The Gospels don’t tell us everything Jesus did.
The day before what we now call Palm Sunday, Jesus was in Bethany, at a table with Lazarus and Martha and Mary.
- We read in John 12 that Mary anointed him, pouring costly perfume over his feet, and the room was filled with it’s fragrance.
- We know Judas objected.
- We know a crowd had gathered outside because word had spread about Lazarus, and the chief priests were already plotting — not just against Jesus, but against Lazarus too, because his being alive was bad for their narrative.
We know all of that.
Then the next thing we hear, Jesus comes to Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowd is waving branches, and shouting Hosanna, and the whole city is in an uproar.
- But what about the hours in between?
- What about those unrecorded hours?
- What was happening?
The orders were already out. John tells us the chief priests and Pharisees had instructed that anyone who knew where Jesus was should report it (John 11:57). The city was watching. Jesus was moving through a world that was closing in on him, and we know what would happen later in the week. But while all this was happening, Jesus was doing some very ordinary things.
- Eating.
- Resting.
- Being with people he loved.
- Letting a woman anoint him before anyone understood why it mattered.
Jesus didn’t spend that time strategising, managing, over-functioning, defending himself, or trying to control the narrative. He was simply present. Unhurried. At a table in Bethany with friends.
Maybe the details weren’t written down because they didn’t look like anything.
Most of us know that kind of day. The ordinary ones inside a painful or busy season. Those days where you’re still showing up, still at the table, still trying to be present and faithful even though you are barely hanging on.
Jesus inhabited ordinary hours that nobody wrote down, and nobody remarked on. And Jesus also inhabits yours. And because he does, that means...
- your quiet faithfulness counts.
- Your staying at the table counts.
- Your showing up to something “normal” inside of something hard – well, that counts too.
None of it is lost.
None of it goes unwitnessed by God.
And you are not responsible to make these hours mean something.
Because Jesus is already there, making them holy.
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