Dear Rowland Nice to know you’re preaching on Palm Sunday. Last year Penny asked me to take Palm Sunday also. Here is what the congregation was subjected. Warm regards kevin

St Martins Palm Sunday 2001

Sorry our preacher is away today, and you’re looking at a last minute substitution. I’m the speaker you get when the one you hoped for couldn’t make it. Remember that person you wanted to take to the special party when you were young, only they got the flu and you had to stoop to dragging someone else along. That was me. Maybe you handed over your hard earned for tickets to see the Rolling Stones, only they’re still in Customs on a drug bust and you sat through 2 hours of a cover band. I’ll try not to be that bad. And I promise I won’t take that long. Or maybe you set your heart on becoming an astronaut or a veterinary surgeon, only the personal tutor you really needed to make the entry standard had a more talented prospect. Peter Drucker, the world’s premier management consultant says he always wanted to be the world’s best art critic, only the art school he applied to as a boy in war-torn Vienna turned him away. Another guy told me of a special person’s birthday he bought a wonderful present for, only he never got invited to her party. I wonder how it’s been with you. What sort of gut-wrenching set backs have you got over? What bone-crushing disappointments do you still carry the reminders of? The gospel we heard this morning tells of someone else who waited a lifetime to be accepted, who has some excellent party gifts only He can’t get the attention he deserves either. The people He looks longingly at are captivated by more alluring friends, more dazzling gadgets and more seductive values. Even those of us who include Him in our circle of friends can’t accept the gifts He has for us. He’s standing at the door holding them out, but our hands are full with the material presents we treasure more. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to give away some of your material gifts, so you’ll have room in your hands to receive the mind-blowing, soul-enriching, sinus-clearing endowments the Main Man has for us. I used to think that God’s gifts were on shelves one above the other; and that the taller we grew in Christian character, the easier we could reach them. I now find that God’s gifts are on shelves one beneath the other. It is not a question of growing taller but of stooping lower; that we have to go down, always down, to get His best gifts. Whether we can do so depends on how thankful we are for all God has given us. Now I’m not going to sermonize on being grateful for the abundance we have, though you might like to hear the late Erma Bombecks call to prayer on thankfulness “Be grateful for automatic dishwashers. They make it possible for mother to get out of the kitchen before the kids come back for between-meal snacks. “Be grateful for husbands who attack small repair jobs around the house. They usually make them big enough to call in professionals who’ll do it right. “Be grateful for children who put away their things & clean up after themselves. They’re such a joy to have around that you hate to see them go home to their own parents. “Be grateful for teenagers. They give parents an opportunity to learn a second language. “And be grateful for smoke alarms. They let you know when the turkey’s done.”

. It wasn’t an unusual practice for a king to ride into a city in a parade. In fact, Jesus triumphal procession was normal. Even nowadays, the Sydney Olympic closing ceremony procession featured those who are closest to the Kings of Australia: Greg Norman, Paul Hogan, Slim Dusty and Elle MacPherson. But 1st century Kings normally rode into cities on stallions that represented their power and authority. Years before Jesus rode into Jerusalem, Alexander the Great, who was supposed to be 6’4″ (plus tax) rode his fiery stallion into city after city as blood-thirsty conquests were made.. History records that when Chancellor Bismarck of Prussia in the 19th century chose to make his grand entrance into Jerusalem, he did so on a giant white horse. He was accompanied by such a large army of officials that a section of the wall had to be removed. That is the way a person of greatness is supposed to enter a city: black limos, bands, waving, cheering crowds lining the streets, live coverage on TV. Not the humble Christ. If he had wanted to impress he could have entered Jerusalem with an army of angels. Instead he enters aboard a lowly donkey, symbolic of humility. He takes a beast of burden, one which was used to serve. Jesus had openly said before that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give His life a ransom for others. Now he is pictured as humility personified, entering the city’s main drag where He would soon be sacrificed for the human race. Benjamin Franklin said it best. He said, “Humility is a virtue so difficult to grasp that if I should ever attain to it, I would be proud of myself.” The Jews were hoping that the Messiah would come to save Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, but down through the years that hope moved more toward the restoration of Israel’s power rather than their need of a savior. The one who was able to raise Lazarus from the dead could defeat the Romans. They had suffered for centuries under the brutal hand of Rome, and they were sick of it. Their messiah dreams were of a warrior king on a white horse, with a huge army to take out the hated Empire, in the same spirit that King David had destroyed the Philistines 1000 years before . They kept watering down what the Messiah would be like. So imagine the dismay of some Jews when they saw that their Messiah was riding into Jerusalem on a donkey colt. If you’ve travelled in Asia you wll have noticed that India has given Visa free travel to all Germans, free landing rights to Germany’s international airline Lufthansa and priority booking to its travel agents. It’s not that Indian people love German people; they can’t even speak their language. The reason is because Germany so weakened Britain in 2 world wars that as a consequence Britain had to remove its army garrisons in Calcutta and give India independence. Any Indian could tell you how the Jews felt about wanting to be free from an occupying ruler and their army. The Jews knew what the donkey meant. If a king wanted to approach a city in peace he would ride up to the gates that way instead of on a war horse. Jesus was going to enter Jerusalem not as a warrior messiah to waste the Roman army, but as the Prince of Peace wanting to conquer the spiritual hearts of the people. This wasn’t just having to accept a substitute deb partner, or miss a Rolling Stone concert, this was their dream leader capable of revolutionary, violent, patriot victory telling them “forget it.” The multitude that day when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, who shouted “Hosanna,” were the same ones who 5 days, would shout, “Crucify Him, crucify Him. We have no king but Caesar.” One week he’s a hero on a donkey, next week He’s a criminal heaving a cross while people spat on Him. Having no heart for the meaning of His humble entrance, and looking for an earthly kingdom, they became bitter& twisted. They missed the point of Jesus humble entrance into Jerusalem. He came to offer personal salvation, so that Israel would once again be a light of truth to the world. Societies are changed when the hearts of the people are changed and filled with the goodness of God. He had come to defeat their foes all right: those of sin, death, and hell. He had come for victory, make no mistake: to earn the crown of righteousness for us. And, He had come to do this in the only way that it could ever be done – by His profound obedience and humiliation, to make an atonement, a payment for our sins by suffering at Calvery. We put signs on our cars to tell people who we are: Jesus Is Lord, Celebrate Christ , I Run On Hugs, If you’re Rich I’m Single. And before I met Marg, I used to date a girl who had a bumper sticker saying Babe to Bitch in 15 seconds (I don’t think I told you about that one, Marg). The sign I want to talk about today is: You Toucha My car, I breaka your face. Behind the imitation Mafia veneer humour, the message is: it’s mine, don’t mess with it. It’s instinctive to warn others off what we say is our turf, just like a rotweiller lifting a leg on its boundary fence. Not everybody was cheering Jesus that Palm Sunday. The crowd had some 1st century mafia types, sworn opponents of Jesus’ ministry. They say to Jesus “Whaddya think this is? Are you tryin to start a riot? Tell these people to Shut It!” For them, Jesus was their worst nightmare. The Pharisees were disturbed by Jesus’ following of common people and his seemingly flagrant disregard for church law. Roman generals were disturbed by Jesus’ popularity, and the possibility that he might incite an uprising against Roman authority. Jesus entered Jerusalem a triumphant hero on Palm Sunday. Five days later he was put to death by a jeering crowd. His crucifixion was a crime of the worst sort, perpetrated by a corrupt criminal justice system in which a weak leader named Pontius Pilate submitted to a crazed street mob. And yet as he was dying, Jesus offered forgiveness to those responsible for the crime against him. The victim turns out to be the savior of the world. The one who embodied the peace of heaven dies just outside a city that is blind to peace, and yet that one who dies brings peace to all who trust in him.

One person who trusted Him was a young fellow in 1931 who was penniless, hungry and jobless in Baltimore. One day he stopped on the street to listen to a Salvation Army service. When a tambourine was passed around for the collection, he told the girl who held it out before him that he would like to give something but had nothing himself, even for his food. She reached into her purse and gave him a dollar, saying, “Take this: put ten cents in the offering, and hereafter give a tenth of all you get to God. Keep this up all your life, and you’ll never be penniless again.” He took her advice, found a job where the girl told him to apply, and began giving his tenth regularly. By 1949 he became a millionaire, and JH Kellogg gave much more than a tenth, building hospitals and helping in many ways to support the work of the Lord. Today is both Passion AND Palm Sunday. It is a day for realizing the magnitude of evil in the world and how hard it is to do the right thing sometimes. Racial genocide in Indonesia that our church can’t find its voice for, 82% of females in Pakistan and parts of Africa left both illiterate and genitally mutilated, one in four people in the world today don’t know what it’s like NOT to go to bed hungry. But today is also a celebration that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Today, Jesus rides into our lives, triumphing over sin and sorrow, conquering evil and chasing away fear, dispelling darkness and shedding new light, healing hurts and bringing back dead hopes. In response to this entry of Jesus into our lives, we can pray with hope even if things look black..

History is full of gallant but depressed people who literally prayed their way from a personal crucifixion to a resurrection experience. Agnes Sandford tells the story of crashed fighter pilot (story) We wave palms because we have long awaited God’s deliverance and now we’re within 7 days of it. We wave palms because Jesus shows us life-saving answers when we feel crushed by problems threatening to overcome us. We wave palms because Jesus has set us free from the destructive longings of our fallen nature. We wave palms because, like the pilgrims who came to Jerusalem and gave thanks for their healing by Jesus, we too can really be healed in body, mind, and spirit.

Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.

Kevin Gray

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• The Jesus Driven Life
• Paul: ‘inspired’? What does that mean?
• 25 LISTS OF EVERYTHING INTERESTING/IMPORTANT
• Miracles and the Virgin Birth etc.

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