layover stuck in the airport.
Saturday afternoon we arrived in Madrid and got ubers to take us to the church. There we were made to feel right at home. The pastors welcomed us, and were incredibly hospitable. We were fed lunch, and while eating we got to witness a very joyful tembrals practice. During lunch we were also given the wifi password so that we were able to get online and contact our families at home! But perhaps the best part of that layover came the next morning, after an enjoyable evening spent seeing Madrid.
Tembrals performance in Church Sunday morning
Sunday morning, after we had been feed a delicious breakfast, there was a church service, and the pastor preached in English so that my squad could understand the sermon! (His wife translated the sermon into Spanish so that the rest of the congratulation could understand it.) It was the first English sermon I’d heard since leaving home, and it was wonderful!
Being that it was Palm Sunday, the sermon was on the Triumphal Entry (Luke 19:28-44), and I really appreciated the pastor’s perspective on the story.
As Jesus entered the city on a donkey, people celebrated him. They had seen what he could do and times were good, so they celebrated him and called him Hosanna, believing that he had come to rescue them from the Romans. Then, a 5 days later Jesus died, and the people’s celebration was no more. Not because Jesus was no longer worthy of praise, oh no, it was because they just didn’t understand.
God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. Jesus is always worthy of praise, even when things aren’t going the way we think they should be going.
That Sunday morning in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the city, carried by an animal, to the joyful shouts of people, just as a triumphant Roman officer would have entered a city, but there were some important differences.
Jesus chose to enter on a humble donkey, rather than an impressive horse.
A Roman officer would have entered surrounded by those he had captured, in chains. Jesus didn’t come surrounded by captives, rather he came to set people free. This is why Jesus deserved the people’s celebration, but they didn’t know about it yet. They celebrated the mericles, the healings that Jesus had done. They knew nothing about what was ahead, but Jesus knew.
On Friday there was no more celebration, and people denied they knew Jesus. Jesus carried his cross up a hill. At the top he was nailed to it to die a slow and painful death. He deserved celebration for this. Because he chose it. He chose the pain, he chose the death. For you. For me. For the people who had celebrated him a week earlier. Even for the people who had nailed him to the cross. Jesus deserves all the praise and adoration for that. He didn’t have to choose to die, but he did, to pay the price for sin so that we could be free from guilt and have a relationship with our creator.
Sunday rolled around again. And on that Sunday, a week after his entry on a donkey, Jesus triumphed over death. He had paid the price for the sin of the world, but he himself was innocent and death had no hold on him! He rose from the dead on Easter morning.
Jesus did it. He did not defeat the Romans who were oppressing the Jews at that time. No, he defeated sin which has been oppressing people since Adam and Eve.
That’s it. That’s why Jesus deserves all the praise, all the time. Even when things are hard, because Jesus himself went through the hard stuff for us.
After the church service was over, my squad headed back to the airport for our flight to Africa. We left laughing over that fact that somehow we’d all been called up on stage to sing and dance to “Walking in the Light” with the children’s church. And we left remembering the pastors sermon, ready to work with different churches all across western Africa for the next 3 months, telling people about Jesus, who defeated sin for them.
Two flights and approximately 24 hours later, we arrived in Cote de Ivoire, ready to get started.
