His Steadfast Love Endures Forever
Psalm 118:1-9 and Luke 19:28-40
Palm Sunday / Sixth Sunday in Lent
April 13, 2025
If you have been following along with our Lenten daily devotional readings by Walter Brueggemann, “A Way Other Than Our Own,” you will have noted by now, that if there is no other take away from the book, it would be that we are to look beyond this world for our contentment and inner peace.
Indeed, we are to look to a way that is truly other than our own; a way that is not of this world.
The Psalmist re-enforces this when he states that we are to give our thanks to our Lord, for this is where our abundance comes from. It is the Lord who provides our blessings.
In these short nine verses, it is repeated four times why this is so. It is because of the love that our Lord has for us. It’s not a fleeting or fading love, rather a steadfast love that endures forever.
Here on earth, relationships with other people may come and go, and there may seem to be an ebb and flow to life at times; however, in our relationship with our Lord, it is a way other than what we know here on earth, because His steadfast love endures forever.
When I think back over my life, I can reflect on the changes that occurred in my life’s journey, and the one constant factor that remains is my Lord. I’m sure it is the same for you.
When life gets tough, the Lord is there with us. When people hate us, the Lord is there with us. When we rejoice in successes, the Lord rejoices with us.
When we don’t see a way out, we can take refuge in the Lord knowing that he will see us through until the end, and he will be there walking with us in the wilderness, and will deliver us to a broad place.
In Hebrew the word distress means a small place or confinement. The Psalmist recounts how the Lord delivered him when he called out to the Lord. The Lord delivered him to freedom, safety and liberty or a place of abundance.
I love the term “broad place.” It is a metaphor used to express God’s grace and provision for our lives.
If there is one thing we can be at peace knowing, it is that the Lord is ever walking by our side, leading us, and even carrying us through times that become too difficult for us to walk alone.
His steadfast love endures forever.
In our gospel story, we are reminded how Jesus prepared the way.
Jesus went ahead of the crowd to make preparations for his journey into Jerusalem. The disciples are sent to retrieve the colt, and do as they are instructed by telling the owners, “The Lord needs it.”
When they return with the colt, they throw cloaks on it, and Jesus sat on it.
As he rode along, his followers kept spreading their cloaks on the road as he approached them, and the multitude were shouting, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
They gave God praise joyfully and loudly! In this moment they were not ashamed or afraid.
And although the Pharisees wanted the crowd silenced, Jesus tells them, they cannot be silenced, and even if they were, the stones themselves would shout out.
The multitude gets it. They realize that their God, our God, removes us from the confinement and constraints of this world to a broad place of abundance – a place of freedom, liberty and safety forever – a place not of this world. A place other than our own. A place not led and ruled by worldly leaders, rather a place with the One whose steadfast love endures forever.
As we joyfully shout with the multitude on this Palm Sunday and begin our walk into Holy Week, the walk with Jesus leading up to his greatest trial in the wilderness, I’d like to share with you a short story written by Emilie Griffin from “Small Surrenders: A Lenten Journey.”
[Story: He Kept On Walking]