Palm Sunday - Family Service
Palm Sunday – 2019 – Family Service
Palm Sunday – we began with the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Started with a cheering crowd – ends with Jesus on the Cross, with his enemies jeering. What happened?
We will start with keeping things simple. What letter does this represent? (Hold up piece of wood) That letter is quite important to us if you think about it – we use it a lot.
We use to express opinions – ‘I think Birmingham City are a great football team.’
We use it to express our affection – we might say to someone ‘I love you’
We use it to encourage other people – ‘I think you are looking great today’; ‘I think you are really good at doing that’.
But ‘I’ is not always so pleasant.
We can use it to express prejudice – ‘I think foreigners are lazy, or stupid, or dishonest.’
We can use it to express hatred – ‘I hate you.’; ‘I despise you.’
We can use it to undermine people – ‘I think you are stupid.’; ‘I think you are ugly.’
So the letter ‘I’ needs to be controlled a bit. In fact sometimes I need to cross the letter ‘I’ out. (Put cross bar in place and hold up) Now what do I get?
That’s right a cross – the cross is, if you like, the letter ‘I’ crossed out.
‘I’ crossed out in many ways describes not just the death of Jesus but the whole of his life. That is summed beautifully in those words Paul wrote to the Church at Philippi as he encouraged them to model their attitudes and life on those of Jesus himself. I am going to read it from the translation, ‘The Message’.
Phil2:5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
On one occasion Jesus told his followers, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” How can we think of taking up our cross daily? We find our example in that selfless obedient life of Jesus, life lived with the ‘I’ crossed out. A life in which I seek to encourage people rather than undermine them; in which I express love and not hatred, in which we turn our back on prejudice and honour one another.
I will just close with the prayer of St Ignatius which I think gives us a lovely pattern for living in the footsteps of Jesus.
Teach us, good Lord, to serve thee as thou deservest;
To give, and not to count the cost,
To fight, and not to heed the wounds,
To toil, and not to seek for rest,
To labor, and not to ask for any reward,
Save that of knowing that we do thy will.