If you obey me, there will always be a descendant of David sitting on the throne here in Jerusalem. The king will ride through the palace gates in chariots and on horses, with his parade of attendants and subjects. (Jeremiah 22:4)I had a great time in the parade Saturday afternoon. The church people walked along and waved and threw candy and the town and county people stood on the side and waved and picked up the candy.
Parades have always struck me as strange in some ways. A few people walk in the center of the street and wave at a lot of people standing on the side of the street. It is kind of like those little trains that went through Hermann Park in Houston, TX, near the zoo. You would sit in the train and wave at people who were standing by the tracks. What for? Who knew? Who cared, for that matter? But you did it anyway.
The children had a good time riding in the little train that Zed pulled along. They were beneficent in their bestowal of candy on the masses. They also had a good time watching kids and sometimes adults practically leap onto the pavement to get the cheap candy Pastor Mel bought.
But the parade was fun. Parades have not always been fun through the ages. Sometimes the parade was of prisoners of war, captives, with wagons of money looted from a neighboring town or kingdom. The people being dragged along behind the king were not happy, sometimes with hooks in their noses and stripped of their clothing, their possessions in several wagons to the rear.
They were in the parade going to their slavery or possible execution. That wasn’t particularly fun. And the people on the sides of the road were jeering and throwing things at them, rotten fruit and vegetables and rocks and such.
God told his people in the Old Testament that if they would do what he said, if they followed him as their God, the parade would always be great. There would be presents for all and everybody would wave and have a great time.
But they didn’t do it. So by the end of the kingdom of Israel they were the captives in the parade and they were the presents to be given as slaves to other people. Their stuff would be kept by the king and given to people he liked and they would live their short lives as prisoners.
What’s the point? Well, I saw that verse and thought of the parade today. One was fun and the other wasn’t. Ours was fun because we are all members of a church in a free country and got the chance to walk in the street and wave to all our friends and neighbors and promote the church and VBS.
The parade to heaven will be like that, as we go singing into the eternal city of Holy Jerusalem. I want to be part of that one, too. In that one we get the gifts and the King is our King.
What a day and what a parade that will be.
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