Worship
Service for March 24, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Lord, You enter this space to encounter us
as we also wish to encounter You.
P: May we receive You willingly.
L: You come to us with grace, mercy, and
redemption in the gift of Jesus Christ.
P: We come with burden and worries, sins and
sorrows which we lay at Your feet.
L: As an act of Thanksgiving with Palms and
Praises, we welcome You this day.
Opening Hymn – Hosanna, Loud Hosanna #89/297
Prayer of Confession
Most caring Christ, so often
we have wandered away from Your embrace and turned away from Your extension of
love toward us. Holy God, forgive us our
sin and return us from our wandering ways, restore us to a right relationship
with You through Your everlasting forgiveness, and grant us the peace and rest
found only in Your grace and mercy. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: This day reminds us of Your
deliverance. With shouts of joy and
songs of praise we proclaim our Alleluias and our Hosannas. You have entered this place to save us. For that we are indeed thankful.
P: Alleluia
and Hosanna, Loud Hosannas to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church; the
communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and
the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Gracious God, the author of salvation, we give you thanks for
Jesus Christ, our Lord, who came in your name and turned the lonely way of
rejection and death into triumph. Grant us the steadfast faith to enter
the gates of righteousness, that we may receive grace to become citizens of Your
heavenly kingdom.
Holy Father, who gave his only son so that we might find life
and live it abundantly, awaken in us the humility to serve wherever creation is
broken and in need. By your Spirit, call us into the world as a holy
people, dying to the things which separate us from your love, and being raised
with the abundance and joy of hope and peace. Through humility let us
crucify our pride. Through simple living let us crucify poverty.
Through solidarity let us crucify suffering. Through faith let us crucify
despair.
Patient God, be with us today as we witness again the entry of
Jesus into the holy city. Remind us that
our "holy cities", our souls, need to welcome Jesus, truly in
celebration and in commitment to his witness to us. We can so easily get caught up in the noise
and forget the Savior. We can get so
focused on the celebration and colors that we look past the solitary figure on
the small donkey. We stand at the gates
this day to welcome Jesus. May our
welcome of Jesus also be reflected in our welcome of others who come into our
midst. Free us from judgment and
prejudice, that we may be open to hearing your word through the ministry of
Jesus and the disciples.
Sovereign Lord, everlasting and almighty, in your tender love
for your children, you sent your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon him
our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his
great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his
suffering, and also share in his resurrection.
Walk with us to the cross.
Stop us from running and hiding, from siding with the enemy because we
are too afraid to speak the truth of Your love.
Help us look up at the figure on the cross, remembering how Jesus was
faithful to the end of his earthly life.
Cause us to be as faithful in all that we do. Then we can truly shout with the others in
the parade. “Hosanna, Hosanna in the
highest, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”
As we have spoken the names of ones
who are near and dear to us who need your healing love, O God, help us also
remember that we need a good measure of your grace and mercy. Bring us through this parade into the comfort
of your love. We pray this day
especially for…..
And in silence we offer up our
unspoken prayers to you…
We pray
this in the name of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and forever, as we continue to pray 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. Forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors. And lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – Ride
On! Ride on in Majesty #91 Blue Hymnal
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Isaiah
50:4-9a
Second Scripture Reading – Philippians
2:1-11
Sermon – Palm
Sunday
Over the years, I’ve preached about
Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem that we celebrate on Palm Sunday. The story about how the people lined the
streets, waving palm fronds and shouting, “Hosannas!” from one of the entries
into Jerusalem, welcoming Christ on the back of a donkey. While at the same time another crowd lined the
streets, at the eastern gate to welcome the political ruler to their city with
legions of Roman soldiers marching down the grand promenade. I’ve talked about the differences between
these two parades and their meanings.
But, have we ever really talked about the importance of this day –
beyond the parades, the shouting of Hosannas and the waving of palm fronds?
This
Palm Sunday, I’ve chosen the Epistle reading in Philippians Chapter 2 as the
sermon text. This section in
Philippians, verses 1-11 is probably the most well-crafted passage in all of
Scripture. It explains the very central
concept and heart of Christianity. It
tells of the purpose of Christ. It lays
out the plan for humanity now that Christ has come into the world. And it speaks to transforming suffering into
joy through the mind of Christ demonstrated in his divine humility.
God is calling us to receive the gift
of joy in the midst of our suffering, just has he did for us, by putting on the
mind of Christ. How do we do that? What are the divine features of this Palm
Sunday mindset that can transform suffering into joy?
Philippians
says that “Jesus was in the form of God but did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being
born in the likeness of a human being.”
Before we can understand what this
passage is saying, we should probably take the time to investigate what it is
not saying. This passage, which has
often been misunderstood, is not saying that Jesus emptied himself of his
divine nature in order to become human. The author of Philippians is saying, rather,
that Jesus shed his royal robe of prerogatives. His divine rights for angels to swoop down
from heaven and remove this obligation from him. His divine rights to be worshipped and adored
as God’s Son. His divine rights to
simply announce the salvation of all humanity.
Instead, he emptied himself of his rights of divinity not his actual
divinity in order to become like one of us, to become human. He chose not to “exploit” his rights in order
to fulfill God’s plan to save. Why? So that we could have a model to emulate, “Let
the same mind be in you as it was in Christ Jesus”, so that we would know how
to choose on our own, which path to take, which way to turn. So that each of us can figure out how to live
in the suffering of this world without choosing hatred to counter it. That’s why Christ chose the same pathway we
would have; not allowing his divine rights to supersede his pathway. Because we can’t.
Imagine
that we were entomologists from Penn State who wanted to study insects and
learn more about ants in Pennsylvania. The greatest way for us to do this is to
actually become an ant, live in an ant bed, subject ourselves to the same
environment as other ants, and to experience life as an ant, yet we never
stopped being humans. This is the most logical approach that C.S. Lewis took in
teaching about the incarnation:
“The
Eternal Being who knows everything and who created the whole universe became
not only a human but (before that) a baby, and before that a [fetus] inside a woman’s
body. If you want to get the hang of it,
think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.”
And
what does this say to us today? The way
to gain in life is to lose. The study of
“leadership” understands this intuitively. Those who lead must always be down in the mud
with the troops. There are paintings of
General Washington crossing the Delaware river to camp at Valley Forge in the
fight against the English. Or even a teacher,
get down and sit on the ground next to a little boy who had received a pretty
good beating from bullies on the playground (yes, those kinds of things still
happen). For a boy, there is nothing
worse than getting bullied on the playground from other boys who tease and
taunt. That teacher knew this could
impact every area of learning for that boy. Rather than simply punish the bullies, the
teacher’s act of compassion in sitting quietly by the student on the floor in
the hall that day was as important as any paper he would grade that year. This is not just a teacher, this is an
educator, an inspiration, a hero, to that kid.
These
and so many others like them are examples of leaders who get their boots and
shoes muddy. They gain respect as they
give themselves away freely to those they lead.
A husband and wife gain esteem in each
other’s eyes by giving themselves to one another, prioritizing the other above all
else in small everyday ways. They each gain
the love and devotion they crave by honoring one another in small, everyday
ways by supporting their mate.
That
is what Christ did for us. He got down with
the troops in the depths of icy winter. He
got down in the muckity-muck. He got
down in the ditches. He sits with us on
the floor of the hallway. He sits with
us in our sorrow. He sits next to us on
the park bench when we don’t have a clue about life. He sits next to us on the hospital’s visitors
room couch waiting to hear news. He lies
with us after the car crash or embraces us in the fire or takes our hand at our
death bed. He shares every pain and
sorrow with us.
In
a very similar way this church will find her place in this community by giving
herself away to this community. Imagine
that we are all doing this to each other in an endless circle of giving and
receiving: what a beautiful picture of Christ this would be among us.
How
many of you have injured a body part?
As
we get older, I think this happens more and more, doesn’t it?
So,
we take something for it. We might take
an Aleve or an Aspirin. I think each of
us have a favorite “go-to” for aches and pains.
We might rub some icy/hot cream on it.
If it is really bad, we might go to an Urgent Care center or to the
Emergency room where a doctor might give us something a bit stronger to help
take away the pain. The injury itself doesn’t
go away, but the pain of that injury is lessened.
What
if we could do this with and for one another?
Help carry the pain. Rub in a
little salve to ease the suffering. If
we are doing that with one another within the church and in our communities, suddenly,
even accumulated sorrows begin to be transformed. Why, because we are being Christ to one
another. We are taking on the burden of
sorrow for one another. We are sharing
that burden and transforming it into something else. When we care for each other, a spark of laughter
invades the space of pain. A little joke
shared among those in pain and the caregivers lightens the air. A similar story told among the group is shared
history. In doing so, we are transforming
pain into joy. And joy is a powerful
solvent that dissolves even the most resistant sorrow. The sting is taken out. The hurt is removed. The cause of the sorrow doesn’t ever really go
away, but the pain of that sorrow is lessened.
There
are some that will tell you that you can go skipping through the tulips with
exuberance from this life to the next with no problems. But that is neither real nor true. It is certainly not what the writer of
Philippians is teaching here. But there
is a transformation based on the life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that
takes every sorrow, every defeat, every problem, every trial, every heartache,
every tear and mixes it together with the love of God in Christ and causes the
very things that would seek to destroy us to become the very things that heal
us. But only if we, together, have the
mind of Christ. You’ve heard it said
that it “takes a village” to raise a child.
It also takes a village, a Christian one, to share the burdens of others
and to receive the transformation of pain into joy.
This
is the fullness of the message of Christ, why he came, what he was about, and
what lessons we have to learn to further the message of the gospel. This is the Gospel of Palm Sunday. And the Lord rides not only into Jerusalem on
the back of a donkey, but also into your life and into mine with this message,
“Give your life away in service to others that you may gain eternal life; go
down to serve that you may be exalted” and those of us who have tasted the
glorious paradoxical power of this Palm Sunday message will even answer,
“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”
AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Glory be to you, O God, for the gift of
creation and for your everlasting mercy.
Praise be to you, O Christ, for your redeeming love and the promise of
new life. Thanks be to you, O Holy
Spirit, for guidance, counsel, and abiding revelation. We honor and worship you in presenting our
offerings this day. Take not only these
monetary offerings but also our very lives and let them be consecrated to you,
O God. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – All Glory, Laud, and Honor #300 Brown Hymnal
Benediction –
Friends, fix your eyes on the
Lord. Place your hand in God’s hand,
trusting in God’s guidance and comfort.
Go into this world that needs to hear the words of healing love, and bring
the good news of God’s absolute love and presence to all people. Go in peace.
Postlude
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