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We are living in a world at war.
You can feel it—even when nothing obvious is happening.
A constant hum of anxiety. Fear of what is… and what might be.
Nations posturing. Systems straining. People on edge.
Even something as simple as travel carries weight now.
This week, we are praying for our missionaries in Honduras as they prepare to come home. We’re mindful of government instability, long airport lines, and how quickly inconvenience can turn into something more.
And into that world—this world—Jesus rides into Jerusalem.
Not on a warhorse.
On a donkey.
While the world braces for power,
he chooses weakness.
While people cry out, “Hosanna—save us!”
he refuses to save them the way they expect.
Psalm 118 was on their lips:
“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD!”
They were right to sing it.
They just didn’t understand it.
Because Jesus did not come to take control of the kingdoms of this world.
He had already rejected that offer.
He came to establish a Kingdom that does not run on fear, domination, or control.
And that leaves us with a hard question:
What kind of Christians are we becoming?
Because there is a version of Christianity right now that is loud, anxious, and angry—
deeply invested in worldly power,
quick to fear,
quick to grasp,
quick to fight.
But that is not the way of Jesus.
Rich Mullins once wrote in Land of My Sojourn:
“Nobody tells you when you get born here
how much you’ll come to love it
and how you’ll never belong here…”
He called this life “the land of my sojourn.”
A sojourn is a temporary stay—a place you live for a time, but not your final home.
And that’s the truth we keep forgetting.
We love this place.
We pray for this place.
We serve this place.
But we do not belong to this place.
“If I stand here by the Jordan,
I will not be afraid…
I know I don’t belong here.”
That’s not disengagement.
That’s clarity.
Because when we forget that, we start clinging.
We start needing things to go our way.
We start baptizing our fear as faith.
We start confusing the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of this world.
And Jesus will have none of it.
He rides in on a donkey to make it unmistakably clear:
My Kingdom is not like that.
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
The One they wanted to crown… they would soon crucify.
Because he refused to play their game.
Holy Week is an invitation to stop playing that game too.
To lay down:
- the need to control
- the addiction to outrage
- the quiet fear that everything depends on us
And to take up something better:
Trust.
Surrender.
Faithful presence.
“Open to me the gates of righteousness…”
Not the gates of power.
Not the gates of control.
The gates of righteousness.
Because we belong to another Kingdom.
And that frees us to live differently here.
To love our country—without needing it to save us.
To pray for our leaders—without putting our hope in them.
To care deeply—without being consumed by fear.
“This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Not because the world is steady.
But because Christ is.
And his Kingdom cannot be shaken.
So this Holy Week, walk with him.
Follow the King on the donkey.
Not the one we would choose—
but the one we desperately need.
Because this is the land of your sojourn.
And you don't belong here. In the words of the anonymous poet...
This world is not my home,
I'm just a passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;
The angels beckon me from heaven's
open door,
And I can't feel at home in this
world anymore.
O Lord, you know I have no friend like you,
If heaven's not my home,
then Lord what will I do?
The angels beckon me from heaven's
open door,
And I can't feel at home in this
world anymore.
Grace and Peace,
Tom
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