Palm Sunday.

This post originally appeared on GT Church's Easter Blog.

Palm Sunday always creates a knot in my stomach.  As a small child, I loved it.  I had no real perspective then on the true significance of the day, or what was to come in the next week; what mattered to me was that I got to walk down our little church aisle waiving a big palm branch that my choir instructor would inevitably remove from my tiny hands for playing with it too much during service.
 
As an adult, though, it makes me cringe.  For me, it always serves as a reminder of how easily I turn my back on God.  I think about Jesus riding into Jerusalem, the city exploding with excitement and celebration…(I mean, they don’t call it the triumphal entry for nothing, right?).  But just days later, those same people who waved their palm branches and threw down their cloaks to make Jesus’ ride a little smoother nailed him to a cross and turned their backs on him.  Of course, he knew that this was going to happen, but it still makes me want to say "Turn around Jesus and get out of there!  We humans aren't to be trusted!". But that sentiment, however good at heart, is futile.
 
It’s easy to forget the reality of Christ’s sacrifice on a day-to-day basis, especially if you don’t make intentional time to consider it.  However, I'm continuously amazed that I get to be part of the story that God is writing, while doing nothing to deserve it.  In the case of this Easter, I feel like I fell short.  Life got the better of me and during a season of the year when I should have spent time reflecting on the hope, passion, and life change that accompanies the cross, I went about my day-to-day, busy as ever, not slowing down. 

The wonder of Christ lies in the way He freely gives us grace.  There's a song by a Christian band that my friends and I use to love in high school, and one of the lines goes, "the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair."  How true those words are...the beauty of the grace Christ gives us is that it takes away the punishments we deserve in life (ultimately, the weight of our sin) and in Him, we are redeemed beyond the shadow of a doubt. 

But really, the wonder of Christ is that He continues to extend that grace even in a season when I've not tried or done my best. He redeems and restores, and offers rest to the weary.  

Maybe you're looking at a to-do list that is a mile long as you prepare for next Sunday.  Maybe, like me, Lent slipped away faster than you realized and you failed to truly savor and appreciate this season.  Maybe you feel like that's always your story...good intentions, poor execution.  Guess what, friend?  That's everyone's story.  It's our nature.  We will always fall short of the glory of God, but again, that's the beauty of grace.