April 1, 2012
Palm Sunday
The Rev. Kim Gilliland
SCRIPTURE:
Mark 1:1-11
Philippians 2:5-11
... he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:8 (NIV)
HOW COMMITTED ARE YOU TO OBEYING GOD?
THE LAST TEMPTATION
It’s begun. The most important week in the Christian year is here. Palm Sunday
marks the beginning of what has become known as the Passion of Christ. It’s the last
week that Jesus walked the earth in mortal form. On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered
Jerusalem to a huge welcome. The people thronged the streets to see him as he passed by
riding on a donkey with the disciples by his side. He was their great prophet, inspired
teacher, successful healer, undisputed hero of the day. The future looked glorious for
Jesus and his followers!
But then five short days later, the world collapsed as Jesus hung on the cross of
Calvary, his body whipped, beaten and bleeding, a crown of thorns piercing his head, a
hideous sight, an agonizing and barbaric death. The apex of creative Roman cruelty.
What happened? What took place between the triumphal entry of Palm Sunday and
the unmitigated horror of Good Friday? What happened? Life happened. Life got in the
way of the party and reality came slamming home. And as Good Friday teaches us,
reality isn’t always pretty.
But why did Jesus die? He died for one simple reason; he refused to compromise
his allegiance to God. He knew that his life’s journey would lead to the cross and he
would not waver from that path.
Let’s be clear about something. Jesus didn’t have to go to the cross. He had lots of
opportunities to avoid it. In John 18, when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of
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Gethsemane, his disciples were ready to defend him. Peter even drew his sword and cut
off the ear of one of the men sent to arrest him. But Jesus told Peter to put away his
sword. Later in the same chapter Jesus could have backed down before the high priest
and lived. But he didn’t. Then he was taken to Pilate, the Roman governor. Pilate gave
Jesus another chance to live but he did not take it. Then he was taken to Herod himself
who gave him yet another chance. But Jesus remained silent.
Jesus had many chances. He could have avoided the cross and gone back to
Galilee, married a cute little Jewish girl and filled the house with babies. He could have
lived out his out his years in relative peace and tranquility working in his carpentry shop
to support his family.
Have you ever wondered what it would have looked like if he had done just that? I
want to show you a video clip. It’s from the somewhat controversial 1988 movie The Last
Temptation of Christ. It shows Jesus twelve or fifteen years after the crucifiction was
supposed to have occurred. But in this scenario, Jesus decided to avoid the cross, and to
live his life out as a normal person. In the scene you are about to see, near the end of the
movie, Jesus is walking through Jerusalem with his wife and children when he hears a
man preaching about the Messiah who died on the cross. The man’s name is Paul. Let’s
see what happens...
As you can guess, Martin Scorsese got into a whole world of hurt when this movie
first appeared. He was attacked by people who were afraid to ask the question, “What
if?... What if Jesus had not gone to the cross? What if Jesus had decided to live his life
out like a normal man? What if he had chosen to not be obedient to God’s calling?” I’m
not afraid to ask those what-if questions and neither should you be afraid.
What if Jesus had chosen not to go to the cross? What if he had chosen to walk the
path of disobedience? Jesus heard the Gospel being preached and he approached Paul as
he shared his testimony. And he challenged Paul: “I’m Jesus of Nazareth and I didn’t do
that. I chose a different path. God saved me and let me live and now I couldn’t be
happier!”
But Paul challenged him back. Did you hear what he said, “Look at these people.
Their hope is in the resurrected Jesus.” Then he said to him, “I don’t care if you’re Jesus
or not. The resurrected Jesus will save the world and that’s all that matters.” After saying
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some other things that hit home Paul closed by saying, “I’m glad I met you because now I
can forget all about you. My Jesus is much more important and much more powerful.”
There are a lot of people who don’t like this movie. There are parts of it that I’m
not too fond of either and I would not necessarily recommend that you watch it with
young children, but this particular scene cuts to the quick about the whole notion of
obedience. What if Jesus had not been obedient to his calling? What if he had avoided the
cross? What if he had not been crucified and resurrected? What if it had all been a lie?
This video clip offers an answer. It says that if Jesus didn’t die on the cross than it
really didn’t matter. Jesus could be as disobedient as he wanted to be. But there would
still be a Messiah. There would still be Good News. It would still be shared. And it would
still change people’s lives. God would simply move to plan B.
The interesting thing is that Paul in this movie didn’t care if the real Jesus died on
the cross. God had still been blinded him on the road to Damascus and God had still
called him to share the Gospel. Do you remember what he said: “I don’t care if you’re
Jesus or not; the resurrected Jesus will change the world and that’s all that matters.” The
resurrected Jesus will change the world and that’s all that matters. Good line!
What you don’t see in this video is that Jesus thought long and hard about what
Paul said to him. He knew that he loved his life. He loved being a husband and a father.
He loved his work as a carpenter. As he said, for the first time in his life he was truly
happy.
But it wasn’t enough. He may have been happy but he wasn’t fulfilled. We forget
in our society that there is a difference. There is. There was within Jesus a gnawing
hunger that God had a purpose for his life. And it wasn’t just to be happy. There was
something that he had to fulfill. And so at the end of the movie, Jesus gave it all up and
went back to the cross where he died for our sins as Paul told him he would.
The whole movie, you see, is based on the “what ifs” in Jesus’ head. As Jesus hung
dying on the cross one of his questions to the Father was this: “What would my life be
like if I you saved me rather than let me die?” The Father gave him a vision of what kind
of a life he would have. And in giving him that vision, God offered him a choice. He
could stay on the cross or he could get off. He could obey his life’s calling as the
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Crucified Christ or he could live a normal life of an ordinary man. The choice was his.
Fortunately, for us, he chose radical obedience.
Philippians 2:8 (NIV) says:
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient to death
- even death on the cross.
“He humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on the cross.” The
week long journey that began with the Triumphal Entry, ended with the cross. It was
God’s calling on Jesus of Nazareth. It was the only way for him to fulfill his life and so
he died for our sins.
RADICAL OBEDIENCE
That is radical obedience. It’s the kind of obedience not only that Jesus
demonstrated but the kind of obedience that is expected of us as well.
The Bible is filled with example after example of men and women who were that
obedient, who found the courage not to back down in the face of persecution, even
though it meant that their very lives were in danger. It was true of Paul, Peter and the rest
of the Apostles. It was true of Stephen, the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death
in Acts 7.
Not all of those who gave their lives for faith in Christ are named in the Bible but
they’re all there even if we don’t know their names. In Revelation 7, John in his vision of
heaven, looked toward the throne of God and there before the throne he saw a great
multitude of people, so many that they could not be numbered. They were dressed in
white and each one carried palm branches. In Revelation 7:14 (NIV) one of the elders
told John who there people were: “These are they who have come out of the great
tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Translation: “They are the martyrs who, like Jesus, have been obedient unto death.” How
many were there? There were so many of them that they could not be counted. Radical
obedience.
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This kind of obedience leads to a question. What would you be willing to give for
your faith? What price would you be willing to pay to be obedient to Christ? That’s not
an easy question to answer for those of us who live in Canada. That’s because very few
of us ever pay much of price for our allegiance to God. Obedience for us does not come
with much of a price tag.
Oh sure, faith may be inconvenient sometimes. It may cause us to get a few odd
stares or someone may make a wise crack about religious people. I realize that there have
been a few crazies, mostly in the US, who have gone into churches on Sunday morning
and started shooting the place up. But that sort of things does not happen often.
But what if it changed? What if, like Jesus, we had to make a real choice? Disobey
God or die? What will it be? The truth is that none of us can really answer that question
because none of us have been faced with that choice. And we can’t know until we are in
that situation what we will do. Oh sure we can hypothesize but we can’t be sure what we
will do because we’ve never been to that place. Jesus was in that place and Jesus was
obedient even to death on the cross.
WHY OBEDIENCE?
There, however, is an obvious question for us to answer when it comes to
obedience. The question is, “Why?” Why is obedience so important? Why is necessary to
be willing to give up everything for Christ, even if it means our very lives?
Going back to Philippians 2 for a moment, we read this in Philippians 2:9-10
(NIV):
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Because of Jesus’ obedience God gave him the highest reward possible. Because of
his radical obedience, Jesus was restored to his place as King of Creation, that every knee
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should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father.
The key point is that God promises to reward those who are obedient to him. He
rewarded Jesus in Philippians 2. His promise of reward for us comes in Revelation 3:10
(NIV) which says, “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life.” What
life is he talking about? He’s talking about eternal life. God promises eternal life to all
those who live for him and are willing to die for him.
What that means for us is that no matter what persecutions we may face in this life,
no matter how we may or may not suffer for our faith, no matter how desperate things
may get as we walk this earth, God has something better waiting for us. The worst that
Satan can do is give us 70 or 80 years of hardship. But that is nothing compared with
eternity in God’s Kingdom.
The final question for this morning is this? Are we obedient simply to be to get a
reward? Absolutely not. We are obedient to God’s will because we want to worship and
please God. It’s not about us. It is all about God. But it is good to know that God is
faithful and has promised to reward those who live their lives in obedience to him.
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PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
God of Grace and Glory, we come to you on this Palm Sunday with heart-felt
thanks and anticipation. On this day, we remember how Jesus was welcomed into
Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, greeted like a visiting king by people who
rejoiced at his coming.
As we celebrate Palm Sunday, we remember, also, that in a few short days, he will
be crucified on the Cross of Calvary. He, whose entrance was celebrated, will die in
silence. We come to this critical time in our faith and realize that he died for us. He died
in our place. YOU died in our place to pay the price of our sinfulness. How can we ever
thank you enough? Give us the courage to look past Good Friday to the with hope that is
beyond.
We thank you for signs of spring. Crocuses are blooming. Tulips are pushing their
heads above the cold earth. The ducks have returned and the geese are flying overhead to
their summer breeding grounds. Life is renewed with fresh hope and vision.
Our prayers are sent to you for the people of Afghanistan and our soldiers there.
May we support those who are trying to rebuild a country shattered by war. Forgive us, O
God, for not learning how to solve our differences in more civilized ways. Forgive our
pride and our arrogance.
We remember the sick, at home or in hospital, who need your healing touch in
their lives. Enable all of us, O God, to be open you your Healing Spirit even in the
deepest recesses of our hearts.
Holy God, you are able to work for our good in any situation in life. Help us to
trust you so completely that we will not fear any circumstance, but will confidently trust
in you to turn every situation into good. Regardless of what we may feel at times, we
need your help in setting our heart to reject fear and to trust and rely upon you alone, for
your word and promises will never fail.
Our prayers are lifted to you in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.
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WORSHIP RESOURCE PAGE
April 1, 2012 / Palm Sunday / Baptism
SCRIPTURE
Mark 11:1-11; Isa. 50:4-9a; Ps. 118:1-2, 19-29; Ps. 31:9-16; Mark 14:1-15:47; Phil. 2:1-11
CALL TO WORSHIP
ONE:
The time has come to sing Hosanna!
ALL:
God's love endures forever!
ONE:
The gates of the Kingdom are opened by faith!
ALL:
God's love endures forever!
ONE:
Let us enter into God's presence for the Day of the Lord is near!
ALL:
God's love endures forever!
PRAYER OF APPROACH
Your Creation dawns, O God, with the promise of new life and new hope. Spring is beginning to take
hold in the frozen north. The snow is almost gone. The days are getting longer. The early flowers are
ready to sprout their heads above the wet ground. We rejoice that you are with us in every season of life.
You laugh with us in our celebrations and hold us in our sorrows. Come to us in our worship and remind
us of your ever present Spirit who abides with us always. Amen.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
We come to you, God of Mercy, on this day of celebration. We rejoice with the crowds who welcomed
Jesus into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday. Yet, in the celebration, we are tempted to lose sight of
our own human condition. The same man whom we welcome today will be dead on a cross by the end
of the week. Forgive us, God, when we fail to see the injustices of this world. Forgive us that an
innocent man had to die. Remind us that, by his death, we are forgiven and renewed. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
God loves us. God forgives us. God invites us to the new life that is ours through faith in Jesus Christ.
When we confess our sins, the gates of heaven are opened and we are welcomed to enter with joy and
thanksgiving.
DEDICATION OF OFFERING
We give back to you, O Lord, what you first gave to us. We offer to you that which you first offered.
Accept us and our gifts in the same spirit in which we give them to you. Amen.
COMMISSIONING
The Spirit of God is in our midst. The word of God is on our hearts. The mission of Christ is at our
finger tips. It is ours to share. It is ours to give.
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Message Outline
NOW COMMITTED ARE YOU TO OBEYING GOD
April 1, 2012
Pastor Kim Gilliland
THE LAST TEMPTATION
Jesus didn’t have to die on the cross.
He could have avoided the cross and lived out his life as a normal man.
But he chose to obey God.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient to death
- even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:8 (NIV)
RADICAL OBEDIENCE
Jesus lived his life in radical obedience to God.
He expects the same of us.
All of the martyrs in the faith are honoured in the Bible.
These are they who came out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of he Lamb.
Revelation 7:14 (NIV)
Would you be willing to die for your faith?
That is radical obedience!
WHY OBEDIENCE?
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:9-10 (NIV)
When we obey God, he promises to reward us with eternal life.
Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you life.
The hardships of this life last only a while.
God’s rewards last forever.
But we don’t obey simply to get a reward.
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Revelation 3:10 (NIV)
We obey because we want to be faithful.
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