Text for the Week: Blessed is the King who
comes in the name of the Lod! Peace in
heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!
Luke 19:
Welcome to our services for Palm Sunday and a special welcome
to any who are worshiping with us for the first time.
During our
service Our Open the Book team are going to tell the story of the
Grand Parade into Jerusalem. And they would like everyone’s
help! As Jesus rode into Jerusalem the crowds waved palm
branches: we would love you to pick up something from the team
at the front that you can wave as the Grand Parade passes
through!
We are going to focus on Luke’s account of Palm Sunday
in Luke 19. It’s the culmination of a journey to Jerusalem that had
begun in Luke’s Gospel way back in chapter 9 verse 51 when Luke
tells us Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Much was said on
the journey and a great deal happened. Jesus’s journeying did not
finish on Palm Sunday: day by day through the following week he
journeyed in and out of Jerusalem, until he was arrested. It
seemed as if it really had come to an end on Good Friday … but
on the third day he rose again from the dead and, as we shall find
out in our Easter celebrations next week, the journeying went on.
There is so much Jesus has to offer on the journey we are on! It
takes us to the cross … and beyond to resurrection too!
Welcome
and Call to Worship
364
All glory, laud and honour
Prayer
and the Lord’s Prayer
Introduce
Christ’s entry into Jerusalem – painting and backdrop for our service …
Christ’s
Entry into Jerusalem by Norman Adams
from
the Methodist Art Collection John 12: 12–15
Jesus is at the
centre riding a donkey, with a foal or colt, along a sunlit road lined with
sunflowers. There is no obvious depiction of Jerusalem, no garments or palm-tree
branches cast before Jesus, but there is a joyous crowd with bunting and
decorations. Various flags are flown, some on their side or upside down. The
figure to the right, at a window, may be Zacchaeus, who climbed a tree to see
Jesus. Luke records this as happening at Jericho, but it is often included in
the Entry into Jerusalem. The rich luminous colours recall medieval stained
glass. When commissioned to undertake this work for the Collection in 1990,
Norman Adams replied ‘I would like to do this very much ... It is a wonderful
subject’.
Methodist
Art Collection
http://www.methodist.org.uk/our-faith/reflecting-on-faith/the-methodist-modern-art-collection/index-of-works/norman-adams-christs-entry-into-jerusalem/
Helen
Cook in Magnet: this picture of the event helped me feel what it might have been like to be
there.
Flags
of the nations brings it into today’s world – Jesus comes for us!
What
figures can you spot? – those dark figures ahead of Jesus – the darkness he is
going into before he reaches the light of resurrection?
Hymn:
Jesus is coming 1-2
Jesus
is coming,
Joy
and excitement,
Telling
our friends that
He’s
on his way.
Will
you come with us?
Leave
what you’re doing?
Wait
at the roadside,
Wonderful
day!
Here
he comes smiling,
Happy
to see us.
We
wave our branches
His
praises sing.
He
told us stories,
Valued
our friendship,
Join
us to welcome
The
children’s King
The
Grand Parade
Hymn:
Jesus is coming 3-4
Prayer
Humble
and riding on a donkey
All
We
greet you
Acclaimed
by the crowds and caroled by the children,
All
We
cheer you
Moving
from the peace of the countryside to the corridors of power
All
We
salute you, Christ our Lord.
You
are giving the beasts of burden
a
new dignity;
You
are giving majesty
a
new face
you
are giving those who long for redemption
a
new song to sing
All
With
them, with heart and voice
We
shout Hosanna!
A
Hy-Spirit Song
Activities
for all over 3
And
so we arrive at Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter and reach the heart of our
Christian faith … and it’s all about Jesus.
His
story is told in the gospels and each has a story to tell.
Mark
is brief and punchy and full of action as Jesus criss crosses across the Sea of
Galilee from the Jewish to the Gentile territory bringing healing to hurting
people’s lives and shaping a new way of being together which he calls the
Kingdom of God.
Matthew
sees Jesus as the new Moses – he presents the teaching of Jesus in five
sections that offers us a whole new of thinking about the world and a whole new
way of living in the world.
John’s
Gospel homes in on seven things that Jesus did: he calls them signs – and each
one is accompanied by Jesus’s reflections that bring out the significance of
all that happened – and then one more sign is the death and resurrection of
Jesus – and the significance of it all is brought out in the wonderful
reflections Jesus makes at the last supper – from, five whole chapters of
reflections from 13 to 17.
And
then there’s Luke.
And
it’s all about the Journey Jesus makes to Jerusalem.
It’s
easy to think of that journey to Jerusalem as happening on Palm Sunday.
In
Luke’s gospel it begins a long way before – the bulk of the book is built around
Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem
Luke
9:51
9:53
10:30
[13:4]
13:22
13:33,
34
17:11
18:31
19:11
19:28
There’s
a mounting tension as he makes his way to Jerusalem.
What
do you do on a journey? You tell stories
Where
to find parables?
Seed,
harvest, nature – Parables of the Kingdom – Mark 4 or Matthew 13
Parables
of choice – wide and narrow door, good and bad fruit, wise builder and foolish
builder, wise women and foolish women, worthy servants and unworthy, sheep and
goats – End of Sermon on the Mount and End of last sermon – Matthew 7 and 25
Story-like
parables – Good Samaritan, Rich Fool, Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, Lost Son – all on
the journey to Jerusalem …
Reflections
– the journey of life, the journey of faith … but on this journey there is a
sense of purpose, a sense of direction
Good
to share at the Annual Meeting on Thursday – the church is moving forward –
looking to the time of the vacancy – looking to the Autumn. It is important to
have that sense of vision – the sense of direction – the sense of purpose in
moving forward.
A
journey to challenge, to take up the cross, to find the glory Christ promises.
And
in all the journey to sense the presence of God with us.
533
Will you come and follow me
Reading:
Luke 19:36-44
The
things that make for peace
As
he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now
approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the
disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of
power that they had seen, saying,
‘Blessed
is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace
in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!’
Some
of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to
stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout
out.’
At
the start of the story of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel – the angels song – Glory to
God in the highest and on earth peace …
And
now as the story of Jesus comes to its climax in Luke – that song is echoed
Peace
in heaven,
Glory
in the highest heaven
But
that prayer Jesus taught us to pray invites us to seek to bring heaven down to
earth – a task for us to do.
Thy
kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
What
does that entail?
It’s
at this point we come to one of the most poignant of all the moments in the
Gospel story, of all the moments in the story of Jesus.
As
he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had
only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are
hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies
will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side.
They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they
will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize
the time of your visitation from God.’
As
he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had
only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are
hidden from your eyes.
On
the journey, in all that we do our task in bringing heaven down to earth is to
recognize the things that make for peace.
360
Jesus Christ is waiting
Prayers
of Concern
392
When I survey
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