"When we cry our hosannas here, when we cry out to God to
save us in this place, we are calling on God to lift our hearts from the fog.
To lift our minds from the sense that we only have ourselves to deal with, that
we only have ourselves to care about, that we only have ourselves to depend on.
And Jesus says to us to follow him on his path through Jerusalem to the cross.
And we know from the life of Jesus that people will turn against us. The world
will turn against us. The world does not want our message. They do not want to
hear us. So they shuttle us off to this little hour on Sunday morning. We need
to take this hour and make it more. To take this hour with us, as Jesus took
his disciples with him on that march to the cross.
Because we also know there is another story beyond the cross. We know that the
glory and triumph which we see on this one Sunday, this Palm Sunday, is but a
small glimpse. It is a only a piece of the glory that comes next Sunday, Easter
Sunday, when the tomb breaks open, and Jesus defeats the power of death. We
know that this is but a glimpse of the great glory when Jesus Christ comes
again. But like Jesus Christ we have to go through the cross to get there. We
have to go through the taunts and jeers of the crowd; we have to go through the
pain that Jesus Christ went through. We have to take up our crosses and follow
him. And each one of cries our hosannas, for each one of us has something that
holds us back. Each one of us has something that causes us to come to God and
say lift this from me. Save me from this. As he rides on in majesty, we too
ride on in the majesty God has given to us, the majesty of being chosen of God,
the majesty of being children of the living God. Jesus Christ has lifted
himself that we might know the power of unmistakable and irreplaceable love.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna. Hosanna.
Hosanna!"
Read the full sermon, plus others, at sermoncentral.com
No comments:
Post a Comment