Imagine the disciples who followed Jesus up to the point of the triumphal entry. What were they imagining? This Jesus, who loved sinners, healed lepers, gave hope to those forgotten; this Jesus who they thought had words of hope must, as the Messiah, lead them to the halls of power and establish his kingdom in Jerusalem. That’s the only way this would work. Otherwise, what a hard road. Who could follow it? Then Jesus is crucified.

I am an optimist by nature. Andrea will readily affirm that. When the recession hit a few years back, I was working as a carpenter, the lead of a crew of at least 24 carpenters. As we finished up this one job we’d been on for over a year, I comforted Andrea that even though the recession was pretty scary, there’s no way that I’d lose my job—after all there’s 20+ guys ahead of me that would be laid off before me. But, sure enough, my optimism—which comforted her for a time—proved to be as flimsy as sawdust. I lost my job.

In a little over a week it has already become cliché to say that we live in times that are unprecedented. Ordinarily, when I sit down to write a sermon, I find myself trying to take what is in front of us every day, pick it up, turn it one way, then another, until I see it from an angle that makes it seem strange, or unfamiliar. I want to see something in a way that I hadn’t before. I do this to help us actually see the world better, more clearly, and with a truer focus on what matters.