Imagine if you were on a game show called “Royalty!” The game is quite simple. All you have to do is choose one of the two prizes. The game is called Royalty because “you're the king or queen for the day”, so anything goes. Are you ready to play? Then just choose which you would rather have. Just keep your choice in mind.

Please choose between a classic Cadillac or a rusted pickup truck. This question would make any game show contestant leap for joy. They would find this an easy choice. But wait there's more! If you pick the rusted pickup truck, you can donate 10,000 dollars to a charity of your choice. What would you choose? 

The second choice is either dining with Tom Hanks for dinner or feeding a homeless man for a year. People would leap to eat with Tom Hanks any day rather than the homeless man. What would you choose? You could dine with Tom Hanks over a lobster dinner, yet the homeless man would have appreciated some help.

The final choice is even simpler: you can either have an actual crown worth millions or choose the servant rag. But wait, if you choose the serving rag there's more! You will have donated enough to start a mission in a third world country which has not heard the Gospel! You may get nothing but the rag, but hey you're helping people hear the Gospel.

Today in the modern world, people make choices every day like this. Our society thinks of “choices” as meaningless. You cannot prove which one choice is the right one. The fact that choices are meaningless leads to the understanding that life is pointless. Therefore, people are free to make any decision they wish even if this benefits only themselves.

Yet even worse, people choose to be depraved about their choices made to their body. Many people spend more money on alcohol and drugs than any day to charity. We would rather just make ourselves feel good rather than serve others. Life is pointless, why not feel good instead? That's the way most people think.

Yet real royalty chooses based on the needs of His people. The welcome Jesus had in Jerusalem would be considered how a king should be treated. People were chanting His name, waving palm branches which was a symbol of victory, and even laid down robes for his own mule to walk on. When we think of Christ as the king of kings, the public would think of Palm Sunday. But this was not the kind of king Christ would come to be and still is today. Christ would make choices that would show why we praise him today.

     The first choice, between the rusted pickup truck and the Cadillac, is like Christ’s choice between a colt or a white horse. The royalty of Christ’s time would rather ride on a white horse rather than a colt. But Christ does this because it’s the Father’s will. For Zechariah states, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” He does this because this is a sign to the Israelites that he is the messiah.

Yet Christ's first choice is to ride into town on a mule. When kings would usually go into battle, they would rather choose a white horse. A white horse would be a symbol of war. A lot of Israelites wanted Christ to go to war with the rest of the world for them. They want to have victory over all foreign people. Rather they would want their enemies to tremble and then Christ would become their ruler upon earth. Instead of being a king that would wage war, He became known as the prince of peace. He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey thinking about the whole world’s salvation.

     The second choice between dining with Tom Hanks or feeding the homeless person can be compared to eating with people of high status or a tax collector. This would seem to be an easy decision for Israelites because dining with royalty would be an honor, whereas Zacheus is a tax 

collector. No one wants to hang around the person who cuts into your profits. Most Israelites would think, “Why bother with him at all? How can someone collect money for the roman empire who now rules over the Israelites own people?” To them the tax collector is not worth their time. In our time, this is what the local news says about the homeless. The news casts the homeless in a unfavorable light by talking about them as unclean and dangerous.

Yet to Christ, the tax collector is another sinner in need. A person who needs to hear the Gospel like everyone else. For Christ knows the sick need a doctor, therefore he would dwell with sinners rather than the rich and famous. He would rather give people salvation and free people from sins than become caught up in the limelight.

Finally, Christ would gladly choose a serving rag over an actual crown any day. When Christ puts a cloth around his waist to clean the disciples' feet this signifies Christ is there to serve the people. For him, serving the people is the ultimate action a king should do. A king should always choose to serve His people, because God the Father has given Him authority over all who believe.

So how do we summarize Christ’s choices? We can understand he takes up a crown of thorns. He chose to go to the Cross because this was his Father’s Will. He chose us and paid the price for our sins with His blood. Christ knew full well the people who were jeering him are were the reason He would go to the cross. But He does these things because to love God with all his heart, soul and mind, is to choose to do His Will. For this leads to the second greatest commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

So now my fellow brothers and sisters, even though we have exited the season of lent, let us make choices that honor our King throughout the church year.  Let’s make our choices matter, for the Lord certainly has chosen us to deliver His message of the Gospel. Amen