Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sermon
text for today comes from St Mark’s Gospel. And we read the words:
Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom
of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!
Prayer: Dear
Lord Jesus, send to all us the gift of the Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach
well, and to all of us, that we may hear well. Amen.
In the
Lord’s Prayer, one of the things we pray is: Your kingdom come. And it
struck me recently just what an odd thing this is.
Now, for us
in the 21st century, there aren’t that many countries that still
have a king or a queen, and many of the countries that still do have it for
symbolic purposes only. But let’s imagine a country that still has a very
strong sense of what it means to have a king, like Thailand. Can you imagine
writing a letter to the king of Thailand and asking him that his kingdom would
come to Mt Barker next week? What a strange thing this is!
Normally, if
we were to have anything to do with a kingdom, like Thailand, we would have to
go there. The kingdom would never come to us. We would have to book a plane
ticket and go and visit the kingdom.
But also,
even if the King of Thailand did come and visit Mt Barker, and even if he came
with an entourage, it would only be the King who would visit. It
wouldn’t be the whole kingdom that comes.
And yet,
this is the wonderful thing about the kingdom of Jesus. Jesus, our heavenly
King, comes to us. We don’t come to the kingdom. We don’t just get on a boat or
a plane and go and visit Jesus in his kingdom. He comes and visits us.
So how does
he come and visit us? He visits us with his word and sacraments. Every time we
read and preach and hear the word of God in its truth and purity, Jesus comes
and visits us. And with the word of God comes the wonderful gift the Holy
Spirit, and with the Holy Spirit comes all the gifts and fruits of the Holy
Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control. But all of this comes as a fruit of the Spirit.
The tree itself comes from the word of God. The word of God is the seed that is
sown, and it’s the pure and holy word of God that gives everything in the
church its power.
We are
baptised people, who are washed with water and God’s word, and on that
occasion, each of us had those words spoken to us—not the words of the pastor,
but the words of Jesus: I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit. This is the words of Jesus, quoted right from
his word, the exact words from the Gospel of Matthew, that are spoken to us.
And it is Jesus who comes and does this, he is the one who speaks, and he is
the one who does all the work. All the power of baptism comes from the word of
God, and not just any word from the bible, but the specific word that Jesus
speaks about baptism: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to
me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to
observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the
end of the age.
We also come
here in the church to receive the Lord’s Supper. And here is a wonderful
promise that Jesus speaks to us from his word: Take, eat: this is my body,
which is given for you. Drink of it, all of you, this is my blood which is shed
for your for the forgiveness of sins. And we know that there is not one
word that Jesus speaks to us anywhere in the whole of the bible which is a lie—and
this word about the Lord’s Supper is certainly not a lie either. But all the
power of the Lord’s Supper comes right from this word of God. And through this
powerful word of God comes the Holy Spirit. The word of God is our living
water, our living food, our sustenance, our nutrition—and it’s the word of God
that gives all the power for salvation, the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins,
life, and salvation.
And so also
it’s the word of God that gives baptism all its power, and gives to the Lord’s
Supper all its power. And in the Gospel of John, we read these words: In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was
in the beginning with God. The word of God has existed right from the
beginning, and the word of God existed together with God, and can you believe
it, St John even says that the Word was God. So when we hear the Word of God,
we’re not just listening to some words here and there, we’re actually listening
to a living person, to our living Jesus. Because Jesus is the word of God, and
when we listen and read and study God’s word, we know that Jesus is actually
here to speak these words to us. He even talks in such a way that these words
really are Him.
And so, when
we listen to this word of God, Jesus comes and breathes out on us and pours out
on us his living Holy Spirit, and all our sins are completely forgiven, and we
are given every gift of new life for our eternal benefit.
Martin
Luther writes: God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us the Holy
Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy word and live godly lives here
in time and there in eternity. What a great thing this is! Here we are at
the beginning of a new church year—let’s ask our Lord Jesus to come and
establish his kingdom among us, and send us the Holy Spirit as we follow Jesus
through a new church year, following the history of his birth, his life, his
death and resurrection, and celebrating the life that he lives even now
together with us, his church on earth.
+++
In our Gospel
reading today, we read from the gospel of Mark about Jesus entering into
Jerusalem. And there are two things that I’d like to point out from this
reading: first, Jesus demonstrates the truth and the purity of his word.
Secondly, when Jesus enters the city, the people receive him with praise.
So let’s
look at the first part of this reading.
We read: Now
when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of
Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village
in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a cold tied, on
which no one has ever sat. Untie and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are
you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here
immediately.’”
There are
many things that we read in the bible, things that don’t necessarily fit with
the way we might think, or things that don’t sit well with our reason and our
intellect. And so we often make ourselves into little university professors and
treat the word of God as a frog in a lab that we’re going to dissect, or
something like that. But what we have to understand is that the word of God is
not the frog that is dissected by us. The frog is us—and we are always being
dissected by God’s word! Many times the word of God has to come and pierce
through our skin and really show us something that we need forgiveness for.
Most of time, we need forgiveness for our arrogance, because we think that we
knew everything there was to know about God, and we think that God can’t work
in a way that is outside our reason and intellect.
But this way
to read God’s word, to impose our reason and intellect, is often a kind of
racism. We actually often read the bible with all the background of our
culture, and what might seem irrational to us, is quite natural from someone
belonging to another culture, like from China, or Africa, or Russia, or
something.
For example,
at Christmas time in a few weeks, we are going to read about how Joseph, the
adoptive father of Jesus and husband of the Virgin Mary, is told about how he
should take Mary to be his wife by an angel in a dream. In our culture, we
couldn’t imagine too many grown men to take too much notice of dreams about
angels. But if you went to Central Australia and talked to Aboriginal people
about this, they would receive this very naturally, because dreams are a very
important part of Aboriginal culture. They even call the legends about early
times the “dream-time”.
Now, there
are all kinds of things like this in the bible that don’t seem natural to one
culture in the world, but are quite natural for another culture. What we have
to realise that the word of God is for all cultures and all peoples—even all
the little details. However, there are a few things that are unnatural for
every culture—the historical fact that Jesus was conceived and born from a
virgin mother, the historical fact that the God of the universe shed his blood
and died on a cross, and the historical fact that this same Jesus who was dead
in the grave rose from the dead on the third day.
But even so,
there are all kinds of things in God’s word that seem unimportant to us, that
Jesus tells us just to show how powerful he really is, and demonstrate the
power of his word. This little event on Palm Sunday is one these things. Jesus
tells the disciples to go into the village in front of you. All he
requires is for them to go there. But what will they see when they get there? And
immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever
sat. Jesus doesn’t simply know that there will be a colt there, but he also
knows exactly when they find it. He says: immediately as you enter it. And
also, Jesus knows the history of this little donkey. He says that this is a
colt, on which no one has ever sat. How does Jesus know all of this? We
think that all these details about the donkey, might seem trivial, but in
actual fact, Jesus is humbling every person who has ever read this passage, and
says to us: Be still, and know that I am God. This is important…will you
listen to what I have to say in all its detail?
And then
Jesus says: Untie it and bring it. Jesus wants the disciples to return
to him and show him that everything happened just as he said. Without this
demonstration that his word is true and pure, he won’t enter the city. He
doesn’t go and get the donkey for himself, but he makes the disciples get it
for him, so that when he is risen from the dead, they will witness to this
event, and tell people that what Jesus said was actually true.
But Jesus
also says: If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord
has need of it will send it back here immediately.’ Jesus knows that this
answer will satisfy the curiosity of anyone who asks. And so we read: They
went away and found a cold tied at a door outside in the street, and they
untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing,
untying the colt?” And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them
go.
Do you see?
Jesus shows to them that everything he says is true. His word and his promise
are completely pure, completely true, and completely powerful! There’s not one
little drop of falsehood or lies or error in anything Jesus says here. And yet,
it’s all so trivial to our human reason—it’s just about going and getting a
donkey and bringing it to him. Will we trust our Lord Jesus with all the
trivialities of our life? Will we listen to him in all the little details, as
well as all the big details? A healthy church is a church that listens to the
words of Jesus. If we want to examine our hearts and think about the future of
our congregation and where we’re heading, then let’s ask ourselves this: What’s
our attitude to the word of God, and not just in general, but in all the little
details? Is it a joy for us? Is it our pleasure? Is it our food, our drink, our
life-breath? And yet—in the eyes of the world, our flesh, our reason, we’re
only talking about a donkey in our reading today. What a wonderful display of
Jesus’ power, but in such love, and in such humility, and such gentleness!
But let’s
look at the second part of our reading. We read: And they brought the colt
to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their
cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the
fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting,
“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord Blessed is the coming
kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”
Isn’t it
funny here, that Jesus is hardly mentioned here. All it says it that they
brought the colt to Jesus and that he sat on it. And all the
attention goes on to the crowd. And so Jesus has shown the purity and truth of
his word, and the crowd receive him by praising him. There are so many words in
the bible for praising Jesus: we praise him, we glorify him, we give thanks to
him, we adore him, we magnify him, we bless him, we exalt him. Here we see how
the Holy Spirit awakens all throughout the kingdom of Jesus the voice of
praise.
The
Pharisees are mentioned in the other gospels, and they grumble and complain and
are suspicious. We live in a world of advertising where people are always
trying to sell us something and talk something up. And so we get a bit
suspicious when people are praising something or someone. We might see through
a car salesman who talks us up a bit too much that he should.
And yet, the
Holy Spirit has a different voice to speak through us. We are all baptised
people—whatever stage of life we are, Jesus has brought us here, to bless us,
and to use us as he wants to use us. We belong to Jesus—let’s ask him to use us
as he would like today, and this week, and this year. But so often, all we see
is the weakness of the church—and then there comes into us a voice which conflict
with the Holy Spirit, a voice of suspicion, of criticism, of cynicism. But we
are part of the wonderful, glorious kingdom of Jesus—and he leads us deeper and
deeper into the knowledge of this kingdom, not through things which seem
glorious to our flesh and to our sinful nature, but through the cross. Jesus
humbles us because he have to live alongside people who annoy us and aggravate
us, right within the walls of our local church.
St Paul says
about this critical, suspicious, praiseless voice in Romans: Although they
knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became
futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Can you
see where this spirit of criticism leads? Futile thinking, foolish hearts,
darkness.
But right at
the beginning of the book of Romans, Paul models the voice of the Holy Spirit
for us. He has so many things to teach the Romans, there are so many things
wrong with the Romans, and yet he says: First, I thank my God through Jesus
for all of you. Did you here that? First, I thank my God.
And here as
we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the donkey, and as we begin this new
church year, let’s begin it with thankfulness, with praise, with adoration of
our Lord Jesus. First, I thank my God. You see, a healthy church listens
to God’s word, but then also it lifts up to God the voice of praise. Let’s ask
the Holy Spirit to awaken and create in us his living songs of praise! Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom
of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!
Amen.
Dear Lord
Jesus, we thank and praise you for the truth and purity of your word. Pour out
your Holy Spirit on us and our whole congregation as we follow you and your
guidance and leading through a new church year. Amen.
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