Sunday of the Passion 3/28/10
Palm Sunday / The Sunday of the Passion
03/28/10
Text: Philippians 2:5-11
Title: For You
Today is an awkward Sunday. We reenacted Jesus’ triumphant welcome in into Jerusalem, as we entered our newly remodeled sanctuary. We sang hosannas as we enjoyed our new organ and listened to the choirs. Then we heard the longest Gospel reading you have ever heard. We heard of Jesus being beaten, scorned, deserted, and finally killed. It was not joyful that is for sure, but it needs to be heard and taken into our very being.
This service has been planned very carefully, so that you can fully experience the joy and sorrow of this week, the most holy of weeks in the church year. I have done this for two reasons. The first being that I am a firm believer that you can’t truly know the full extent of God’s love unless you know of his final time leading up to and including the crucifixion. The second reason we are doing what we are doing is, if past attendance holds true only half of those attending our usual Sunday morning worship services will attend Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services.
What brought this all about is a report from Barna which I read a month or so ago. Barna is a well respected Christian research firm that asked Those who professed to be Christians and who said they attended weekly services what Easter is about. Only 77% of them knew what Easter is about. They also asked another group who professed to be Christian what Easter was about. In that group only 55% of them knew that Easter is when the resurrection of Jesus was celebrated.
As I thought about it the more I came to believe that the Christian community should call Easter Resurrection Sunday. At least Resurrection Sunday would cause some to question why it is called Resurrection Sunday giving those who know a chance to tell them the story of God’s love.
We refer to this week as holy week because it is the week in which our Lord’s passion and death took place. It is in this week that we celebrate that Jesus took all that was unholy into himself and suffered what it deserved. We who know that we are still sinners deserving of God’s punishment are also holy only because by our Lord’s suffering, death, and burial, for he has made us holy in the eyes of His Father
To those outside of Christianity and unfortunately to many in the Christian church Jesus dying, for our sake is fantasy, just the writing of people long ago, as they wrestled with their sin and God’s demand of righteousness. Sound shocking to you? It should, but we should not be surprised, for just as those who stood there at the crucifixion thought it was foolishness many today think the same thing.
Think about it a moment. How can one man who claimed to be God allow himself, indeed willingly gave himself to torture and death even for those who deny him or hate him. It is just nonsense, it is said. And when you look at that mutilated man who we know as Jesus hanging on it, it is not very easy to accept his kingship is it?
It is hard to accept or believe because that is not we would have done. We know a thing or two about what it means to be God don’t we and high up on the list is that if you are king of all things you don’t die.
The cross goes utterly against what is ingrained in us. If we were God, we wouldn’t let anyone nail us to a cross. If we were God, we would never allow ourselves to suffer the mockery, shame, and humiliation that Jesus suffered from the time he was betrayed to the time that He died.
If we were God we would call down twelve legions of angels. We would make Golgotha flow with the blood of a thousand sinners instead of letting nails pierce the veins of the sinless one. That is what we would do. We would kill them all. We would suffer none of the pangs that Jesus endured when He was nailed to the cross.
That is why we have in God’s Holy Word Philippians 2. It is an ancient song that praises Christ for all that He has done for us in His suffering, death, and resurrection. Paul wrote that song down for the congregation of Philippi as they gathered just as we have this morning gathered together to receive Christ’s gifts and sing about all that He had done for His Church.
We too need to read hear Paul’s letter and the Gospel reading because our natural tendency is to deny the reality of our Lord’s life of service even unto death for his human creation.
We have a mind that is moved by lust for power, our power, instead of by mercy. We have a mind that looks at the cross and sees weakness instead of glory. That is why Paul tells us that we are to be of the same mind that Christ Jesus has because he knows that we don’t have that mind, or that attitude toward God.
I urge you as your pastor to take the time out of your busy lives this week to spend holy week with Jesus in this community of believers. Watch him take the position of a slave as he washes the feet of the disciples. Watch him as he stands trial, gets physically, emotionally abused and then is nailed to a wooden cross. Be there as he cries out in pain to God the Father. Be there as he cries out, “It is finished.” Be there with the faithful who stand at the foot of the cross, as they lower his dead body from the cross and lay it in a tomb. Be there and know God’s love.
Today we honor our king as we join our voices with those long ago singing, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!” He deserves glory, honor, praise, and dominion.
We want a living breathing powerful earthly king who we can give glory to, but you see our idea of glory is not his idea of glory. Jesus showed his true glory in none of the things that we would associate glory with. He shows us that anyone who is truly great desires only the good of the other. When Jesus laid down his life for us he revealed the glory that is hidden from sinful eyes. That is why so many today just don’t get it. They want their idea of glory to be his and it just is not so.
Jesus glory is found in his suffering and death, because in his suffering and death, by the shedding of his blood on the cross, Jesus has won life and salvation for you. By the shedding his blood on the cross, Jesus has destroyed the power of death and hell forever. By the shedding of his blood on the cross, he has received all the authority and glory that was always his before he came to be one of us.
And so, this Sunday, as you begin your journey with Christ to the cross, enjoy the time you are spending in worship hearing and singing great music, listening to God’s Word and taking into yourself the very body and blood of Jesus.
Jesus is not the kind of king that you’d expect; he is the king that you and I need, for it is our sin and unbelief that nailed Jesus to that cross, but he does not hate you for it. On the contrary he loves you more than you can ever understand. He is your Savior now and forever. Amen.
03/28/10
Text: Philippians 2:5-11
Title: For You
Today is an awkward Sunday. We reenacted Jesus’ triumphant welcome in into Jerusalem, as we entered our newly remodeled sanctuary. We sang hosannas as we enjoyed our new organ and listened to the choirs. Then we heard the longest Gospel reading you have ever heard. We heard of Jesus being beaten, scorned, deserted, and finally killed. It was not joyful that is for sure, but it needs to be heard and taken into our very being.
This service has been planned very carefully, so that you can fully experience the joy and sorrow of this week, the most holy of weeks in the church year. I have done this for two reasons. The first being that I am a firm believer that you can’t truly know the full extent of God’s love unless you know of his final time leading up to and including the crucifixion. The second reason we are doing what we are doing is, if past attendance holds true only half of those attending our usual Sunday morning worship services will attend Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services.
What brought this all about is a report from Barna which I read a month or so ago. Barna is a well respected Christian research firm that asked Those who professed to be Christians and who said they attended weekly services what Easter is about. Only 77% of them knew what Easter is about. They also asked another group who professed to be Christian what Easter was about. In that group only 55% of them knew that Easter is when the resurrection of Jesus was celebrated.
As I thought about it the more I came to believe that the Christian community should call Easter Resurrection Sunday. At least Resurrection Sunday would cause some to question why it is called Resurrection Sunday giving those who know a chance to tell them the story of God’s love.
We refer to this week as holy week because it is the week in which our Lord’s passion and death took place. It is in this week that we celebrate that Jesus took all that was unholy into himself and suffered what it deserved. We who know that we are still sinners deserving of God’s punishment are also holy only because by our Lord’s suffering, death, and burial, for he has made us holy in the eyes of His Father
To those outside of Christianity and unfortunately to many in the Christian church Jesus dying, for our sake is fantasy, just the writing of people long ago, as they wrestled with their sin and God’s demand of righteousness. Sound shocking to you? It should, but we should not be surprised, for just as those who stood there at the crucifixion thought it was foolishness many today think the same thing.
Think about it a moment. How can one man who claimed to be God allow himself, indeed willingly gave himself to torture and death even for those who deny him or hate him. It is just nonsense, it is said. And when you look at that mutilated man who we know as Jesus hanging on it, it is not very easy to accept his kingship is it?
It is hard to accept or believe because that is not we would have done. We know a thing or two about what it means to be God don’t we and high up on the list is that if you are king of all things you don’t die.
The cross goes utterly against what is ingrained in us. If we were God, we wouldn’t let anyone nail us to a cross. If we were God, we would never allow ourselves to suffer the mockery, shame, and humiliation that Jesus suffered from the time he was betrayed to the time that He died.
If we were God we would call down twelve legions of angels. We would make Golgotha flow with the blood of a thousand sinners instead of letting nails pierce the veins of the sinless one. That is what we would do. We would kill them all. We would suffer none of the pangs that Jesus endured when He was nailed to the cross.
That is why we have in God’s Holy Word Philippians 2. It is an ancient song that praises Christ for all that He has done for us in His suffering, death, and resurrection. Paul wrote that song down for the congregation of Philippi as they gathered just as we have this morning gathered together to receive Christ’s gifts and sing about all that He had done for His Church.
We too need to read hear Paul’s letter and the Gospel reading because our natural tendency is to deny the reality of our Lord’s life of service even unto death for his human creation.
We have a mind that is moved by lust for power, our power, instead of by mercy. We have a mind that looks at the cross and sees weakness instead of glory. That is why Paul tells us that we are to be of the same mind that Christ Jesus has because he knows that we don’t have that mind, or that attitude toward God.
I urge you as your pastor to take the time out of your busy lives this week to spend holy week with Jesus in this community of believers. Watch him take the position of a slave as he washes the feet of the disciples. Watch him as he stands trial, gets physically, emotionally abused and then is nailed to a wooden cross. Be there as he cries out in pain to God the Father. Be there as he cries out, “It is finished.” Be there with the faithful who stand at the foot of the cross, as they lower his dead body from the cross and lay it in a tomb. Be there and know God’s love.
Today we honor our king as we join our voices with those long ago singing, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!” He deserves glory, honor, praise, and dominion.
We want a living breathing powerful earthly king who we can give glory to, but you see our idea of glory is not his idea of glory. Jesus showed his true glory in none of the things that we would associate glory with. He shows us that anyone who is truly great desires only the good of the other. When Jesus laid down his life for us he revealed the glory that is hidden from sinful eyes. That is why so many today just don’t get it. They want their idea of glory to be his and it just is not so.
Jesus glory is found in his suffering and death, because in his suffering and death, by the shedding of his blood on the cross, Jesus has won life and salvation for you. By the shedding his blood on the cross, Jesus has destroyed the power of death and hell forever. By the shedding of his blood on the cross, he has received all the authority and glory that was always his before he came to be one of us.
And so, this Sunday, as you begin your journey with Christ to the cross, enjoy the time you are spending in worship hearing and singing great music, listening to God’s Word and taking into yourself the very body and blood of Jesus.
Jesus is not the kind of king that you’d expect; he is the king that you and I need, for it is our sin and unbelief that nailed Jesus to that cross, but he does not hate you for it. On the contrary he loves you more than you can ever understand. He is your Savior now and forever. Amen.
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 11:38 AM
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