05/04/2020
Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved. Romans 10: 13
St Andrew’s Church, East Perth
A Congregation of the Uniting Church in Australia
Rev John Myles JP, Retired Minister
5th April 2020 - Palm / Passion Sunday Year A
CALL TO WORSHIP
The story of Palm Sunday tells of how people removed their cloaks,
and spread them out in front of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem.
The cloak we wear every day to face the world is both the persona we wish to present,
and our defence against the elements.
As we come to worship may we be willing to lay down our defences and disguises,
at the feet of the One who sees us we really are.
And then, set free for worship, may we offer our praises with open hearts and lives.
PRAYERS OF ADORATION AND CONFESSION
We have come to meet you today, Jesus.
We don’t know quite what to expect.
We think we know what we need,
how you can meet our needs.
But we come humbly, laying our coats before you.
It’s your call.
Reveal to us who you are,
how you can be a Saviour in our lives,
a Saviour in our world today.
Come Lord Jesus.
O Lord, who on this day entered the rebellious city that later rejected you:
we confess that our wills are as rebellious as Jerusalem’s,
that our faith is often more show than substance,
that our hearts need cleansing.
Have mercy on us, son of David, Saviour of our lives.
Help us to lay at your feet all that we have and all that we are,
trusting you to forgive what is sinful, to heal what is broken, to welcome our praises,
and to receive us as your own. Amen.
Hear then Christ’s words of grace to us, “Your sins are forgiven.
SCRIPTURE Matthew 21: 1-11 Isaiah 50: 4-7 Philippians 2:6- 11 Matthew 26:14 – 27: 66
SERMON
The world is being violently shaken by the coronavirus crisis, much of our public life, including church services, has been affected, even suspended. In the Old Testament we find very strict quarantine regulations for those suffering of infectious diseases, for example, Leviticus chapter 13.
So, when Christians follow government and medical advice to drastically reduce all social contacts, this isn’t an expression of unbelief, as though God doesn’t have the power to protect or heal us; rather, it’s a demand of wisdom and, especially, of neighbourly love. The equation is simple and sobering: The flatter the rate of viral infection progresses, the smaller the number of vulnerable people who will die. Wherever we can contribute to that outcome, we should.
While wisdom, solidarity, and love of our neighbours lead us to participate in containing the current pandemic as far as possible, I’m reminded of the many times in history where the light of Christian love has shone with dazzling brightness amidst dark times of infectious disease and societal upheaval. In fact, Christians overcame the impulse to flee to safety and isolate themselves from the suffering of others:
In 165 AD a plague swept through the Roman Empire, wiping out one in three of the population. It happened again in 251 AD when 5,000 people per day were dying in the city of Rome alone. Those infected were abandoned by their families to die in the streets. The government was helpless and the Emperor himself succumbed to the plague. Pagan priests fled their temples where people had flocked for comfort and explanation. People were too weak to help themselves. If the smallpox did not kill you, hunger, thirst and loneliness would. The effect on wider society was catastrophic. Yet following the plagues the good reputation of Christianity was confirmed, and the Church grew.
Why is this? Christians didn’t come armed with intellectual answers to the problem of evil. They didn’t enjoy a supernatural ability to avoid pain and suffering. What they did have was water and food and their presence. In short, if you knew a Christian you were statistically more likely to survive, and if you survived it was the church that offered you the most loving, stable and social environment.
It wasn’t clever religious spin, or strategic political organisation, or the witness of martyrdom which converted the Roman Empire so much as it was the simple conviction of normal women and men that what they did for the least of their neighbours they did for Christ.
Of course, we know that Love played a very important role in the conversion of the Roman Empire, it’s the essential component in reaching the whole person in a fragmented world. The need is vast, but it’s imperative that we are willing to follow the example of Jesus to meet the need.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if in our time, we Christians would primarily become known for the generous, selfless love of our neighbours, rather than the many things we oppose and judge?
Uncertain times, social upheaval, the threat of poverty, sickness and death; all this naturally leads to fear. In situations like these, the best thing we can do is remember just how great, how good, how strong, how mighty, and how faithful our Lord truly is, and how on that first palm Sunday he entered Jerusalem to prepare to die for us.
Together with Jesus, we enter Holy Week at Jerusalem, a city, then as now, where a remarkable awareness of the presence of the holy has regularly intertwined with violence. As Jesus and the disciples made their puzzling entry into Jerusalem, a festive and agitated crowd gathered. Some people threw down their clothes, while others hacked down branches to spread in Jesus’s path. Religious acclamations were shouted out. Not long after, Jesus’s life would end in bloodshed.
Passover time was volatile and fraught, the Romans needed to increase security. Crowds were a jumble of people and expectations, and not always predictable in their reactions. For those with more revolutionary messianic hopes, the use of branches would recall the triumph of the Maccabees. The spread-out garments could be seen as a royal acclamation.
When Jesus was born, Matthew notes that Jerusalem had been ‘troubled’. He now uses an even stronger term, saying the city ‘quaked’.
So who can now reconstruct accurately the mix of heightened religious beliefs, political hopes, and sheer excitement generated by Christ’s entry into Jerusalem? It wouldn’t have been rare for those in Jerusalem to go out into the streets to greet arriving pilgrims. Leaving Jericho in the east, this group could have taken the Roman road climbing thousands of feet up to Jerusalem.
Pilgrims coming from that direction would arrive at Bethphage, across the Kedron valley. Jerusalem would then come into sight.
But this entry would turn out to be unique and momentous. The entry was made by Jesus in a humble manner, yet it gathered shouting crowds in front and behind him. For some this might have been a parody or reversal of the triumphal entry of kings and emperors, for some it could have announced that the restoration of the Davidic kingdom was at hand, for others a symbolic statement was being made that here indeed was a ruler but with a new, redefined kind of authority.
In no sense was Jesus deluded in his entry into Jerusalem, and our faith in him is that he accomplished God’s providential plan. Neither are we deluded nor under an illusion in believing there is a divine plan established from eternity and progressively revealed to believers.
If they had been open today, in churches around the world, the Lord’s entrance would have been commemorated in various ways; possibly a solemn procession, or a simple entrance. Then the Scriptures would have been read. As well as recording a variety of reactions to and beliefs about Jesus, the Scriptures would unfold the real and saving meaning of what was being said and done by Christ himself. There was indeed an entry into Jerusalem, there were very significant events in that city, and then came the Passion, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.
We need to go step by step into Holy Week and not neglect to meditate as we go. Matthew tells us that when Jesus entered Jerusalem the city was in tumult, quaking, with people asking, ‘Who is this?’.
We Christian believers need constantly to deepen our own faith, and help those who in different ways still ask about Jesus Christ, “Who is this?” The answer is shattering in its power. Jerusalem quaked when Jesus entered it, the earth would quake as Jesus died, and there was a strong earthquake as the angel descended onto the empty tomb. The impact of Christ’s life, death and resurrection is without precedent.
The good news of salvation mustn’t be tamed. Jesus Christ has a sovereign authority not known before on earth; he reigns with the kind of power that is a unique love. He makes a difference to everyone and to everything. The bible’s last book, Revelation, keeps before us the sight of a new heaven and a new earth. There is a holy city too, the new Jerusalem, coronavirus free, coming down out of heaven from God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
World without end. Amen.
APOSTLES CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead; on the third day, he rose again.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION
We pray to you, Lord of palm-branches and the cross,
for you understand us and in love you have promised
not to push away any who come to you.
So we pray for people who feel pushed away:
pushed away from a living faith in Jesus by pressure from friends and family;
those who feel pushed away by other people in churches
if they do not share the same kinds of ideas, or ways, or clothes;
for people who are pushed out by those who want power,
whose main love to be noticed, to have control.
We pray for your church that all those who trust in Jesus
will be made able by your Spirit to follow his humility,
to see and imitate his servant life, to welcome and not to condemn.
Help your church to be like Jesus.
We pray to you, Lord of palm-branches and the cross,
for you know the warm glow of being praised and the loneliness of being hated.
We pray for world leaders,
quick to stand in the limelight taking decisions which affect everyone in the world
but slow at times to do the steady, less glamorous work to which they are called.
We pray for world leaders to understand their role to serve the peoples of the world,
that posturing will be replaced by practical action to make a difference,
and jockeying for position be replaced by genuine efforts
to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and care for those who are weak.
In days when food banks are required in our land
to feed families who struggle to provide the basics for life,
we ask that you rearrange our priorities and help us to live more like Jesus.
We pray to you, Lord of palm-branches and the cross,
because you know how quickly life changes to death.
We pray for those who have recently lost those whom they have loved.
In the shock, confusion, pain and sorrow especially of unexpected loss,
we pray for hearts to be open to the comfort of your Spirit,
shown through friendship and love.
Hear our prayers for those who are ill and suffering at this time; we especially pray for Felicia,
who has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer which has spread to her spine.
As we pray that the radiotherapy, she starts next week will be successful,
we hold Felicia, James, and their family before you, trusting in your mercy and grace.
We ask, God of grace, that you will make us more like some of the crowd:
that we will follow Jesus and give him our praise in the way we live;
that we will turn away from wrong and evil and stand on the Master’s side,
that we will be faithful in worshipping the one who has come in your name
through our singing, our worship, our prayers, our attention,
in giving our skills, time and means through all the days of our lives.
Lord, in your mercy, hear the silent prayers of our hearts……
We ask you to hear all our prayers, O God, in the name of the one who taught us to pray to you, saying...
..
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
We give you all thanks and praise, O God,
for you alone are good and your steadfast love is forever.
The creation of the world was your doing and is a marvel to our eyes.
Your prophets told of the coming one
who would teach your ways and sustain us with your word.
Your son, Jesus, though one with you gave up all he had,
taking on human flesh,
and walking the path of obedience all the way to insult, betrayal and death,
trusting only in your vindication.
Though he was rejected by those who had cheered him,
you made him the cornerstone of new life and raised him to the highest place of honour.
He has opened the gates of justice and become our salvation,
so with shouts of joy we greet his appearing,
and proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord to your glory forever.
Therefore, with our hearts lifted high,
we offer you thanks and praise at all times through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever, world without end. Amen.
BENEDICTION
And now we lay down the palm branches.
And with them we lay down our belief
that there is another way for you to be God.
As the last echo of the final alleluia fades,
so does our hope that this journey can end in any other way.
The week stretches ahead glory-less and pain-full.
Whether we walk with all faith or none,
we look towards the cross,
knowing it is both the most human and most divine of all journeys.
Travel the road with courage, with love,
and with the uneasy peace that is the gift of faith. Amen.
Shalom
John
The Happy Padre
Biblical : Evangelical : Reformed
Confronting Political Correctness
