Jesus rides into Jerusalem

I was thinking and wondering about how I would've felt on that first "Palm Sunday" with Jesus riding in to Jerusalem and all the crowds cheering. As I got thinking I wondered actually if the ordinary people were excited because here was a man who would maybe not over throw the Romans but might just over throw the controlling religious system the Pharisees had put them under.

Never once in the gospels does it say about Jesus coming head to head with the Roman government. In fact he says one should be paying taxes. But there are many records of Him coming head to head with the religious leaders. The people must have always struggled with the religious laws and of being outsides and here comes a man who flouts the religious laws but for good. He's not antagonistic for the sake of it but to heal, to save life, to feed, to restore and release.

I think Jesus was showing the people how to live in God's freedom under an oppressive government but free from religious oppression. I wonder if this is why people in the parts of the world where one is persecuted for being a believer in Jesus do can hang in there, because they see what He has taught on how to do this.

Often the Church can be accused of being the same as the Pharisees, and then a new freedom with God comes into being but then becomes religious again. But we need to remember when we see this that Jesus did not come and flout the religious rules to be mean, to cause hassle, to be sarcastic, to think He was better, but He came to do good and so must we.