Parades

I enjoy watching parades. I’ve even participated in one. That was when I was a teenager and the low-brass group I played trombone in decided to help represent our church in a local 4th-of-July parade. We all quickly discovered, however, how difficult it is to keep playing a brass instrument for more than an hour straight. One of my favorite parade memories, however, has to be the time we watched the lighted truck parade near my grandparents’ house in Northern California. Every year semi trucks don hundreds of Christmas lights and form a giant parade in celebration of the season. As a young boy, I can still remember the thrill I experienced watching the colorful lights and hearing the rumble of the powerful diesel engines.

There’s another parade that makes every other parade pale in comparison, though. It’s a parade that is described in the New Testament. “They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” Hosanna in the highest!’” (Matthew 21:7-9). Can you imagine being in that crowd, praising the King of Kings? This week, we are remembering what happened after that parade came to a close. Those same people who cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” cried out, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” How fickle we humans can be. This week, as we remember the sacrifice that Christ made on our behalf, find little moments to praise His name.