Palm Sunday: The Power of a Suffering King

 Hello church family!

I’ve learned some very important things in the past few weeks.

1. It’s hard to find excuses to stay in the warm shower longer when you have no hair.

2. Buttered popcorn is the most horrible of the Jelly Belly flavors.

3. There is some kind of hormonal thing that happens when husbands turn 50 that makes them obsessed with Corvettes.

4. Very occasionally, when the dog whines to go outside at 2am, his intention is not to chase cats and dig holes and irritate his humans. Sometimes, he really needs to pee.

5. You won’t be able to find any cabbage at Walmart on March 17, no matter how much you want it.

6. Dennis literally just showed me another Corvette for sale, while I’m sitting here writing. It’s blue, and in Ohio.

Anyhoo.

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, when we remember Jesus coming triumphantly into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey like the King of Peace that he is, fulfilling the prophecy in Zechariah from 700 years before. In John, it all begins 6 days before Passover with Jesus coming to Bethany and having dinner with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus whom he had recently raised from the dead. The Jewish leaders are plotting to kill Lazarus, too, we are told, because of the testimony he gives about Jesus. The time they share together is colored by this tension.

At dinner, Mary “anoints” Jesus’ feet with costly perfume, and dries them with her hair. The other gospels tell this story, too, all a bit differently (Luke’s is my favorite). John (and Mark, too) intends us to see here not just a loving gesture but the anointing of Jesus as King and as Messiah, and a foretelling of his death. Then, after this anointing, Jesus rides into Jerusalem knowing that his time is growing short.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, then it bears much fruit.” Nobody knows what he means, really, when Jesus says this. But we do. We live in the miraculous result of Jesus’ resurrection truth.

The thing is, this saying of Jesus applies to us, too. When a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies in fertile ground, it becomes more and more wheat. In the same way, when we give the best of ourselves in goodness and love, goodness and love is multiplied. But we, in Christ, are a new creation. When we give up what is not good in us for Jesus’ sake – our ego, our pride, our self-loathing, our anger or hatred or destructiveness – that, too, dies and bears glorious, miraculous fruit.

In this last week before Holy Week, what needs to die in you?

In faith, hope, and love,

Pastor Dawn

Worship Any and Everywhere!

PALM SUNDAY: The Power of a Suffering King

Join us on Sunday to celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, as Holy Week begins. We will sing Hosanna and praise the Lord, and then walk together with Jesus into the most important week of his – and our – lives. If you feel ready to join us in person, we would love to see you! We remain committed to healthy protocols including masks, distancing, and careful sanitation as we worship together.