If Jesus had a smartphone ...

... would his Google Calendar look something like this?:

Saturday, April 16 -- Send disciples to find and bring me a donkey.

Sunday, April 17 -- Ride into Jerusalem on said donkey. Wave to the nice people lining the streets.

Monday, April 18 -- Visit the temple and see what the place is like these days. Get mad, tip over some tables and throw the bums out.

Tuesday, April 19 -- Go to the temple again. Get in a theological argument with some guys who definitely don't "get it."

Wednesday, April 20 -- Preach some more in the temple. Watch Judas sneak away to prep for my betrayal.

Thursday, April 21 -- Have a lovely dinner with my disciples upstairs. Watch Judas sneak away again. Wash some stinky dirty feet, then head to the garden and pray while the disciples snooze.

Friday, April 22 -- Stand still while the worst miscarriage of justice ever takes place. Later, carry a heavy wooden cross up a hill, get nailed to it, then die.

Sunday, April 24 -- Shock everyone by rising from the dead.

Thursday, June 2 -- Shock everyone again by rising into the sky and disappearing. Ask Dad why the heck I had to go through all that to get these people's attention.

These days, our lives are so busy that we have to carry some sort of calendar around with us at all times. Before I had a smartphone, I had a PDA. Before that, it was a spiral-bound planner. And before that? Honestly, I can't remember, but it must have been something I couldn't leave home without.

As I drove home from our church Ministry Council meeting tonight, I couldn't help but think about how much time I had spent during the meeting consulting my smartphone calendar and typing in upcoming events. Which got me to wondering if Jesus knew, before what we now call Holy Week began, exactly how things would unfold.

Did he know what would happen each day, when his death would happen and what time he would rise on Sunday, as if an alarm clock had gone off?

At one point, he tells his followers to always be alert, because the exact day of his return to Earth will be unexpected. But since he was God's son, did he get some sort of internal memo that told him when each event in his life was going to happen?

Obviously as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane he knew what was about to happen. Yet he still asked God, if it was His will, to not let him suffer and die the way he knew it was about to happen. Given how it happened, you can hardly blame him.

I choose to believe that he didn't know how every single event would transpire, no more than we know how the activities we type into our smartphones will play out. Because although we think we know exactly where we'll be when and what will happen when we get there, life is still uncertain.

We need to always be alert. No smartphone will ever change that.