Everyone claims they want to eat healthy foods.

Talking about your good intentions is easy. Actually eating healthy foods is hard. At least for me!

The truth about your eating habits is revealed by what you order off the menu.

A healthy salad? Or a steak with all the delicious, high fat, high cholesterol foods that accompany a gluttonous feast?

The economic, religious and political leaders in Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday were gluttons craving money and power. They craved the deadly spiritual equivalents of delicious, high fat, high cholesterol foods.

The words and actions of Jesus threatened these economic, religious, and political leaders. And so they worked together to silence him by torturing and crucifying him.

In contrast, the people who welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday were like people who crave healthy food. As Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt, his supporters “took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting: ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!’”. (John 12:13).

Which “foods” do you crave?

Do you crave money and power? Do you want to silence Jesus? Do you want to silence anyone who follows the Way of Jesus?

Or do you crave healthy “foods”?

Do you crave every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD? (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4).

Do you crave the Way of Jesus that fulfills the Law and the Prophets? (Matthew 5:17).

If you do, then share in the sufferings, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus—who God resurrected and gave “[a]ll authority in heaven and on earth”. (Matthew 28:18).

How can we share in his sufferings, crucifixion and resurrection?

Baptism. (Romans 6:2-8; Galatians 5:24-25; 2 Corinthians 1:3-7).

By going fully under the water to be baptized, we symbolically confirm our decision to suffer and die with Jesus, crucifying our former ways of sinful living.

By rising from the water, God symbolically resurrects our life so that we may have eternal life—a life that we enjoy in this life and in the life to come. (John 10:10; Romans 6:2-8).

By following this Way of Jesus in this life and in the life to come, you will join the crowds who welcome Jesus in the name of the LORD, shouting

“Hear, O [Humanity]: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. Love the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

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Jesus often equated his Words and Teachings with eating. (Matthew 16:5-12; John 6:26-27).

To read more of my thoughts about Palm Sunday, please read the chapter “Jesus Drives the Merchants Out of the Temple” in my book Hoping in the LORD, at pages 223-227.

For my other blogs about Lent, please read “Fear Not the Pestilence That Stalks in the Darkness”, “Do Not Live on ‘Bread’ Alone”, “Do Not Jump Off the Temple”, “Do Not Seek the Kingdoms of the World and Their Authority”, “Beware the Power of Money”, “Beware the Power of Religion”, and “Jesus Climbs the Temple Mount”.