Brian's Sermons

This service was quite different from our usual service. There wasn't a sermon, exactly, but the following is what happened during the service. We had actors who portrayed some of the characters, and the children's choir and adult choir were the crowds in Jerusalem. The children's choir also joined Jesus as the disciples for the "Last Supper" and had Communion with him. This morning we celebrate a little differently than we usually do. On the calendar, Palm Sunday is listed as Palm/Passion Sunday. We celebrate Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode victoriously into Jerusalem, but the cries of “Hosanna” are quickly drowned out by the cries from the crowd: crucify him! A hallmark of Judaism was a required pilgrimage to Jerusalem. After Jesus walked on this earth, Christians, too, made the journey to Jerusalem to walk where Jesus walked. Over time, churches outside Jerusalem began to commemorate Jesus’ final days with their own prayer walks, mirroring the “statio...

Matthew 21:1-11 Today is Palm Sunday, and with Palm Sunday, we begin Holy Week, when we recognize the immense sacrifice that Jesus made for us. But Holy Week doesn’t start with resurrection; neither does it start with crucifixion. Holy Week starts with coronation. I will get more into this on Friday at our Lenten service at noon. But as we look at this text, the first thing that stands out to me is that this is a story of obedience . Jesus told the disciples to do something, and instead of asking questions like, “Did you already clear this with the owner of the donkey?” they simply obeyed. I love the verse that says, “The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them.” When I’m talking with church people, one thing I hear a lot is “I don’t really know the Bible all that well.” While I agree that our culture is almost entirely biblically illiterate, this is usually a cop-out. Here’s an example: Jesus commanded (not asked) his followers to “ go and make disciples of a...