Sunday
03/28/21 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “New Life in Entering In!”
("The Journey to New Hope and New Life"- Series: Part 6 of 7)
Old Testament Scripture: Isaiah 50:4-9a
New Testament
Scripture: Philippians 2:5-11
Gospel Lesson: Mark 11:1-11
For the past five Sundays in this
season of Holy Lent I have been preaching a sermon series called, “The Journey
to New Hope and New Life”. The season of Lent developing out of the worshipping
tradition of the early Christian Church, and it was created to model Jesus’
40-days and 40-nights of being tempted by Satan in the wilderness. As such this
season of Lent developed so that during this season we can give up, give away,
pray, be more generous, more loving, and seek to become more like Jesus Christ.
We should do this all year, not just during Lent, but this season reminds us of
who we are as Christians.
Some people that have grown up
celebrating the season of Lent or have just started celebrating it in more
recent years know that it is season of self-reflection, spiritual growth,
generosity, compassion, and us becoming less, so that God can become more. This
season culminates on Good Friday, which is this Friday April 2nd. On
Good Friday we will re-tell the story of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane,
his trial, mocking, torture, and crucifixion on a cross for the sins of the
world. Jesus will remain entombed until next Sunday, Easter morning, when he
will be raised to new life, and our forgiveness and faith in him will be cemented
forever.
For those of us who have lived through
many seasons of Lent, or a few, or maybe this is your first-time observing
Lent, I have been saying the past five weeks that this season of Lent 2021 and
part of Lent 2020 was vastly different for us all because of the COVID-19
Pandemic.
In the past five weeks I have talked
about the great trials, suffering, isolation, fear, anxiety, anger, and the loss
that we have all experienced through this time of pandemic. Like Jesus being
tempted by Satan in the wilderness for 40-days and 40-nights, we have been through
our time of trial for over a year now. We have suffered and have all been
through a lot. I am convinced that we all know someone close to us that has died
from this COVID-19 pandemic, or we know of someone who has died from it in
general. To date over 550,000 Americans alone have died as result of COVID-19.
It has been a trying time indeed. So, trying in fact that our church has shut
down for in-person worship and has reopened twice now.
Yet, millions of people are getting
vaccinated every day, and probably some of you have been vaccinated to. Recently
New York State has allowed all people 50 years old and over to now get
vaccinated for this virus. Likely in the coming weeks that number will drop to
45 or 40 years old. This time of pandemic is coming to an end and our “New
Normal” is emerging. As I said a few weeks ago, we need to “Change and Re-Group”.
We cannot live in fear forever, but we still want to be safe. We need to start
planning to, or actually rejoining this thing we call life. Many of us have
missed out on a lot over the past year, but “New Hope and New Life” is coming.
An empty tomb on Easter is coming, and like having new life in Christ, we will
have a “New Normal” very soon.
Through this time that some of us were
locked away we might have thought that the world was coming to an end. The past
two Sundays I have been talking about the need to live out our faith on earth,
to love and care for each other, and to know one day we will be in eternity
with Jesus. I talked about this eternity last Sunday in fact, but I also encouraged
us all to “Not be so heavenly minded that we are useless here on earth”. Preach
and live your faith, “Change and Re-Group”, and one day we will be in eternity,
but probably not today.
On this Sunday, the first day of what
we call Holy Week, we have Palm or Passion Sunday. Palm Sunday is telling the
story of Jesus entering into the holy city of Jerusalem on this the first day
of the Jewish Passover. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, our savior, will enter
the holy city this day not on a golden chariot, not with and army, or with pomp
and splendor. God in the flesh, the savior of the world, Jesus Christ, who will
die for us all on Good Friday, enters into Jerusalem today humble on a donkey,
to the shouts of “Hosanna,” which means save us.
Passion Sunday is a tradition of reading the story
of much of this whole week’s events around Jesus. We tend to celebrate Palm
Sunday in this church though, as we will pick up on Thursday night at 6:00 pm with
Maundy/Holy Thursday, and on Good Friday at 6:00 pm with more of this week’s
events.
So, on this historic and celebratory day in the life
of the church, we celebrate Jesus Christ our savior entering on this the second
day of the Jewish Passover holiday. The people greeting Jesus were regular everyday
folks like us and saw Palm Trees as Jesus got close to the city. Wanting to
have some celebration, they cut palm branches waved them and laid them down on
the path that Jesus entered in on, and they also laid down their cloaks or their
outer garments. I guess this was their version of the red-carpet entry.
During this time of pandemic, especially when it was
at its worst with riots, buildings burning, protests, people getting killed, and
all the social upheaval, some people asked me, “Pastor Paul are we getting closer
to the day that Jesus is coming back”? None of us know when Jesus will return to
make this earth perfect, as Jesus said in Matthew 24:36:
“36 But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mt. 24:36, NRSV).
So only God the Father knows when Christ will return, but
during the deep depths of this pandemic I had some people asking me if this was
all sings of Christ’s return. Most people that I know that believe in the return
of Christ would love it if he returned anytime, but this morning he is present
in Jerusalem. This is why my sermon is called “New Life is Entering In”.
I remember distinctly, in 2014 when there was an upheaval and
a revolution in the country of the Ukraine. What happened was, if you remember,
some Ukrainians were worried that Russia was going to take over all or part of
the Ukraine. The country was split between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian factions,
and there was a lot of violence, riots, protests, and killing.
As
I was writing this sermon, I thought back to watching and reading about this
period of time in the Ukraine. I remembered seeing a few times one or more
Ukrainian Orthodox Priests walking out in the middle of the two fighting two
factions, and often they stopped protesting and fighting immediately when
priest or priests came out.
The
presence of these Orthodox Priests reminded all the people that were God’s
children of what they were doing. In the slide show for this morning, we see two
pictures of this period of time in Ukraine. The priest or priests walked out,
and the violence could explode at any minute, and it stops. Imagine the
presence of one or more people being able to stop violence. What would be like
to see someone who was loved and respected, and to see people take a breath and
lower their weapons?
During
this time of Pandemic, during this time of trial, people asked me, if Jesus was
going to come back and set all of this right. This made me think of these scenes
from the Ukraine in 2014.
The
reason again that my sermon for this morning is called “New Life is Entering In”
is I wonder what it was like to see Jesus entering into the city of Jerusalem
this day? Jesus entered not just a pastor or a priest, but as God himself. Some
of you might be thinking, it would have been good if Jesus entered into this
this city or that city during the upheavals that happened during the month of
the pandemic, or that it would have been nice if Jesus came back and destroyed
COVID-19.
Whatever
we felt in the depths of this pandemic, it certainly would have been better if
Jesus showed up, in a similar way to the Ukrainian Orthodox Priests in our
slides this morning. We also heard the scripture that I read a few minutes ago
about Jesus’s return, and we also know that the pandemic is coming to an end
to. Perhaps our Ukrainian brothers and sisters looked heavenward in 2014 and
shout to God, “Where are you in all of this”! As we no doubt might have done
the same during this Pandemic.
The
good news friends is this pandemic is coming to a close, and soon Jesus’s life
on earth will end, but “New Hope and New Life” are coming. What we are called
to, every day, until we enter eternity, or until Christ returns, is share the
good news of Christ, love and serve each other, and live our faith out. To be
more specific, you do not need to be an ordained United Methodist Pastor or a Ukrainian
Orthodox Priest to bring hope, love, light, life to the world. God worked
through the Ukrainian Orthodox Priests that we saw in the slideshow pictures
for this morning, but they are not God. God will work through us if we let him.
In
our reading from this morning once again, we hear in our Isaiah 50:4:
“The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens—wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught” (Isa. 50:4, NRSV).
We are not Jesus Christ, but we are called every day to
live and to love like He loved. When Christ is in us through the power of the Holy
Spirit, maybe you could walk out in between two mobs about to kill each other,
and God’s presence in you will make them stop, take a breath, and put their weapons
down.
Our
reading from Philippians 2:5-8 for this morning says once again:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5-8, NRSV).
May we try to live and love like
Jesus, who was God in the flesh, who became like us, and died for us.
In briefly looking at our gospel of
Mark reading for this morning, once again it says:
“11 When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5 some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.” (Mk. 11:1-6, NRSV)
The gospel of Mark lesson then concludes once again saying:
“7Then they
brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8 Many
people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that
they had cut in the fields. 9 Then those who went ahead
and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in
the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our
ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 11 Then he entered Jerusalem
and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it
was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve”(Mk. 11:7-11, NRSV).
As powerful and as transformative as
it must have been to watch Jesus literally live and in person come into
Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, today we just celebrate the memory of this. Maybe
when things were really bad during this pandemic we were asking or even begging
Jesus to come into these situations. Until Christ returns though, he will
continue to work in us and through us. It is because of this, that Ukrainian
Orthodox Priests by the presence of Christ in them can stop violence and
fighting.
We have all suffered through this pandemic, we need to change and re-group as we are coming out of this pandemic. We need to live and love like Christ, as we know one day that we will be with him in glory. Lastly, until Christ physically comes back, do not be shocked if he asks you to be his love and his grace in certain situations. We need to be the church and live our faith, so that a regular person like you or I, because people see Christ in us, can literally cause people to point their guns down, and stop fighting. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment