Cross
A Palm Sunday Prayer link
On this day of great rejoicing, Lord Jesus Christ,
when we welcome You as our King and Savior,
we also walk in the shadow of Your cross.
Hosanna! we cry. Blessed are You who come in God’s name to save us.
Hosanna! Strengthen our faith on this Palm Sunday
so that when the time comes to carry the cross we might still call out to You with heartfelt praise.
Give us the grace and the courage to follow You this Holy Week from death to resurrection,
from darkness to the fullness of light.
We need You, Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Hosanna!
Amen
Prayer for Palm Sunday: Scott McNight link
Almighty and ever-living God,
in your tender love for the human race
you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature,
and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility:
Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering,
and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
OH LORD by Saint Ambrose of Milan link
O Lord, who has mercy upon all, take away from me my sins,
and mercifully kindle in me the fire of your Holy Spirit.
Take away from me the heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh,
a heart to love and adore You, a heart to delight in You,
to follow and enjoy You, for Christ’s sake.
Amen
The Nicene Creed link
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried.
And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father.
And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins,
and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
Benediction: Jude 1:24-25 link
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling
And to present you before his glorious presence without fault
And with great joy to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, and authority,
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore!
Amen.
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I have tears literally streaming down my face. I will listen to this again, perhaps many times.
Thank you!
FreshGrace,
Blessings on you this Palm Sunday.
Thanks, Dee. A sobering assessment with a glimpse of hopeful possibilities.
The thought occurs that transparency about the reality of what is happening in congregations may in many cases be thought to be at cross-purposes with other important agendas, such as evangelism or making budget. Perhaps congregations need to de-scale to improve the ability of leaders to know the flock and identify dangerous members (and for members to know their leaders), but also to weaken the institutional agendas that motivate coverups.
“Because he knew what was in man” — regrettably, it seems necessary to alert the young to the reality of what others can be like. Perhaps it is thought that this would be harmful to the mental health of the young (how many parents and church leaders have conversation with those in their care like the warning of fictional Hagrid to young Harry Potter: “not all wizards are good.”?) I’ve encountered reasonably plain high-level/abstract concepts of depravity in doctrinal formulations about human nature, but never plain application at the level of “the people close to me might commit a crime against me or against others.” And it’s assumed that confession of faith is a trustworthy indicator of regeneration of the inner man, with the implication that “bad things won’t happen here, because the people are spiritually reborn of the Spirit”
“not a mistake, not an oops, not a bad day” … and not a medication side effect. Perhaps one could say that some kinds of medication may make it harder to avoid the mask slipping and revealing what is in the heart.
“This is the temple of the Lord” — Ezekiel’s vision comes to mind, of the Spirit departing the Jerusalem temple because of unclean things happening within it. The Pauline concept of christian congregations as corporate temples, built together into temples within which God dwells through the Spirit (and from which the Spirit might depart if grieved), has in my experience of church teaching been eclipsed by the concept of the presence of the Spirit within the individual believer. And since we’re all believers here, by definition the Spirit is present and we are a bona fide church. Perhaps churches lose sight of the risk that they may be vulnerable to the analysis of the church at Ephesus in Rev 2.
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I wonder if there needs to be mental health support for lay helpers of people who have been abused. This sounds like a deeply discouraging ministry.
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A Palm Sunday meditation — by the morning of Good Friday, the Romans had in custody a man, Barabbas, who had committed murder in the context of an insurrection, presumably in Jerusalem. It seems plausible that this man’s trial and condemnation was not long delayed after his arrest, and that the insurrection took place during the preceding week, i.e. during the period of Jesus’ last visit to Jerusalem. Perhaps it even took place while Jesus was approaching the city and the crowds were acclaiming him as Israel’s King — the Messiah. Perhaps Barabbas hoped to raise the city in revolt against the Romans and hand it over to its newly arrived King.
The thing that holds my attention is that less than a week after the public acclamation of Jesus as King, when the inhabitants of and visitors to Jerusalem, nearly all of them Israelites and notionally ‘people of God’, were given the choice between the peaceable king Jesus and the murderer/insurrectionist Barabbas, they preferred the killer. Perhaps they admired his zeal for Israel and his skill at ‘getting business done’, while Jesus had, by comparison, bungled things by getting arrested before striking a blow against the occupiers.
(Aside — the concerns of the priests in Jn 11:48 would seem to have been valid as an assessment of the temper of the people and the risks of a mass following of Jesus, though they greatly misunderstood Jesus’ intentions)
Perhaps present-day preference for stage presence and rhetorical skill over self-giving love of, and sacrificial service to, the flock is a modern day echo of Old Jerusalem’s preference for Barabbas over Jesus.
We, too, have been to the Cape Coast slave castle but unlike Dr. Langberg, we did not have a guide that sunny day, to point out the “heaven” and hell of the ornate little chapel for the slave trader merchants right above the dungeon for the captive slaves.
And yet, there it was. Shocking. The Christian elite in all its glorious evil. We were absolutely astounded, completely taken aback.
That same religious elite crucified Jesus.
Dr. Langberg notes that likewise the religious elite rape and pillage in our churches, from mega to the cute little neighborly corner variety, today.
God deliver us from our entitled religious elite, amongst ourselves and others.
Thank yoiu for sharing that thought. I had not made the connection. Awesome!
I had never realized that.
So well said.
dee,
This is by far my most favorite echurch ever. Of course, the topic is my passion and kingdom life assignment (beyond family). Dr. Langberg’s work is amazing…I’m totally a fan.
Thanks, Dee. God love you, God bless you.
Thank you for this.