Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday
Welcome!
Welcome to excerpts from the worship held within the newly formed Westhills Church of Scotland Congregation. We know that not all members of the congregation are able to be in church on Sunday morning; offering these excerpts from the Sunday morning service might help you feel included. Where we can, we offer parts of the service in text and audio, whichever works best for you.
If this post helps you explore what happens within an act of worship then please read on…
The Psalms
Psalm 118: 19 – 29
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
Isaiah 50: 4 – 9a
Matthew 21: 1 – 11
Praise – Christ is made the sure foundation
Prayers
Father God, we come to your house prepared in the annual cycle of our faith to be caught again by the excitement of the crowd and the thrill of expectation. We are eager to shout aloud our ‘hosannas’, even if they come only in the quietness of our hearts. This is a story we know. This is a story that changed the course of human history. This is a story where we know the ending and can already shout and cry and laugh with those who greet the Saviour of the World.
Yet Lord help us not to be carried along by the crowd. We forget that you love us in spite of our sinfulness. We recall your unqualified love, which reaches us in our greed, our quarrels, our selfishness, and our indifference to the needs of others. We are frightened by the ease with which we pass by on the other side of the road, crying ‘Hosanna’ yet neglect the poor, the hungry, and the hopeless.
Forgive us Lord that we have failed to understand your ways and respond to you and to our brothers and sisters with loving hearts. In your grace renew us and call us afresh to your eternal way.
We thank you for the calling we have heard and that our hearts have responded in faith to your voice. In worship of you we bring our offering, gifts laid upon the table now set apart for you. May the gifts we bring be acceptable in your sight and build up the body of Christ, offer light to those in darkness and release to the captive.
Hear us now as we join in the words of the Lord’s Prayer 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 and 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, the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.
Address
In 1642, the conflict between the king and English Parliament reached its climax and the English Civil War began. The English Civil Wars were essentially confrontations between the monarchy and Parliament over the definitions of the powers of the monarchy and Parliament’s authority. The Civil War culminated in the execution of the king in 1649, the overthrow of the English monarchy, and the establishment of the Commonwealth. On 7 February 1649, the office of the King of England was formally abolished.
Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England. Some viewed Cromwell as a liberator others saw him as a military dictator.
Charles I was the last King to act like a full-on absolute monarch. But he was deposed and executed for it. The last one who really had a lot of influence over government policy was probably George III, until he went mad.
It’s a long time now since the Monarchy had any real influence in how the country is run, almost 400 years actually. Democratically elected parliaments do that for us now and it might be fair to say we have an ambivalent relationship with Parliament just as we do with Monarchy! Maybe the point I’m trying to get to is that maybe we have lost the sense of Jesus being our King when monarchy in general is a pretty low profile feature in our lives; though maybe high profile in the media for all the wrong reasons!
Is it possible that Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem as a King because the Jewish nation still had strong attachments to the great Kings that once governed their people and nation. King Solomon, King David and others who had enormous wealth and power, who rose or fell in their fortunes depending on their degree of faithfulness to God. Like all nations, Israel evolved so that it went from slavery to a nomadic and patriarchal society to being governed by Judges and then by Kings. But 700 years had gone by from the end of the reign of the Kings of Israel until the birth of Jesus. Israel in Jesus time was as distant from a meaningful monarchy as we are now; if not even further removed.
The Jewish nation had been writhing under the boot of imperial Rome for more than a century. And of course, there were factions within Israel that longed for freedom and independence from Roman oppression. Israel’s ruling powers were comfortable with their Roman superiors and sensible enough to know that rising up against the Romans was going to be disastrous. The common people couldn’t look to their ruling authorities to set them free from oppression but they could hope that God’s promised Messiah would be their salvation. Popular opinion knew exactly what the scene would look like when the Messiah came. He would march into Jerusalem astride a great stallion, a mighty warhorse. He would be leading a vast army. He would vanquish the despised Romans. He would march to his throne and be crowned King of the Jews. That was the dream.
When Jesus came to Jerusalem it was to celebrate Passover. Thousands upon thousands of Jews made the pilgrimage to celebrate a major event in the Jewish faith. But let’s remember what Passover was about… the celebration of the Jews being set free from slavery in Egypt, breaking free from the chains of their oppressors to be an independent people under God. No one can comfortably celebrate freedom from oppression while once again being under oppression. The Roman’s anticipated Jerusalem would be a volatile place during Passover. Undoubtedly, some religious faction would rise up motivated by the themes and ideologies of their faith.
As they gathered for Passover, hope for liberation from the occupying empire grew, rumours abounded, and secret plans for rebellion were hatched. Many Jews looked for the arrival of their Messiah, a kingly person anointed by God to bring freedom. The occupying Roman military government grew skittish and made special preparations. They increased the military presence in Jerusalem and arrested any would-be Messiahs. Near Passover, the governor entered the city gates on a warhorse, travelling in an impressive procession of horses and men, decked with glinting swords, Roman shields, and imperial red uniforms.
And then comes Jesus making poking fun at all this might and authority and show. No stallion for this Messiah, just a donkey on loan.
No army, just a rag-tag assortment of out of work fisherman, an errant tax collector and some vaguely disreputable women. This Messiah was no vanquisher of Romans, just a Galilean rabbi. There would be a crown, but not the one anybody expected. There would be a throne, a throne on a hill named Golgotha. In the end there would be a very great victory; the enemy would be vanquished, but not the enemy, nor the victory anybody expected.
Jesus’ Palm Sunday parody of worldly power is so obvious we don’t see it. But is he trying to be a King?
When Pilate came to Jerusalem to watch over the events of Passover and its problematic citizens, he would make an entrance that was designed to intimidate. Yet the message of Jesus is far more revolutionary and powerful than any political or military posturing.
In this staged parade in which Jesus rides to the holy city on a borrowed animal, he is performing a parody of imperial power. Jesus’ meagre parade had no swords, no white stallions, no flags. Just a procession of disciples throwing their worn out fishermen’s cloaks before the hooves of a donkey and shouting about peace in heaven.
The crowds roar their approval and greet him like some sort of conquering hero, a political and military figure who will end their oppression under the hated Romans. We see their enthusiasm and hear their cries of ‘Hosanna’.
They wanted a king like David, David who had conquered Goliath, so they welcomed him like that. “Blessed is the coming kingdom of David” they announced as he passed by, but on the cross nothing about him would make them stop and think of David. How fickle people can be.
The story of Palm Sunday subverts and undermines our wish for Jesus to be what we would like him to be. Instead, he comes to us, as he did long ago, to turn our expectations upside down, and frustrate our hopes for something easy and acceptable, achieved without pain and without effort.
The Christ invites us to go on a journey with Him, which opens us to criticism and challenge and unpopularity. Following the Christ will not lead to civic receptions and adulations –rejection is more likely to be the hall mark of our journey. This is the challenge of the journey from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.
Are we ready?
Praise – Hosanna loud hosanna
Prayers for Others
Triumphant Entry
So many themes. Such differing interpretations. We see so many things in your entry to Jerusalem, kingship, humility, praise and adoration, we see your parody of Roman authority and might; you played a dangerous game that day! But do we see triumph? Do we see only that which we want to see, that which tradition has conditioned us to see?
Lord God, as we again approach the events of Easter through familiar passages of scripture, open them to us in a fresh way that allows us to live with your life and death and resurrection in the lives we live now, not that of 2000 years ago, not that of 20 years ago but now, today, in this world, in this life. Illumine our minds and lift our spirits so we can live out our Christian Faith in a way that speaks to our neighbour, our colleague, our friend and our family. Lord Jesus hear our prayer as we ask you to open afresh to us the word of scripture…
Signs of Hope
As you experienced darkness and loss so Lord, you brought hope and light to us and all humanity. We thank you then for signs of hope in our world today. Hope that is often overshadowed and overlooked; little pockets of light in every community where care, concern and humanity is expressed. In every church community where welcome and warmth is extended; in every charitable cause that seeks to bring healing, understanding, support. In each and every day-to-day “good morning” that acknowledges a neighbour or stranger, another human being made by God and loved by God there is hope that in community we might see You more clearly and love you more deeply. With grateful hearts we thank you for signs of hope, so often overlooked and precious beyond measure…
Journey
You call us to journey, to pilgrimage. In our childhood, teens, adulthood, and in our advanced years, through all the changes of life’s patterns, in our abilities and inabilities, when we are confident and when we frightened, in all things, at all times to walk the pathway of Christ. Down the dusty trail that leads to Jerusalem, through the streets and on to Golgotha, through the darkness of the tomb and the mystery of resurrection you call us to be at your side. And you will be at our side, inseparable friends. Lord, as through Holy Week we remember your journey may it become our journey of faith and triumph, of darkness and light, of sin and forgiveness, of love eternal. Lord hear our prayers…
Praise – Ride on ride on
The Grace
And now… May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and all whom you love, now and for evermore. AMEN.