Worship Preview for Palm Sunday. 3.29.26 "Palms and Passion"

UPCOMING EVENTS:

FEEDING FAMILIES IN HIS NAME: Wednesday, April 1 (no foolin’!)- A free, no obligation meal is served “to-go” style from underneath our portico from 5:15pm to 6:15pm each Wednesday, prepared each week by our members as well as several area churches and community groups. We aim to provide 400 meals per week.

MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID TRAINING – Open to the community! On Saturday, April 18^th Join Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center staff for a day of learning about how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental health and substance abuse challenges among adults. No cost, lunch provided with registration.

Register by calling Angie Smith at (620) 212-4404 or email adsmith@sekmhc.org.

HOLY WEEK SERVICES: March 29^th - Palm Sunday 10:30am. April 2 - Maundy Thursday 7pm. April 3^rd - Good Friday 7pm. April 5^th Easter: Sunrise Service at 7am at the parking lot behind the church (near 3^rd & Main) and then 10:30am for Easter Morning Worship in the Sanctuary! Join us!

WORSHIP THIS SUNDAY: 10:30am.“The Way: Palms and Passion”

Scriptures: Psalm 118, Matthew 21:1-16, Exodus 32:1-15. Rev. Christopher Eshelman preaching.

We have arrived at Holy Week. Jesus arrives at Jerusalem. He is surrounded by celebration – waving palms, cries of Hosanna! In some ways, we’ve arrived at the destination. In others, the journey is just beginning. Sunday we will explore competing visions. As Jesus enters with crowds he has gathered while teaching and healing,

Also entering Jerusalem at this Passover, from the west, would have been the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Like the Roman governors of Judea before him, Pilate lived in Caesarea by the sea. But with crowds of devout Jews flowing into Jerusalem to commemorate their liberation from Egypt, the Roman Governors would put on a display of force, to deter the Jews from getting too exuberant about the possibility of liberation from Rome. Pilate’s procession was the visible manifestation of Imperial Roman power. Once a year, during the Passover, the Roman procurator moved his headquarters to Jerusalem in a show of strength designed to prevent any outbreaks of insurgency or violent rebellion against Roman rule.

As Pilate lead a regiment of his own most trusted soldiers into town; as a show of force, he did so with confidence knowing that he was backed up by several battalions of Rome’s finest garrisoned on the west side of Jerusalem ready to flood into the city at Pilate’s command. The sound of “marching feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums” would have had a sobering effect on all those who saw this parade.

The past several weeks, I have highlighted how religious nationalism distorts and demeans both faith and patriotism. It listens to the voice of the tempter and says Jesus got it wrong in the wilderness. This week we’ll hear of dueling entrances into Jerusalem and look back to Aaron building a “golden calf” for an impatient and stiffnecked people who tire of waiting on Moses, and assign God’s call and action falsely. These competing visions and examples offer us the same kinds of choices today. I’ve highlighted how Jesus describes himself as both “Good Shepherd” and “gate” and tells us he has “other flocks.” I’ve also highlighted the vision of Revelation 7 of “a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” Last week we looked at David’s sin with Bathsheba and Nathan confronting him. In doing so, I shared a quote from Eugene Petersen. In his wonderful book on Revelation – entitled “Reversed Thunder” Petersen writes: “The church is the place where we come to find out what we are doing that is right; it is a place of affirmation. The church is the place where we come to find out what we are doing that is wrong; it is a place for correction. The church is the place where we come to hear the promises; it is a place of motivation. No Christian community can do without any part of this message. We need affirmation, we need correction, we need motivation.”

So Sunday we’ll focus on Matthew’s account of Jesus’ entrance as a fulfillment of prophetic voice, quoting Zechariah 9:9: “see your King comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal foal of a donkey” and continues to the cleansing of the temple. Jesus is engaged in a political and religious protest – an act of prophetic warning and call to turn away from false idols of violence and control. Jesus rejects the distortion and corruption of the Temple and the violence of Roman rule. He comes claiming a dominion, not by violence, but by courageous loving, serving and accepting his place among the victims of imperial power. On the back of a borrowed burro and in flipping tables, Jesus bears witness to the futility of the world’s kind of power in establishing God’s peace, God’s shalom, God’s justice. The dominion of God is nothing remotely like the kingdoms or empires with which we are all too familiar. Christ’s followers are pointed a different way. Our Lenten journey has been about recognizing that way, listening for the Shepherd’s voice, and turning away from the kinds of distorted and destructive religious and political voices that echo Pilate’s procession rather than Jesus.

This moment on the road for Jesus feels both like the end and the beginning. Such are so many moments of our lives. A pilgrimage may reach its destination, but the hope, the wisdom, the lessons learned along the way have offered a new starting point for us. What have we learned and what transformation–what “other way”–are we called to in the name of right relationship in our lives? This holiest of weeks, we’ll explore that – beginning with Palm Sunday and continuing into a remembrance of the last supper and Jesus’ example of love and humble service on Maundy Thursday at 7pm, to a remembrance of the Crucifixion on Good Friday, also at 7pm. Both of these special midweek services are to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the glory revealed on Easter morning. We will gather at 7am Easter Sunday in the parking lot behind the church for a Sunrise communion service, share a breakfast afterwards, and then have a full Easter morning worship at our normal 10:30am time.

You are invited to bring your whole self, all your doubts, fears, and questions… all your hopes and dreams, to join with other imperfect people seeking to walk in the Way of Christ. Buen Camino! Blessings on your journey!