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| Because He Could? |
Jesus is generally portrayed and thought of as a peacekeeping and gentle kinda guy. “Love thy God and love thy neighbor” were the centerpieces of His message along with peace, love and understanding – in the words of Elvis Costello.
However, today being Palm Sunday where Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem is celebrated, I always wonder – what the hell was Jesus thinking by taking His act into Jerusalem and pissing off the powers-that-be like He did? Riding that donkey into town, calling Himself the Messiah (something that He had not previously done) and then trashing their temple and throwing out all the merchants there, He had to know that shit was going to get real deep real fast for Him. Did someone say – death wish? Maybe His was the first case of “suicide by cop” (click here.)
But who am I to question Jesus’ motives? He had predicted that He would be back 3 days after His death so maybe dying wasn’t any big deal to Him. (And speaking of not dying, note how I keep capitalizing Him and He when referring to JC. I do so because old habits pile driven into you for 12 Catholic school years tend to die hard.)
But back to the so called triumphant entry with palms strewn before Him and people rejoicing over Him, my theory is that the King of Kings knew exactly what He was doing. He knew that He had a 3-days-later-get-outta-death-card and that He’d soon be back on stage turning someone’s water into wine. I get the impression that He knew that He was playing with house money and simply had nothing to lose. Why not poke the big boys in the eye and see if they could take a joke? Turns out that they couldn’t; but then again Jesus probably knew that too a la Tom Cruise in Risky Business and simply said…….(click here if you don’t get that reference.)
And since I quoted him above, here is Elvis on the Letterman show:
At Buzzy’s later today, we will have the Blessing of the Buds. Good news is that you do not have to keep the empty cans/bottles until next Ash Wednesday.