SPECIAL DAYS: Passion, Palm Sunday

March 24, 2002 - Lessons: Psalm 118.1-2, 19-29; Matthew 21.1-11

Sermon Title: The King Is Coming!

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INTRODUCTION:

"A fiery horse with the speed of light,
a cloud of dust and a hearty "Hi-Yo Silver!"
The Lone Ranger rides again!
Return with us now to those
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear!"

Its not the same without the music, the William Tell Overture, Rossini

  1. The thrilling days of yesteryear.
    1. Sitting beside the radio listening to the drama and imagining the details.
    2. Television could not and cannot provide the same experience.
    3. The stories always had a happy ending.
      1. I like stories with happy endings.
      2. The hero or heroine is successful.
      3. The villains are dispatched.
  2. Palm Sunday is the beginning of a story with a happy ending.
    1. We are near the end of the story, but not yet.
    2. We need the details of the story.
    3. We need the details so that we can assess our relationship to the main characters and the purpose of the story.

MAIN BODY:

  1. The King is coming, he comes riding on donkey.

Henri Nouwen found a sculpture of Jesus on a donkey in the Augustiner Museum in Frieburg. (1)

He calls it one of the most moving Christ figures he knows.

The fourteenth-century sculpture originally came from a small town close to Breisach on the Rhine. It was made to be pulled on a cart for the Palm Sunday procession.

Nouwen found himself drawn to this sculpture.

He sent postcards of it to his friends and keeps one in his prayer book.

Looking at the face of Jesus he reflects,

"There is melancholy, but also peaceful acceptance.

There is insight into the fickleness of the human heart, but also immense compassion.

There is a deep awareness of the unspeakable pain to be suffered, but also a strong determination to do God's will.

Above all, there is love, an endless, deep and far-reaching love born from an unbreakable intimacy with God and reaching out to all people, wherever they are, were, or will be.

There is nothing that he does not fully know.

There is nobody whom he does not fully love."

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  1. What does Palm Sunday have to offer us in our understanding of Jesus and the story?
    1. We find a King who backs up talk with action.

Comedian David Brenner used to do a routine about Superman in the movies.

Picture this scene. Superman is confronting one of the bad guys.

The bad guy would fire at Superman with a gun.

Superman would smile and throw his chest out.

The bullets would bounce harmlessly away.

But did you ever notice what happened next?

Brenner said,

"And then when the guy ran out of bullets, he would throw the gun at Superman.

And Superman ducked.

"He ducked! I'll bet you never thought about that before. Bullets bounced off of him, but when a gun was thrown at him, Superman ducked.

      1. Perhaps that amusing insight will serve to remind us that Jesus did not have to enter Jerusalem.
      2. He could have ducked his mission.
      3. But still he rode on.
    1. We find a Savior who through the events of this week helps us to understand what is being done for us.

Kenneth Lyerly of Kenosha, Wisconsin was the narrator at his church's Easter cantata a few years ago. (2)

He remembers that as they were about to go into the sanctuary to sing, the pastor came up to him and asked if he would be willing to carry the cross out at the end of the service.

Kenneth agreed without giving it a second thought.

"But as the cantata went on," he recalls, "I had a lot of time between narrations to think about what I had been asked to do."

From where he was standing he could see the cross at the rear of the sanctuary.

"As I thought about carrying it out, I had a strong feeling of not being worthy."

He thought that someone else should do it.

"I wondered why the pastor had asked me. Why hadn't he asked someone else?"

These thoughts distracted him from what he was supposed to be reading in the cantata.

His eyes kept returning to the cross.

At the end of the service, the pastor brought the cross over and handed it to Kenneth.

He was struck by its size and weight.

"It wasn't a very big cross," he said, "but at that moment it seemed very large and very heavy."

The walk from the front of the church to the back seemed a long way.

"A part of me wanted to get it over with; to get out of there and put it down, because I felt very uncomfortable with it."

Then something unexpected happened.

"When I got out into the narthex, I turned and watched as the children started to come out of the sanctuary."

A little boy looked up and touched the cross.

He asked, "Did Jesus really die on a cross like this?"

"It was all that I could do to say yes,"

Kenneth later said, "but I did manage to get it out.

I'll never forget what happened next.

His face lit up as he began to comprehend, probably for the first time in his life what Jesus had done for him.

As I lay the cross down, I felt very pleased that I had been given the opportunity to carry it."

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  1. We find in the events of this story a deeper apprehension and appreciation for the meaning of sacrifice..
    1. A Savior who is willing to forgive the bad as well as the good.

After years of wandering, Clint Dennis realized something important was missing from his life. (3)

He decided to attend church.

As he entered a church for the first time he noticed people putting on long robes.

They were also tying ropes around their waists and wrapping headdresses around their heads.

"Come be a part of the mob," a stranger told him.

It was Palm Sunday and the church was re-enacting the Crucifixion in costume.

He would be part of the crowd that shouted, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

Hesitantly he agreed.

Then another stranger hurried up to him.

"The man who was supposed to play one of the thieves on the cross didn't show up," he said.

"Would you take his place?"

Again Clint agreed and was shown to the cross where he would look on as Jesus died.

Just then, though, something about Clint's manner caught a member's eye.

He turned to Clint and asked, "Have you ever asked Jesus to forgive your sins?"

"No," Clint replied softly, "but that's why I came here."

There beneath the cross, they prayed, and Clint asked Jesus to come into his heart.

What the church didn't know was that Clint had been in prison for ten years.

He was a real thief.

Even after his release he had gone on stealing cars and trucks until he realized that something was missing from his life.

In that moment he found forgiveness and reconciliation.

It is the forgiveness and reconciliation that is always present for the one who is willing to ask.

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    1. We discover anew a Savior who is able to comprehend and appreciate the varied experiences of our lives.

In Korea there once stood an ancient bell famous for its beautiful tone. (4)

It had been commissioned by a king as a way of showing the people's devotion to Buddha.

The king's advisors had told him that making a huge temple bell would secure the nation from foreign invasion.

The specialist who cast the bell had produced several failures until he concluded that the best way to produce a great bell was to sacrifice a young maiden:

Soldiers were sent to find and fetch such a young girl.

Coming upon a poor mother in a farm village with her small daughter, they took the child away, while she cried out piteously: "Emille, Emille!"

Emille responded, "Mother! O Mother!"

When the molten lead and iron were prepared, the little girl was thrown in.

At last the bell maker succeeded.

The bell, called the Emille Bell, made a sound more beautiful than any other.

When it rang, most people praised the art that had produced such a beautiful sound.

But whenever the mother whose child had been sacrificed heard it, her heart broke anew.

Her neighbors, who knew of her sacrifice and pain, could not hear the beautiful tone without pain either.

      1. Only those who understand the sacrifice can feel the pain.
      2. Others just enjoy the sound.

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    1. Jesus through this sacrifice understands the pain, he felt it.

President William Clinton, popularized the phrase,  "I can feel your pain."

      1. Jesus empathizes with us.
      2. We identify with him.

CONCLUSION:

  1. What we have learned may temper our exuberance and this information influences our feelings and heightens our expectations.

A lady tells about the Palm Sunday celebration at her church. (5)

It was their tradition to celebrate Palm Sunday with members marching outside the church waving palm leaves as they sang the Palm Sunday hymns.

Because they knew that Palm Sunday was but a prelude to Good Friday, however, the congregation was careful not to get too giddy as they did this.

After all, as she says, "We already know, as Paul Harvey says, `the rest of the story.'"

It's hard to put your whole heart into the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem when you know what comes next.

"So the adults hold back..." she writes,

"And somehow we think if we don't get too exuberant with the palm frond on Sunday,

maybe we can escape the nail on Friday."

    1. We cannot escape the nail of a Good Friday, but we can join in the rejoicing of Easter.
    2. It's quite a day.
    3. To understand and feel, we immerse ourselves in the activities that reminds us of the events.
  1. IT'S PALMS, AND SUPPER, COMMUNION AND GETHSEMANE, A CROSS AND A BURIAL, A SEALED TOMB AND AN EMPTY ONE.

Amen!

1. The Road to Daybreak. Henri J. M. Nouwen. New York: Doubleday, 1988, pp. 134-135.

2. Lectionary Stories. John E. Sumwalt, Lima OH: C. S. S. Publishing Company, Inc., 1992, pp. 61-62.

3. "The Thief." Jo Hart. Snowflakes in September. Nashville: Dimensions for Living, 1992, pp. 13-14.

4. Lee Oo Chung, "One Woman's Confession of Faith." New Eyes for Reading: Biblical and Theological Reflections by Woman from the Third World, eds. John S. Pobee and Barbel von Wartenberg-Potter (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986), pp. 19-20. Cited by Thomas Troeger, Imagining the Sermon (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992).

5. Stories for the Christian Year. Eugene H. Peterson. (ed.) New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992, pp. 104-109.

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