Rejection: the Back Door to Blessing

His nickname was Sparky. He was a quiet kid, not very popular at school. In fact, Sparky was surprised if one of his fellow students even talked to him outside of school. He didn’t have many friends. He wasn’t very handsome, he wasn’t very athletic, and he wasn’t very brilliant. He was just one of those children that the kids nowadays call a “nerd”.

During his high school years, Sparky never dated, because he was afraid of being turned down by any girl he might ask. It was not like they hated him; it seemed like they just ignored him. He never really enjoyed success in anything that he did.

There was one thing that Sparky liked to do. He liked to draw. He thought he had a certain amount of artistic ability, but nobody else seemed to think so. He submitted some cartoons to his high school yearbook, but they were turned down by the editors. He sent samples of his drawings to the Walt Disney Studios, but they rejected them, too. It seemed as though everyone felt that Sparky was a loser.

But Sparky didn’t let all this rejection discourage him. In fact, he used those painful experiences of rejection as the basis of a cartoon character whose life was very much like his own - a boy whose kite would never fly; a boy who sat for hours in the schoolyard thinking of ways to strike up a conversation with that little red-haired girl; a boy whose baseball team never won.

Sparky’s real name, you see, is Charles Schulz. He created the cartoon character Charlie Brown as the boy he himself had been. Charles Schulz took all that rejection that he had known, and he used it to bring laughter and blessing and insight to millions of people.

Today is Palm Sunday; a day of triumph, a day of rejoicing, a day of tumultuous acceptance in Jesus’ ministry. On Palm Sunday, Jerusalem threw out the welcome mat. They were ready to give Jesus the key to the city.

What a contrast between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday! On Palm Sunday, the air was filled with the roar of the crowd. On Easter Sunday, the silence was deafening; disturbed only by the soft sobbing of a woman at the Garden Tomb.

Why was there such a difference between those two Sundays, just a week apart? I’ll tell you why. Palm Sunday is about the kind of Savior we want. Easter Sunday is about the kind of Savior God gave us.

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, it was easy for the crowd to get excited about him. It looked to them like their Messiah had come at last. He was riding on a donkey; that was the Old Testament symbol of royalty and kingship. It looked like he was coming to Jerusalem to take over, and kick out the Romans in the process. What a welcome prospect!

He certainly had the power to do so. The crowd was buzzing with the incredible news that Jesus had actually raised a man from the dead in the town of Bethany just the previous week. That’s the kind of power a Messiah should have! Here’s a Messiah you could get excited about!

I think if you took an opinion poll among the crowd that day, you would find them willing to vote Jesus the Savior most likely to succeed. That’s why they cheered for him. That’s why they waved palm branches in the air, and spread their robes beneath his feet. They were rooting for him. They were scrambling to get on-board his campaign. They were backing him to go all the way to the top.

Six days later, nothing but silence. Jesus lay in a cold stone tomb. Even his closest followers had deserted him. Why? Because what happened that week made it clear that Jesus hadn’t come here to be the Palm Sunday Savior we wanted him to be. He had come to be the Good Friday Savior God wanted him to be. And the people didn’t have any use for a Good Friday Savior.

The people wanted a Savior who would be tough as a ram; God sent them a Savior who was tender as a lamb. The people wanted a Savior who would smash the Romans with strength and power; God sent them a Savior who would submit to be crucified on a Roman cross.

The people were looking for a conquering hero, someone who would make the enemy’s blood flow in the streets. God sent them instead a suffering servant, a Savior who would shed his own blood.

The people wanted their Savior to be a miracle man.

John 12:17-18 Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him.

But the dead-raising Savior they met on Palm Sunday would himself die just five days later. And as he hung there dying on the cross, they mocked him saying…

“Save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God! You saved others, but you can’t save yourself?”

They despised him, they hated him, as he hung on the cross, because he hadn’t turned out to be the kind of Savior they wanted him to be. He didn’t fulfill their expectations. You can almost hear in their taunting voices a little disappointment mixed in with their defiance.

You see, it is the cross that stands between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. It is the cross, and all of the rejection that it represents, that separates our idea of a Savior from God’s idea of a Savior.

Jesus well knew this, even on Palm Sunday. He knew what lay ahead of him. While his disciples were beside themselves with excitement at the tremendous reception Jesus had gotten in the capital, Jesus was on a totally different wavelength. Listen to his words in…

John 12:20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

The Greeks said “We want to see Jesus. We want to see this new Savior everybody is talking about.” Jesus told them what kind of Savior they would see. Not a conquering hero. Not a powerful avenger. But a Savior who was going to lay down his life. Just like a kernel of wheat gives itself up and is buried in the ground so that it might bear fruit, so Jesus would give himself up to die and be buried in order to give life to others. He was rejected so that we might be accepted. And that is where the glory of God lay.

Jesus said “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” You might think “What a strange thing for Jesus to say! He’s just been glorified, hasn’t he? He’s just made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.” But Jesus knew there was no glory in that. The Son of Man wasn’t glorified by God on Palm Sunday. He was only glorified by man. Jesus was glorified by God when he hung on the cross on Good Friday. The only glory that mattered to him was the glory that came on the cross.

When Jesus hung up there on that cross, he was hanging between earth and heaven. He was rejected by man because he wasn’t the kind of Savior we wanted. Nobody wants to hear about the fact that we are sinners, that our hearts are black, that the penalty of our sin is death, and that unless somebody takes that penalty for us, we’re doomed. Nobody wants to hear that our problem isn’t out there, it’s in here. It’s like a doctor telling you you’ve got cancer.

We’d much rather hear about political solutions. Social solutions. Economic solutions. Educational solutions to our problems. But Jesus came with a spiritual solution. He came to take away the blackness of our hearts. And to do that, he had to die. When Jesus told Peter about his coming crucifixion, Peter said “Don’t talk like that! I don’t want to hear it.”

Did you realize that, in dying, Jesus was also forsaken by God the Father. He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God turned his back on His Son because His Son had become the sin-bearer. He bore our sins in his body on the tree. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. God, who is holy, can have no fellowship with sin. That’s why Jesus was forsaken by God. So when he died, he died alone - rejected by man, forsaken by God. But his rejection brought blessing to us.

When a person truly comes to Christ, not as an admirer, not as a fan, but as a committed follower, he has to go through a similar process. A process that involves rejection and suffering, but which ultimately brings blessing.

Paul, in Philippians 3:10 says something very moving…

Philippians 3:10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings

Now, I dare say that we all want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. But I’m not so sure that we’re really too keen on knowing Christ and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.

What exactly does Paul mean? Well, Jesus gave us the answer in the immediate context of his triumphal entry in…

John 12:25-26 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

There are two decision points that you have to reach in following Jesus Christ.

The first is to turn your back on yourself. This is not a very popular idea in a day where everybody is talking about the importance of self-esteem and self-worth. But Jesus said “whoever would become my follower must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” It is the man who hates his life who will keep it for eternal life.

Have you ever noticed that two-year-olds make great anthropology teachers? I am learning a lot about human nature just from watching my two year old. He has developed, all on his own without being taught, the ability to blame other people for his faults. When he does something wrong, and we see him do it, and we ask him about it, he will look up at us with those little blue eyes and say “I didn’t do it.” He will lie through his teeth to save his own skin!

We all have this inborn tendency to protect ourselves, to preserve ourselves, to justify ourselves. And that is what we have to give up if we want to follow Jesus. You cannot come to Jesus if you are full of yourself, if you’re impressed with yourself, if you are trying to justify and protect the way you are.

The very first beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount is “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” You cannot enter the kingdom unless you’re ready to completely abandon that inner tendency to conclude “Hey, I’m really not such a bad guy after all.” That’s what the Bible calls pride. It is the worst sin of all, and it will surely keep you out of the kingdom of heaven if you cling to it.

That’s what you have to reject, and that’s the first step toward following Jesus. The second step is rejecting the world, and being willing to be rejected by the world.

Palm Sunday was a crucial day in the ministry of Jesus. There was a great temptation facing him that day. Look at the dynamics of the situation. He had the crowd on his side. He had the religious leaders off balance. It would be an easy thing for him to capitalize on that political momentum and make a grab for power. Circumstances seemed to line up favorably for him to do that.

But Jesus knew on Palm Sunday that what he wanted to do most was to do God’s will. And he knew what that meant. He knew it would mean that the cheers of the crowd that were still ringing in his ears would turn to snarls of hatred and cries for his execution by the end of the week. Instead of him riding on that donkey into the city, he would be staggering out of the city with a heavy wooden cross on bleeding shoulders.

But that didn’t matter to him, because he had already made up his mind that he was there to do the will of His Father in heaven. He wasn’t in it for the acceptance of the world, but for the glory of God.

If you want to be a follower of Jesus Christ, you are likewise going to have count the cost on this issue. You’re going to have to consider that following Jesus will probably cost you some friends. It will probably cost you some popularity. It will cost you the acceptance of the world that can feel so good at times. You’re going to have to consider that you may have to wear a label that says “religious fanatic” or “fundamentalist”.

You’re going to have to ask yourself “Am I willing to experience that kind of rejection from other people? Am I willing to give up their applause, their approval? Is following Jesus worth it?”

There’s always a temptation to get around this issue. We try to have our cake and eat it too. We’d like to be Christians and not know rejection. So, we try to sanitize Christianity and make it acceptable to the world. We try to dress up the message of the cross and make it attractive to people. We promise them that Jesus will make them rich, and successful, and healthy, and smart. In other words, we try to remove the stigma of rejection from the message of the cross. We try to make Jesus into a more acceptable Savior. The kind of Savior that people would find easier to follow.

When we do that, we’re really trying to turn Palm Sunday into Easter Sunday. We’re trying to bring the cheering Palm Sunday crowd to the tomb to see that Jesus has risen. But it will never work. Because you can’t sneak the Palm Sunday crowd past the cross. The road from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday goes right past a hill called Golgotha.

Did you ever get in trouble in school? I mean so much trouble that your parents had to come to the principal’s office? Perhaps you even got suspended for a few days! That would be horribly embarrassing to have your parents involved like that.

But I want you to imagine that your father was the principal. And one day, you did something so terrible that your father called you into his office. Your behavior demanded immediate and permanent expulsion. But instead of expelling you, he told you that he was going to expel himself! In fact, he was going to have to leave his job because of what you had done. Your behavior was so bad, that your father had to resign.

And what’s more, your father was going to have to move out of the community. He wasn’t going to be allowed to live there anymore. You were such a disgrace, that your father had to leave home. And, if you can imagine it, your behavior was so bad, that the police put out a warrant for your father’s arrest, and he was going to be charged with a capital crime. All because of something you had done.

If you can imagine that, you are on the way to understanding what Easter is all about. You see, the fact that we are sinners is such a serious thing, that God himself had to get involved. He had to leave his home in heaven and come here himself to straighten out the mess. And straightening it out meant that he had to die for us. Because sin is a capital offense. No amount of detentions, or penance, or purgatory, or restitution is ever going to make up for it. Sin means that someone has to die. Either we can die, or someone who has no sin can take our place. And the Son of God said “Let it be me.”

I guess, in that respect, Easter is an ugly holiday. When you take away all the Easter lilies and Easter bonnets and baskets, Easter is all about how the Son of God had to die for us. How he was rejected. But thank God, the rejection he knew brought salvation for you.

But only if you leave that Palm Sunday crowd and take your place at the foot of the cross and there say, in the words of the hymn-writer “Amazing love! How can it be? That thou my God should die for me?”

Have you come to Jesus Christ on those terms?