[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for April 1 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Save Us
 
When we wave our palms and boldly cry out, "Hosanna," do we dare imagine what we really want God to save us from?  Save me from anger.  Save me from cancer.  Save me from depression.  Save me from debt.  Save me from the strife in my family.  Save me from boredom.  Save me from getting sent back to Iraq.  Save me from the endless cycle of violence.  Save me from humiliation.  Save me from staring at the ceiling at three a.m. wondering why I exist.  Save me from bitterness.  Save me from arrogance.  Save me from loneliness.  Save me, God, save me from my fears.

In viewing Palm Sunday from that angle, we can begin to see the potential for some real depth in this celebration, for embedded in our quaint pageantry is an appeal to God that originates in the most vulnerable places inside of us; and it bubbles, almost beyond our control, to the surface.  "Hosanna."  "Save us."  Please God take the broken places that will tear us apart and make them whole.  We beseech you, God, jump into the water and drag our almost-drowned selves to shore.  "Save us."  "Hosanna."
 
Scott Black Johnston, Save Us
 
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Creating Turmoil
 
In his book The Freedom Revolution and the Churches Robert Spike recalls an incident from the early years of the turbulent civil rights movement. Flying out of Jackson, Mississippi, Spike overhears the conversation of a Catholic sister, sitting across the aisle from him, with her seat companion. The sister is lamenting all the unrest in Mississippi, and she complains about the “outside agitators,” the students and church leaders who have come to her state in support of civil rights, certain that their presence is provoking violence on the part of white racists. “I do not question their dedication, nor even the rightness of their position,” said the sister. “But surely it is a bad thing to create turmoil by stirring up people who feel differently.” As the sister talks, all the while she is nervously fingering a cross hanging around her neck.
 
There’s a tragic irony in the sister’s words and actions, not unlike that of the first Holy Week. For the one whose cross the sister holds most dear, Jesus, would never have taken the risk of going to Jerusalem and proclaiming a new way of living, would never have confronted comfortable patterns and ultimately endured the cross, had he followed the sister’s philosophy.
 
Joel D. Kline, What Did We See in Jesus? 
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The Tomb Is Easier than the Cross
 
In just a matter of days Holy Week takes us from the mountain of festive palms to the mountain of Golgatha’s despair.  And that is why we resist it so.  I mean, do we really need the emotional roller coaster of Holy Week?  What’s so wrong with just jumping from one parade to the next and skipping all the sacrifice and death stuff?  What’s wrong with simply moving on to the joy of Easter, with its white bonnets, Easter eggs, family, friends, big ham dinner, and of course the empty tomb. 
 
Well, I think we know the answer to that.  For starters, an empty tomb, at face value, is a lot easier to deal with than a dying, bleeding Savior on a cross.   Add to that all the pain and suffering that comes with Holy Week, is it any wonder that the human tendency is to try and ignore the events of the week and simply move on to the Easter celebration?  But as much as we’d like to skip Holy Week we know that the only way to Easter is through the cross.  We know where the parade of Palm Sunday leads and we also know that we’re part of that parade.  That is to say, we know this intellectually.  Our hearts are another story.  Our hearts may be more in sync with the disciples and the fear and disbelief that led them to run away.  It would seem that 2000 years later Jesus’ disciples are still running away.
 
Jeffrey K. London, And When You Think It's All Over 
 
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Palm Sunday 
 
What is Palm Sunday? Maybe another way to approach that question is to ask another question: what if the gospel story ended with Palm Sunday? Like the disciples, we maybe would like it if the gospel could conclude right here. After all that the disciples had been through, and with their own secret hope that Jesus would be a political success on whose coattails they would ride to prominence, the disciples looked at the Triumphal Entry and thought, "Now this is more like it!" They probably wanted to capture and bottle that festive atmosphere. It was rather like Peter's reaction to Jesus' transfiguration when Moses and Elijah also appeared with Jesus on the mountaintop. Peter piped up and said, "Let's build some tabernacles right here so we can keep this great thing going forever!" So also on Palm Sunday: if they could have hit the pause button on the remote control of life, this would have been a wonderful image to freeze frame.
 
The problem is that there is no salvation for anyone on Palm Sunday. The people cried "Hosanna," which means "Save us!" But given the world we are in, there could be no salvation from that kind of happy parade. That festive atmosphere, though in one sense befitting the true, deep-down royalty of Jesus as God's Son, still all that hoopla just doesn't fit our world. It doesn't address the problems that need solving.
 
And maybe at this time of war and carnage, of terror and multiple threats of violence all around us, maybe we preachers don't need to work very hard to convince anyone of this point. If we look back upon history, we see that human sin has resulted not in one long string of happy parades but rather in a series calamities, one long and sad parade of calamity and sorrow. Instead of a festive throng, history shows us things like the Trail of Tears on which Native Americans tramped into exile. History shows us boat-loads of black people in chains, taken from their native country and brought to a place called "America," then paraded before potential buyers, not of their services, but of their very lives. History shows us long lines of Jews marching not in some victory parade but shuffling along toward Nazi gas chambers in Auschwitz. History shows us the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the  deathsquads of Rwanda and Sierra Leone. These are the real parades of human history. Carnivals of sorrow, festivals of death.
 
Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations
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Palm Sunday April Fool’s
 
I was reading recently about a truck driver named Cornelius. Cornelius specialized in hauling animals, especially cows. He hauled live cows, and he also hauled dead cows that needed to be disposed of. Sometimes, however, he was hired to haul other varieties of animals.
One April Fools’ Day he received a phone call. “I have a dead elephant for you to pick up in Los Angeles,” said the voice on the other end.
 
“Yeah right,” said Cornelius. “You aren’t going to get me on that one!”
 
The guy said to him, “No, seriously, I’ve got this dead elephant I need for you to pick up.”
 
Cornelius again said, “Look, I know what day this is. You aren’t going to fool me today of all days!”
 
The guy was insistent that this was a serious call, but Cornelius was equally determined that he wasn’t going to be the object of an April Fools’ Day prank. He told the guy that if he drove all the way out to Los Angeles and it was a joke, he would charge the caller double plus a fee for the extra tow truck that Cornelius would require.
 
The caller agreed and so Cornelius drove to Los Angeles and, indeed, there was a dead elephant waiting on him. He wouldn’t believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. I mean, getting such a phone call on an April Fools’ Day would make you suspicious. 
 
Many who witnessed Jesus riding into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday probably thought they were witnessing an April Fools’ prank. They had come out to see what they thought was the leader of a new religious movement, and quite possibly the long-awaited Messiah. They had heard amazing stories about this man about his feeding thousands of people with two fish and five small loaves, about his ability to heal, and even about his raising of Lazarus from the dead. Could this be, they wondered hopefully, the One they had long been awaiting?
 
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Walking the Walk 
 
Christ’s commitment reminds me of a Japanese social worker who lived before and during the Second World War named Toyohiko Kagawa. Kagawa was a devout Christian whose faith caused him to have an extraordinary impact on the working conditions of ordinary citizens in Japan. He was so well thought of in that land that he came on a mission to the U.S. before the beginning of the Second World War to seek to prevent that terrible conflict breaking out. Even though he failed in this effort, he gained international renown for his Christian witness and selfless work.
 
Years later Kagawa was on a lecture tour to the United States. Two college students were walking across their campus after hearing him speak. One of them confessed that he was disappointed in Kagawa’s simple message.
 
After some reflection, the other student replied: “I suppose it really doesn’t matter very much what a man says when he has lived as Kagawa has lived.”
 
That is true. In today’s vernacular, it is more important that Kagawa walked the walk and not just talked the talk….
 
The rest of this illustration and many additional illustrations and sermons, including many resources for Palm and Passion Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.
 
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