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Dear Church,
Want to hear something good? Holy Week is upon us! The Good News that Jesus will arrive in Jerusalem, gather us, teach us, never leave us, and will return to us anew is here. Thanks be to God.
Is there anything else we need to say? Thanks be to God for this Good News.
This Sunday, we will gather together in the joyful protest of Palm Sunday to welcome Jesus back to Jerusalem. If you are able, we will gather in the narthex with our palms in-hand and process into worship as a community. Then we will worship our Lord and start the holiest journey of our faith throughout the week. After worship we will gather in the 3rd floor conference room for our Explore Together conversation on The Girl Who Baptized Herself. It is going to be a wonderful Sunday.
Our Holy Week schedule is published below but a new addition is to our Holy Monday. We will gather on the steps of our church with Bishop Williams Barber and the Repairers of the Breach at 11am and walk to Black Lives Matter Plaza to raise our faithful voices for a Moral Monday witness. Then we hope to see you for our Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and of course Easter!
Friends, the Good News is inspiring us to act with Jesus and for his people. May that Good News be with us and sustain us this day and always.
In the goodness of the Good News,
Pastor Stephanie
Theme:
The Good News is Inspiring us to Act.
Sacred Text:
Mark 11:1-11 (ILB)
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent off two of the disciples with this instruction: “Go to the village straight ahead of you, and as soon as you enter it you will find tethered there a colt on which no one has ridden. Untie it and bring it back. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing that?’ say, ‘The Rabbi needs it, but will send it back very soon’.”
So, they went off, and finding a colt tethered out on the street near a gate, they untied it. Some of the bystanders said to them, “What do you mean by untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them take it.
They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks across its back, and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. “And everyone around Jesus, in front or in back of him, cried out,
“Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of our God!
Blessed is the coming reign of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!”
Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple precincts. He inspected everything there, but since it was already late in the afternoon, he went out to Bethany accompanied by the Twelve.”
Reflection:
By The Rev. Dr. Brian Blount
You Better Recognize!
You better recognize! You better pay attention and respond as if lives depend on it.
Attend to the truth: Jesus is Lord. The prophet Malachi (3:1) declares that the Lord whom the people seek will suddenly come to the Temple.
As Jesus does. Entering Jerusalem, in word and deed, he identifies himself as Lord. He has prophetic foreknowledge about the location and state of a colt. He possesses the regal authority to requisition that colt for his royal purpose.
At Passover, pilgrims were expected to walk into the city. No doubt Jesus' followers expected him to do exactly that, since he always walked wherever he went. This time, he chooses instead to ride the kind of colt a king in a processional would ride, one that had never before been ridden.
In so doing, he brings to realization the prophecy of Zechariah: Your king, Jerusalem, comes to you triumphant, riding on a colt (Zechariah 9:9).
Appropriately, the people respond. The disciples throw their cloaks onto the colt. Their draping is a makeshift throne. The people suddenly crowded around Jesus follow suit. Jettisoning their cloaks onto the ground along with leafy branches, they lay before him a makeshift red carpet. And they sing the Hosanna of the Hallel Psalms? (see Psalm 118:25) that celebrates the coming of their Davidic King.
Jesus is that King. But in an astonishing way. We know that he is ultimately on his way to the cross. His kingship, symbolized by his station upon a humble colt, is one of sacrifice and service. And yet, as Lora, he is not a helpless victim. He is in charge. He is working out God's plan in this demonstration of royal authority. Even in the process of letting go of his life, he is in charge of the liberation of God's people. He puts our lives before his own life.
Our calling, having recognized Jesus' Lordship, is to emulate his regal imperative. To live our lives as he lived his, in service to-and perhaps even in sacrifice for—the lives of God's people.
Reflection Questions:
- What does it mean for you to serve on behalf of Jesus?
- What is an act of service that you have done that changed the way you experienced the love of God?
- What does it mean to have an active faith?
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