| New Book now Available Here is an anthology of over 1100 brief prayers and thought-starters, for each day of the year, with almost 400 original prayers by Bruce Prewer. Included is both a subject index and an index of authors-- an ecumenical collection of about 300 different sources. |
 |
| Title: Brief Prayers for Busy People. Author: Bruce D Prewer ISBN 978-1-62880-090-6 Available from Australian Church Resources, web site www.acresources.com.au email service@acresources.com.au or by order from your local book shop or online on amazon. |
Matthew 21:1-13 (Sermon 1: “He had the ticker”)
Philippians 2: 5-11
Isaiah 50: 4-9a (Sermon 2: “God’s wounded servant”)
Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29
or
Matthew 26:14 - 27:66
Psalm 31:9-16
PREPARATION
Tell the daughters of Mt Zion:
Look! Your king is coming to you,
humble and mounted on an ass.
Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of God.
Hosanna in the highest!
When he entered Jerusalem,
the whole city was excited
and people asked: "Who is this person?”
And the crowd replied:
This is Jesus,
from Nazareth in Galilee.
OR -
Trust that man on the donkey.
Have the same mind as Christ Jesus,
who emptied himself,
taking the form of a menial servant.
Sharing our human condition,
he humbled himself, obedient to the death,
even that shameful death on a cross.
I put my trust in you,
O God.
I say: “You are my
God,
every day is in your
hands.
Deliver me from all
temptation
and from those who
persecute me.”
PRAYER OF APPROACH
Loving God, present in both
sunshine and shadow, we follow the drama of salvation with wonder. As we walk
with Jesus during this holy week, each day drawing closer to his inevitable
suffering and death, we are thankful for every moment of sunshine that fell on
his path. We thank you for the common folk and the little children, who sensed
a glory that the proud and learned could not see. We thank you for each waving
palm frond and every shout of Hosanna. Like latecomers, at the rear of the
crowd, we add our praise and pledge our love. Hosanna in the highest!
Amen!
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
True repentance is not for the fainthearted. Soul-deep repentance is one of the sanest, yet toughest, experiences we can engage in.
That we may be truly repentant., let us pray
If we have entered this house, fully content with our own goodness and respectability, and feeling superior to others;
Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
If we are unaware of the ambiguity of our motives and of the cunning self interest that has crept into our best thoughts and deeds:
Christ have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
If we have measured our loving by odious comparisons with those around us, rather than by the exquisite self-giving of the cross;
Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
Please God, may we have the grace of sincere repentance, and find our true selves gathered up in your healing and freedom. Then having been forgiven, enable us to live as a forgiving people, breaking the vicious circle of this world’s blame and counter blame. Let us be a redemptive community, sharing the love with which you have loved us. Through Christ Jesus our Saviour.
Amen!
FORGIVENESS
Friends, God does not ask us to wallow in our mistakes, or
deny ourselves the grace that abounds in human weakness. Let us take Christ at
his word, and live the life of the forgiven and the forgiving.
Amen!
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Dear Lord Jesus,
we are happy when people cheer for you,
and shout Hosanna!
But we are sad when people sneer at you,
and shout bad things.
We want to love God better,
so that the things we say and do
will not add to your hurt
but help make both you and us
as happy as can possibly be.
Amen!
PSALM 118:1-2, 19-29
Come, say thanks to God who is all goodness,
whose sure love flows on forever.
Let all the people say it again and again:
God’s sure love flows on forever.
Swing open the gates of goodness that I may enter
and give thanks to our wonderful God.
Here is the gate that belongs to God,
believers can freely go in through it.
Thank you, God, for answering me;
you are my healing and liberation.
The stone that the builders threw aside
has become our cornerstone.
This is the day that God has made;
let us be happy and celebrate it.
Save us all, God, please save us;
please make our faith a success.
Happy are you who enter in God’s name,
in the house of God we bless you
God, our God, is the giver of light;
wave your branches right up to the altar.
I thank you for being God to me,
you are my God I will praise you.
Sing thanks to God, who is all goodness,
whose sure love flows on forever.
Ó B D Prewer 2001
[An
alternative version is found on page 153 “More Australian Psalms”
ONLY ONE
Only one king comes to our town
not
in a Rolls Royce or BMW
with
police bikes all around,
but bareback on a runt of a donkey,
like a comedian, feet brushing the
ground.
Only one high priest comes to our
church
not
led by bishops and cardinals
rich-robed
with religious sentiment,
but led by a grubby gang of street
kids
screaming their heads off with
merriment.
Only one god comes down our street
not
surrounded by holy angels
or
shining like the sun at noon,
but with tears running down his
cheeks
for those who play the devil’s
tune.
Only one true-man comes along this
way
never
looking to be served
or
honoured with public praise,
but to serve and give his life
as a ransom for rebels and strays.
Ó
B D Prewer 2001
SERMON 1: HE HAD THE TICKER
Matthew 21: 6-9
The disciples went and did what Jesus asked. They brought the ass, and the foal, and they placed saddle cloths on the ass and Jesus mounted. Much of the crowd spread garments on the road, while others cut branches from the palm tress and laid them on the road,
The crowds in front of him and
behind him shouted: “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in
the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!”
To be told: “You have the ticker for this” means that we are seen to have the intestinal-fortitude and tenacity to see a task through no matter how adverse the circumstances.
With Jesus I call this his love-courage. He had the ticker. Jesus showed extraordinary love-courage on Palm Sunday when he confronted his foes and was ready to see the results through to the awful end.
He was determined.
Against the powerful eddies of his own anxieties and fears,
against the temptation to turn around and not throw his life away.
against the sorrow that at times saturated his very bones,
Jesus mounted the donkey and headed down the winding road to Jerusalem,
surrounded by disciples- not one of whom understood him-
and hemmed in by a crowd that cheered him for all the wrong reasons,
and he rode that little donkey as a Prince of Peace entering his holy city.
With a bright flare of conviction in his mind, Jesus followed his faith as it led him to confront his scheming enemies and face inevitable arrest, suffering and death.
With extraordinary love-courage, Jesus who “had the ticker” created Palm Sunday.
A SPECIAL KIND OF COURAGE
Why does Palm Sunday hold such a special fascination?
Maybe because for once, Jesus was being cheered as he deserved to be cheered.
Maybe because of the sheer beauty of the love-courage which he displayed-
that love-courage which is the hope of this weary old world.
Thinking about courage, what brand of courage is this?
It is not- the impulsive recklessness of those not recognising danger.
not the bravery of those who seem born without capacity for deep fear.
not a show of bravado in order to try and bluff the opposition.
not the desperate fighting of a cornered creature.
not human vanity looking for its moment of glory.
This courage of Jesus is something different. It is special. It was displayed in spite of anxiety and fear about the outcome of that first Palm Sunday. His commitment was unique in its purity. It is the courage born of faith, hope and love. But above all it is born of love. That is why I create the hyphenated word “love-courage” to describe the actions of Jesus.
Jesus was not a helpless victim. He was in charge of this
situation. He was all too aware of the outcome. Of his own demise. He said, “No man takes my life from me.... I lay it
down of my own accord.”
He was not fooled by some fantasy that he had the power to change the attitude of his enemies in Jerusalem. He had no illusion at all. His very soul shrank and shuddered at what lay ahead.
On the other hand, his disciples were still in fantasy land. Very much so. With the crowd all around them they were on cloud nine. Euphoria. They really thought Jesus would now display his physical might and come into his own, in the worldly way they expected. A crown and a kingdom. They saw success and glory within their grasp.
But Jesus knew things would soon end in what would seem like disastrous, bloody defeat.
In the middle of the crowd, our Lord was almost unbearably lonely. Anxiety and fear about his certain fate must have tormented him. He knew there would be no special intervention by the God who provided wild lilies with the beauty and the birds with their daily food. No supernatural action to prevent the agony and death that awaited him.
Yet there in that Holy City was where he had to be. This was his mission. He had to remain true. For God’s sake. He had the ticker for the job. There was no turning back. He was determined to see it through to the end, and trust it all into the hands of his Father in heaven. Sheer love-courage drove him on into the city of Jerusalem, which was named as the place of peace but would provide scant peace for his body or soul.
It is not unexpected that Luke’s Gospel (not in Matthew, which is today’s reading) says Jesus broke down and sobbed his heart out during the Palm Sunday procession.
THE AGE OF ANXIETY
You and I are no strangers to anxiety and fear.
Fear is that inner recoil and tremor we feel when we are confronted by a definite, recognised danger.
Anxiety is that inner agitation and confusion we experience when confronted by threats we cannot exactly predict or prepare for.
Way back in my childhood, in 1940, the poet W.H.Auden coined the phrase “the age of anxiety.” He saw modern humanity as existing in a spiritual desert, where anxiety abounds.
Come to our well-run
desert,
Where anguish arrives
by cable,
And the deadly sins
May be brought in tins
With instructions on
the label.
.
It was true of that era, and it is doubly true today. This 21st century extends the “age of anxiety” with newer threats undreamed of, even in the war time of 1940.
We are anxious about terrorism, anxious about fluctuating economic and employment conditions, anxious about global warming, anxious about the ethical morass in our society, anxieties about violent robberies of the old and sexual assault of the young, anxious about AIDS and avian flu pandemics, even anxious about those predictions that sooner or later (maybe sooner) our planet earth is going to be hit by a large meteorite.
Some folk don’t seem to have the ticker that is needed to live creatively through these days.
The increasing number of high security, “gated” housing settlements, with coded entry and guards permanently on duty, is a powerful witness to anxiety in western society. (Those compounds, by the way, may in effect increase anxiety rather than lowering it)
OUR INAPPROPRIATE REACTION TO ANXIETY
How do we react to the threats that create anxiety?
Do we panic and rush into ill considered counter measures.
Some jittery folk are foolish enough to put their trust in some new political doctrine or leader.
Some hare off into new religions, following the bizarre and boastful sects that have sprung up all over the place.
Some turn to drugs, both the legal ones like alcohol and prescription drugs, or the illegal drugs like pot or ecstasy or coke.
Some attempt to drown their anxieties under a “go go” life style, hiding from the threats by frenetic activity, selling their souls to the entertainment, casino, and sex industries.
Some develop a rabid fear and antagonism towards all new immigrants, especially those of Arab origins.
Some take to bashing Asians, aborigines or gays.
Some rush to join America’s ‘stars wars” programme, or build larger prisons, or hand extraordinary powers to our Federal police and ASIO.
Others just withdraw in home and family. Close their hearts to the world around them. Settle for a life of sheltered boredom; working, eating, sleeping, and building high fences around their properties. A retreat. A funk hole where the artificial crises and needs of characters on TV soapies matter more than the joys and sorrows of living people out there on the street.
With some alterations we can update Auden’s verse:
Come to our spiritual
desert,
Where fear comes by TV
cable,
And the deadly sins, you bet,
May be found on the net,
With sex on every
label.
A DEFICIENCY IN LOVE COURAGE
Allowing for notable exceptions, I fear that our Australian society is marked by absence of love-courage. It does not seem to have the ticker needed for these changing times.
Our society deficient in the kind of spiritual and moral drive that Jesus showed on that first Palm Sunday. It refuses to permit a flare of bright conviction in the mind and soul to lead it forward. There is a lamentable lack of willingness to get involved and fulfil ones true destiny. Instead we opt for easy answers or diversions. We are not prepared to face misunderstanding, rejection and uffering for any righteous cause.
Maybe the church falls into the same trap. We would rather play it safe than take a risk for Christ’s sake. We fail the ticker test. Many church members cringe when church leaders dare to stand out on the frontiers where the hard decisions have to be made. They would much prefer that the difficult ethical and political issues were never raised in church. They want instead a quiet, pietistic, escapist religion.
Yet all the time Jesus is out there calling us to take up our cross and follow him.
AGAPE IS THE SOURCE OF CHRIST’S COURAGE
There is no doubt that the source of Jesus’ courage was love: The love he knew God had for him, the love he had for God. Pure agape. Love is the clue to trusting and risking in God’s name. God’s love provides the basic security from which we can take risks and defy evil.
For Jesus, God is agape, and therefore the way of love must inevitably bring the best outcome. Not the easiest outcome. Not the most profitable outcome. But the best outcome. Even his suffering and death would somehow, in God’s realm, bring a better outcome than turning his back on Jerusalem and playing it safe.
God’s love is the source of security that still fires up courageous souls. God’s love drives out fear and anxiety. God’s love provides a firm foundation on which we can build bravely and venture forward with a debonair enthusiasm.
.
As we picture again this day our lovely Lord Jesus riding that donkey into Jerusalem, misunderstood both by the crowds and by the disciples, we see the sure outcome of what he earlier taught about trusting God: Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. It is the proper outcome of that halcyon ministry in Galilee when he spoke about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and asks his disciples to trust God and not be afraid.
Taking our cue from Jesus we can dare to go forward without anxiety or impulsive recklessness. We can defy the threats that spawn around us in this world. We can defy them, not with foolish bravado but with faith and hope. and the power of love.
THE WAY TO THE FUTURE
Jesus had the ticker. Palm Sunday shows us pure love-courage. Palm Sunday invites us to share in this love-courage of God.
Jesus mounted that donkey and rode down that road into his painful destiny. Glorious stuff! The authentic way to that future which is ultimately always in God’s hands.
Trusting his grace we can dare respond to the poet Aden’s words in a way that is inspired by our Lord:
Come to this oasis in
the desert,
Where we meet at
Christ’s Table,
And where hope and love
Flow from God above
Without measurement on
the label.
Shorter version;
SERMON 1: HE HAD THE TICKER
Matthew 21: 6-9
The disciples went and did what Jesus asked. They brought the
ass, and the foal, and they placed saddle cloths on the ass and Jesus mounted.
Much of the crowd spread garments on the road, while others cut branches from the palm tress and
laid them on the road,
The crowds in
front of him and behind him shouted: “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is
he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!”
To be told: “You have the ticker for
this” means that we are seen to have the and tenacity to see a task through no
matter how adverse the circumstances.
With Jesus, I call this his
love-courage. He had the ticker. Jesus
showed extraordinary love-courage on Palm Sunday when he confronted his foes
and was ready to see the results through to the awful end.
He was determined.
Against the powerful eddies of his
own anxieties and fears,
against
the temptation to turn around and not throw his life away.
against
the sorrow that at times saturated his very bones,
Jesus mounted the donkey and headed
down the winding road to Jerusalem,
surrounded
by disciples- not one of whom understood him-
and
hemmed in by a crowd that cheered him for all the wrong reasons,
and he rode
that little donkey as a Prince of Peace entering his holy city.
With a bright flare of faith in his
mind, Jesus followed his conscience as it led him to confront his scheming
enemies and face inevitable arrest, suffering and death.
With extraordinary love-courage
Jesus, who “had the ticker,” created Palm Sunday.
A SPECIAL KIND OF HEROISM
Why does Palm Sunday hold such a
special fascination?
Maybe
because for once, Jesus was being cheered as he deserved to be cheered.
Maybe
because of the sheer beauty of the heroism which he displayed-
that
which is the hope of this weary old world.
His heroism is not-
the
impulsive recklessness of those not recognising danger.
not
a show ofbravado in order to try and bluff the opposition.
not
the desperate fighting of a cornered creature.
This courage of Jesus is something
different. It is special. It was unique in its purity. It is born of purest
love for God and humanity..
Jesus was not a helpless victim He
was not fooled by some fantasy. He was in charge of this situation. He was all
too aware of the outcome. Of his own demise. He said, “No man takes my life from me.... I lay it down of my own accord.”
His disciples were still in fantasy
land. Very much so. With the crowd all around them they were on cloud nine.
Euphoria. They saw a crown and a kingdom, with plentiful kudos for themselves.
No so Jesus. He knew things would end
in horror and in what would seem like disastrous, defeat.
Yet in that Holy City was where he
had to be. This was his mission. He had to remain true. For God’s sake.
He had the heroism, the ticker for
the job. There was no turning back. He was determined to see it through to the
end, and trust it all into the hands of his Father in heaven. Sheer love-courage made him mount that little
donkey on that fateful Sunday.
THE AGE OF ANXIETY—and Of FEAR
You and I are no strangers to anxiety
and fear.
Anxiety is that inner agitation and
confusion we experience when confronted by threats we cannot exactly predict or
prepare for.
Fear is that inner recoil and tremor
we feel when we are confronted by a definite, recognised danger.
Way back in my childhood, in 1940,
the poet W.H.Auden coined the phrase “the age of anxiety.” He saw modern
humanity as existing in a spiritual desert, where anxiety abounds.
Come to our well-run desert,
Where anguish arrives by cable,
And the deadly
sins
May be brought
in tins
With instructions on the label.
.
It was true of that era, and it is
doubly true today. This 21st century extends the “age of anxiety” with newer
threats undreamed of, even in the war time of 1940.
We are anxious about terrorism,
anxious about fluctuating economic conditions, anxious about global warming,
anxious about the ethical morass in our society, anxious about violent
robberies., anxious about AIDS and avian flu pandemics, even anxious about
those predictions that sooner or later (maybe sooner) our planet earth is going
to be hit by a large meteorite.
The increasing number of high
security, “gated” housing estates, with coded entry and guards permanently on
duty, is a powerful witness to anxiety and fear in western society. (Such gated
housing estates, by the way, may in time increase anxiety rather than lowering it)
It
seems that some folk don’t seem to have the ticker that is needed to
live creatively through these days pf drastic change and challenge.
SOME INAPPROPRIATE REACTIONS
Some fearful folk
are foolish enough to put their trust
in some new political doctrine or leader.
Or hare off into new religions,
following the bizarre and boastful sects proliferate,
Some turn to alcohol or drugs,
or attempt to escape under a “go go”
life style,
or take to bashing Abrabs, Asians,
aborigines or gays.
Others just withdraw in home and
family. Close their hearts to the world around them.
With some amendments we can update Auden’s verse:
Come to our spiritual desert,
Where fear comes by TV cable,
And the deadly
sins, you bet,
May be found on
the net,
With sex on every label.
A DEFICIENCY IN LOVE COURAGE
I fear that our Australian society is
marked by absence of love-courage. It
does not seem to have the ticker needed for these changing times.
Our society deficient in the kind of
spiritual and heroism that Jesus showed on that first Palm Sunday. It refuses
to cherish a flare of bright conviction in the mind and soul There is a
lamentable reluctance to get involved and fulfil ones true destiny. Instead we
opt for easy answers or diversions. We are not prepared to face
misunderstanding, rejection or even discomfort, for any righteous cause.
Maybe the church falls into the same
trap. We would rather play it safe than take a risk for Christ’s sake. We fail
the ticker test. Many church members cringe when church leaders dare to stand
out on the frontiers where the hard decisions have to be made. They choose instead a quiet, pietistic,
escapist religion. Love-courage is not in vogue.
Yet all the time Jesus is out there
calling us to take up our cross and follow him.
AGAPE IS THE SOURCE OF CHRIST’S
COURAGE
There is no doubt that the source of
Jesus’ courage was total love: agape.
The love he knew God had for him, the love he had for God. Pure agape. Love is the clue to trusting and
risking in God’s name. God’s love provides the basic security from which we can
take risks and defy evil.
For Jesus, God is agape, and
therefore the way of love must inevitably bring the best outcome. Not the
easiest outcome. Not the most profitable outcome. But the best outcome.
.
As we picture again our lovely Lord
Jesus riding that donkey into Jerusalem, misunderstood both by the crowds and
by the disciples, we see unfold the outcome of what his earlier teaching about
trusting God: Seek first the kingdom of
God and its righteousness. This Passion Sunday is the proper outcome of that halcyon
ministry in Galilee when he spoke about the lilies of the field and the birds
of the air, and asked his disciples to trust God and not be afraid.
Taking our cue from Jesus we can dare
to go forward with him, without anxiety or impulsive recklessness. We can defy
the threats that spawn around us in this world. We can defy them, not with
foolish bravado but with faith and hope. and the power of love.
THE WAY TO THE FUTURE
Jesus had the ticker. Palm Sunday
shows us pure love-courage. Palm Sunday invites us to share in this
love-courage of God.
Trusting his grace, maybe we can
respond to the poet Aden’s words in a way that is inspired by our Lord:
Come to this oasis in the desert,
where we meet at Christ’s Table,
and where hope
and love
flow from God
above
without measurement on the label.
SERMON 2: GOD’S WOUNDED SERVANT
Isaiah
50: 4-9
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 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.
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.
ISAIAH THE SEER ( SEE-ER)
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 spokemen 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.
You may recall that leading up to, and following, last Christmas, we 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.
Or, transposing it into Australian terms:
The
dingo shall dwell with the bilby,
and the eagle shall roost with the dove,
The joey
and the crocodile 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 of God,
as the waters cover the beds of
the sea
THE DYNAMIC OF REDEMPTIVE SUFFERING
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; not a case of deliberately provoking persecution. I admit that there has been sometimes been a sickness in Christianity which leads some to seek out pain and suffering as if it were a virtue in itself. Some have manufactured extra crosses to carry and then paraded their sufferings like trophies.
God does not call us to masochism. No way! 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 had:
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
ASTOUNDING FAITH
You know, this is astounding stuff!
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.
JESUS KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING
When Jesus, as one Gospel tells us, set his face like a flint and went 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 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 little donkey was literally a fatal move on his part. It would hasten rejection and suffering, and the cruelest 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.
DISCOMFORTING MESSAGE
From one angle, that is not a message I like to hear. Nor do you, I suspect.
I would prefer to believe that goodness would naturally prosper and bear fruit without pain. That the world would witness the works of righteousness, applaud, and follow suit. I would prefer to think that loving servants of God would, after a long and successful life, die peacefully in their beds and all men speak well of them at the 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 in the course of 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 I profoundly need to hear.
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 proved 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 me repeat the words with which I commenced:
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.
A CREED
In God we trust.
In the One who comes humbly among us,
taking on our humanity and breaking our idols,
in God we trust.
Riding a donkey and weeping over Jerusalem,
receiving shouts of praise from the common people,
gaining the enmity of the proud and the powerful,
in God we trust.
Riding to face a destiny foretold by prophets,
entering the holy city but with no where to lay his head,
coming to his own but his own not receiving him,
facing cruel death for the sake of those who love him not,
in God we trust.
This Palm Sunday Man,
this Passion Sunday God,
in God we trust.
PRAYERS FOR OTHERS
Because of Christ’s love, our prayers reach out to our brothers and sisters.
Let us pray.
Holy Friend, we turn to you in prayer for those around us, not trying to twist your arm or change your mind, but linking our little compassion to your boundless compassion for all those whom Christ came to save.
We pray for those who today are faced with a clear choice between doing the lonely will of God or conforming to the cosy will of the majority.
May your grace win the day
and your salvation prosper.
We pray for those who are confused by an apparent lack of clear choice, who must make decisions within being sure which is the best option.
May your grace win the day
and your salvation prosper.
We pray for those who are suffering much because of their decision to put Christ first; and are now scorned or isolated, abused or persecuted
May your grace win the day
and your salvation prosper.
We pray for those who are living with the consequences of bad decisions, who cannot put back the clock but wish to learn from their sins and grow in humility and faith.
May your grace win the day
and your salvation prosper.
We pray for those who without any say in the matter are thrust into unexpected situations of suffering or sorrow.
May your grace win the day
and your salvation prosper.
We pray for your church when it is harried by critics, disgraced by its own weak or arrogant members, and given challenges that appear to large for its resources.
May your grace win the day
and your salvation prosper.
God of Palm Sunday, please endower each of us with the courage and humility of Christ, that his love at work in us may enable us to do much better than seems humanly possible. May his hands take even that which is twisted or scarred and shape it for a greater purpose and sublime glory.
May your grace win the day
and your salvation prosper.
Through Christ Jesus our Saviour.
Amen!
SENDING OUT
That you may know that some crosses should not,
and sometimes cannot, be avoided,
I bless you.
Amen!
That you may you see in Christ that even the worst events
can be transformed by God’s silent power,
I bless you.
Amen!
So go out into the world in peace,
challenge the indifferent,
encourage the timid,
assist the weak,
and be patient with them all.
The grace of.....
THREE BOOKS BY BRUCE PREWER
THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
BY ORDERING ONLINE
OR FROM YOUR LOCAL CHRISTIAN BOOKSHOP
