5th April. 2020 – Service
Call to Worship
This is the day that the Lord has made,
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Jesus is coming.
Hosanna!
He comes to us, riding on a donkey.
Hosanna!
Open wide the gates!
Hosanna!
Let us welcome him with waving branches and open hearts.
Hosanna!
Jesus is coming!
Hosanna to the King of kings!
Prayer of Adoration and Confession
God of all people and all places,
God in all situations and every time:
you are the light of the minds that know you.
You are the strength of those who serve you;
you are the welcome and rest of those who go in search of you.
We come this day and pause from our work and responsibilities.
we rest from our play and preoccupations
to listen for your voice, to follow your story,
and worship you as the Creator, Christ, and Spirit.
Hear us now as we speak to you about the truth of our lives:
God of courage and compassion,
we confess that we prefer the comfort of darkness to the light of your truth;
we follow our own ways rather than the path Jesus took.
We do what is easy rather than what is right,
assuring ourselves and each other we’ve made the right choice.
Forgive our fleeting enthusiasm for your purposes
and our shallow commitment to put our faith into practice.
Forgive us, O God,
and help us pay attention to the costly choices Jesus made for us
as he moved toward the Cross.
Assurance of Pardon
Who is in a position to condemn us? Only Christ – and Christ died for us; Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us. Friends, hear and believe the good news of the gospel. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and set free by God’s generous grace.
Prayer for Understanding
God of all wisdom and knowledge,
in the reading and hearing of your Word,
help us know you more clearly so that we may love you more dearly.
In loving you more dearly, help us follow you more nearly, day by day.
In Jesus name we pray.
The Lord’s Prayer (in the words most familiar to you)
The Readings
Isaiah 50:4-9
4 The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue,
to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning,
wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.
5 The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears;
I have not been rebellious,
I have not turned away.
6 I offered my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
from mocking and spitting.
7 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
Who then will bring charges against me?
Let us face each other!
Who is my accuser?
Let him confront me!
9 It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.
Who will condemn me?
They will all wear out like a garment;
the moths will eat them up.
Matthew 21:1-13
21 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, ‘Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.’
4 This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet:
5 ‘Say to Daughter Zion,
“See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”’
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’
‘Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, ‘Who is this?’
11 The crowds answered, ‘This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.’
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘“My house will be called a house of prayer,” but you are making it “a den of robbers.”’
Sermon
Isaiah 50: 4-9
He wasn’t the easiest person to live with as a flat mate. John could be dogmatic and stubborn, frustrating and at times pig-headed. He came from Somerset “county” folks and went about in his grandfather’s World War One great coat. Or was it his father’s. He had been studying animal husbandry when, after a conversion felt called to become a medical missionary. When I met him, he was in the third year of his medical training and on his insistence, we ended up sharing a flat in the west end of Glasgow. When he had finished his training, he chose a bride, literally, daughter of a family whom he had met at a Keswick Convention. He proposed on his way home to Somerset. When she said, “no,” out of sheer surprise I suspect, he said he would return in six months and ask again. They did get married and went off to Ethiopia as missionaries. During that time Hailie Selassie was overthrown and John ended up in jail, the same one as Selassie’s daughters, and was there for quite some time.
This did not daunt John, after his release, he re-joined his wife and in due course went to work in Ekwendeni in Malawi for many years. I recall my eldest brother’s opinion of missionaries in Malawi, (he was in the Commonwealth Office at the time), as being that they were a nuisance – to the Government that is. John and his wife served very faithfully for many years doing great good for the people. I believe he is now retired in his ancestral home in Somerset.
John always reminded me of an Old Testament prophet. He was a far-sighted man from his youth. He set his face to serve God and nothing would prevent him from fulfilling his calling.
For the Lord my God helps me,
that’s why I am not in despair.
I have sent my face like a flint
and I know I shall not be ashamed.
for my vindicator is near.
Great visionary souls understand that doing the right thing will most likely cause some degree of misunderstanding and suffering.
Short sighted souls expect goodness to be rewarded with goodies in one form or another. They readily lose faith and can turn bitter when they encounter rejection and pain.
Great visionaries grow in faith during the desolate times.
Short sighted souls see all pain as an evil to be avoided.
The far-sighted souls are open to the possibility that pain may be redemptive,
and that redemptive outcome is the ultimate vindication for a loving spirit.
There is no greater visionary than the prophet who is responsible for the central chapters of Isaiah. This ancient seer saw that suffering in the cause of God could lead to healing and liberation. It is fitting that today at the beginning of Holy Week we should read from Isaiah 50, just as later, on Good Friday, we shall read the from Isaiah 53.
More than any other among the great prophetic spokesmen of God, this Isaiah sees further into the redemptive nature of God and accepts the suffering of God’s true servants. The more godlike a believer becomes the more likely there will be some persecution from those of scant or no faith.
At Christmas, we usually read a number of the glorious, poetic, promises from the book of Isaiah. Passages ablaze with hope and joy for the new age that God will one day bring on earth. A beautiful time when injustice and hatred, violence and war, will be no more.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
The calf and the lion shall play together
and a little child shall lead them.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain,
For the earth shall full of the knowledge
as the waters cover the beds of the sea
How do we ever get to that glorious future? The central chapters of Isaiah see it happening through a unique servant of God. This servant shall be a loving person of sublime spiritual integrity, who is prepared to suffer in God’s cause. To follow God closely, which is necessary for the healing of the world, will not often bring popularity, but more likely misunderstanding, rejection, and suffering.
It is not a matter of going to look for trouble, nor a case of deliberately provoking persecution. I admit that there has sometimes been a sickness in Christianity which leads some to seek out pain and suffering as if it were a virtue. Some have manufactured extra crosses to carry and then paraded their sufferings like trophies.
Just this week a prominent American evangelist declared that people did not like his extreme views solely because he is a follower of Jesus. I doubt it.
God does not call us to be masochist! It is a simple matter of being faithful to God in a world that has a very different agenda, and when faithfulness conflicts with conformity, there is Christ’s cross to carry.
In today’s reading we find:
I gave my back to the bruisers,
and my cheeks to those who ripped out the beard.
I did not turn my face away
from public humiliation and spitting.
This is not God’s servant inviting persecution. It is placing his suffering in the hands of God, and not returning evil for evil.
Isaiah is convinced that such is the redemptive thing to do. We may not quickly see the fruits of suffering love, but God will use such sacrifice for the ultimate salvation of the world. God will vindicate the suffering servant.
For the Lord my God helps me,
that’s why I am not in despair.
I have sent my face like a flint
and I know I shall not be ashamed.
for my vindicator is near
You know, this is astounding faith.
How could an ancient Jew receive such understanding? Be possessed by such a faith? A faith that seems to run counter to observable facts.
Maybe he saw it happening in good people around him. Maybe (as some scholars deduce) he was writing about the suffering of the prophet Jeremiah. Maybe he saw the suffering of the Jewish captives in exile as being used by God for good. Maybe. But the fact is that he could have only come to understand the redemptive sufferings of the servant of God, if God revealed it to him.
The prophets were visionaries who saw beyond the surface of things into the nature of reality, into the truth of God, and then dared to tell it as it was.
No wonder that Jesus of Nazareth identified so much with the scroll of Isaiah. He seems to have nourished his being on these insights. Isaiah was a key text in his spiritual formation. What is more, no wonder the early Christians saw Isaiah being fulfilled in the life of Jesus. No one else measures up to the prophetic insight.
When Jesus, as one Gospel tells us, set his face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem, he knew what he was getting himself into. He had no illusions about a comfortable outcome.
On that Palm Sunday, surrounded by cheering pilgrims on the way to celebrate Passover, Jesus was not deluded by the show of support. For months, maybe years, he had known there could only be one result. That result would be so horrible that he could hardly dare think about the details. In fact, it seems likely he suppressed the details from his mind until that late hour among the olive trees in the garden of Gethsemane, when in ultimate distress the small capillaries on his forehead ruptured and he sweated blood.
On Palm Sunday, he understood the outcome. To maintain the integrity of his faith, he had to go on. But Jesus knew that his entry to Jerusalem on that small ass was literally a fatal move on his part. It would hasten rejection and suffering, and the cruellest of deaths. Like Isaiah, he believed his sacrifice, the apparent waste of his life, would somehow be redemptively used by God. Against all common sense, he believed that God would vindicate him.
For the Lord my God helps me,
that’s why I am not in despair.
I have sent my face like a flint
and I know I shall not be ashamed.
for my vindicator is near
Praise God he was right. We only celebrate this Palm or Passion Sunday because Jesus was vindicated. In God’s hands, suffering for the sake of righteousness can be redemptive.
In some respects, this is not a message we like to hear.
I would prefer to believe that goodness will naturally prosper and bear fruit without pain. That the world will see the works of righteousness, applaud, and follow suit. I would prefer to think that loving servants of God might, after a long and successful life, die peacefully in their beds and all men speak well of them at their funerals. I do not want to hear that goodness is often rewarded with misunderstanding and rejection.
On the other hand, I do need to hear the ongoing message.
That God, who worked mightily through Christ, can in some small way also redemptively work through our troubles and hurts, is something I want to hear. Any isolation and scorn we wear for the Gospel’s sake, are not wasted. Any suffering we endure while exercising our Christian integrity is not wasted. The pain of carrying our cross for Christ in a society dedicated to instant gratification, is not wasted. It is a part of the continuing work of Christ Jesus, and it will be consummated in that new heaven and new earth where sorrow and crying and pain are no more. This we profoundly need to hear. And in the face of a devastating plague, we need to believe that God has called us to endure faithfully whatever is before us because it is all part of his overarching purpose for this world. In it and through it there will be redemption.
The long-sighted Isaiah, living among a typical, short sighted majority, may have been scorned by many. But his vision was magnificently aligned with the ultimate Truth. Suffering need not be in vain. Jesus the prophet-healer-liberator has proven that for all time.
Summary
It has been said by some who have gone through severe persecutions, it is not what happens to you that matters, but how you deal with what happens. Suffering can disillusion us, embitter us, and break us. Or we can let God use it for a greater purpose, and in the process become ennobled by it.
Let us repeat the words with which we started:
Great visionary souls understand that doing the right thing will most likely cause some degree of misunderstanding and suffering.
Short sighted souls expect goodness to be rewarded with goodies in one form or another; they readily lose faith and turn bitter when they encounter rejection and pain.
Great visionaries grow in faith during the desolate times.
Short sighted souls see all pain as an evil waste.
Far sighted souls are open to the possibility that pain may be redemptive.
The far-sighted prophet Isaiah prepares us for Christ, and Christ prepares us for a meaningful life within the sometimes clear, yet often puzzling, purposes of God where all things work together for good…
Ride on, ride on in majesty,
In lowly pomp ride on to die,
O Christ, your triumphs now begin
O’er captive death and conquered sin.
Our Offering
Today we are reminded that Christ offered his life on the Cross for our sakes. Now it’s our turn to offer God our gifts in gratitude. Let us present to God our tithes and offerings.
Prayer of Dedication
Gracious God, when we look at what you have done for us in Jesus Christ, our offering seems so small. What difference can our gifts make in the grand scheme of things? Yet the story of Jesus tells us otherwise: five loaves and two fish can feed a multitude; a man who dies on a cross becomes Living Bread for a hungry world. Accept our small gifts and bless them with your goodness that the miracle of Jesus’ love may spread throughout the world. Amen.
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession
God our Father, Creator of the universe, you made our world in beauty and wonder, and we rejoice in it every day, blessing you for your sustaining love and providence. We thank you for the gift of life and our experience of it in all its riches.
Yet we see the devastation of our planet and now we fear the power of a virus to hurt our race. We see so much hurt and betrayal that harm the world and its peoples and bring our own griefs and disappointments to you today and express our desire for healing and redemption.
We trust that your love has power in all situations, even the most troubling or tragic, whilst we acknowledge that your arm is not shortened to save and that in you nothing is without hope.
Hear us now as we bring to you our concerns for the people and places on our hearts today:
We pray for people who struggle with poverty, sickness, or grief and now find these things intensified as our world is beleaguered by this pandemic. Touch us all in our common humanity in our pain and restore our hope and health within your will for us.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We pray for people and communities burdened by the weight of war, greed, hostility or jealousy. Lift their burdens and restore their hope and peace:
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
We pray for people who challenge regimes marked by tyranny, domination, and brutality. Liberate their lives and restore their hope and freedom. Be with all who live in places where the authorities do not take the threat of the pandemic seriously and who endanger lives. Over-rule all that is unwise thoughtless and selfish.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
We pray for people who are persecuted for their race or creed, or for the truth they tell; and for those who are not treated with respect or decency. Rescue them from discrimination and restore their hope and dignity:
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Hear us as we pray to you in silence for those situations close to our hearts this day. We remember family friend and neighbour, the needs we know of and ask your providence for them. Bring your grace to restore hope and healing where they are needed.
(Hold a silence for your own prayers)
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen
Sending out and Benediction (Matthew 27:54)
“Truly this man Jesus was God’s Son.”
As disciples of Jesus, truly you are God’s children.
Go into this week with the knowledge
that resurrection will come,
even when it seems there is no tomorrow.
Be blessed and be a blessing,
with the courage to stand with those in need.
In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
Amen.
Hymns
Here are some hymn suggestions to check on YouTube if you wish to sing along. Some may not be as familiar as their titles suggest:
Psalm 24 Ye gates lift up your heads on high
Ride on, ride on in Majesty
All glory, laud and honour to thee redeemer king
Hosanna (Praise is rising)
Blessed is he who come in the name of the Lord
What wondrous love is this
For Children
We have a king who rides on a donkey
Shout hosanna
I want you to imagine this morning that we are going to see the Queen ride through London or Edinburgh. Find some flags to wave and/or some noise makers. I will describe the procession, and as the Queen passes by, I want you to wave and shout.
Are you ready? The procession is about to begin.
Look! The procession is approaching. We can hear a band playing and the horses’ hooves are clattering as cavalry ride by. Policemen on motorcycles pass and there are carriages and cars with other important people like the royal family. As they pass by, we smile and wave. (Pause for kids to respond.)
Then, here she comes – the Queen. She is riding down the street in her State carriage She waves to the crowds that are lining the streets as she passes by. The people are…
• waving flags (Pause for kids to respond.)
• blowing their noise makers and shouting, “Yea! Hip! Hip! Hooray! Yea!” (Pause for kids to respond.)
Then as the procession moves on down the street, the sound of the bands playing and the horses’ hooves with people shouting fades away in the distance. It is over. The celebration is over.
That was very much like a scene that took place in Jerusalem one day. Jesus the King was coming to their city. People lined the streets. Some people walked in front of the king and some walked behind him. Instead of a beautiful carriage, the King rode on the back of a small donkey. Let’s do what the people did when Jesus came to Jerusalem as its king.
As he rode through the streets of the city, the crowds…
• waved palm branches (Pause for kids to respond with their flags.)
• they shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (Pause for kids to respond.)
• They shouted, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Pause for kids to respond.)
• They shouted, “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Pause for kids to respond.)
Today is Palm Sunday. Today we celebrate the entry of King Jesus into Jerusalem. It was a day that marked the beginning of an incredible week. A week that would see Jesus cheered, then arrested, tried, condemned, and crucified. But as that week came to an end, another week began just as the previous week had begun…with a celebration.
Dear Jesus, our voices join with the voices of the people in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.