Well, it is good to be here with you guys.
It's it wasn't my plan to be in Ontario in April and number of
weeks ago I was working on some things and, and felt this nudge.
I don't know if you ever felt that this kind of a nudge to go
should go to Ontario. And I thought, well, there's
things I could do there and and my wife was going to be in
Ontario anyways visiting her folks.
And I thought, well, if I maybe it'll work out.
And so we kind of planned this trip and then some things
happened here. And then I went, oh, that's,
that's part of it. And we're here.
I wish we were, it's much better circumstances, but we are, we
work together. And part of the the Evangelical
Midnight Conference is, is it that we're a network of churches
and we work together and we support you guys and we want to
see you guys thrive and do the mission that you're called to.
And so we want to be supportive to you and to your pastor and,
and do what we can. So I'm happy to be here and be
be part of, of today. I actually noticed in the
bulletin that the, the title is slightly different.
One of us made a typo, either what I sent or what got printed
because it says in your bulletin, it says the, the, the
wonder of Psalms Sunday. And I went, oh, that's actually
a better title. And so if, if you have any back
next year Palm Sunday, I'm going to do the same sermon, but it's
going to be a different title because I think it's a better, a
better title. But it is Palm Sunday as as Jake
read, and we're going to be looking at Mark Chapter 11 as we
look at this being Palm Sunday, being the Sunday before Easter,
what we celebrate is Easter. And it's it's a story that's
told in all four of the gospels told in Mark, Luke, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. And it's a day that Jesus rides
in and, and goes through everything and then is of
course, rested and later crucified.
I've been watching the my kids have taken me to the theater the
last couple of weeks to see the chosen, the new season.
The new season is, is this part of the story?
And so this has been what I've been watching the last couple of
weeks is Jesus coming in and then all the confrontations he
has with the Pharisees in these last days.
And the part I like about the chosen is it shows you these
disciples being completely confused at what's going on and
why these things are happening and, and what Jesus is up to.
And in a lot of what we do in our, in our Christian life,
whether we want to admit it or not, I think we spend a lot of
time going, what's, what's Jesus doing?
Like, what's, what's up with this?
Why is why are these things not working the way I think they
ought to work? And this is story, this this
Palm Sunday story, this Jesus coming in is, is a story about
people just not understanding, but God working behind the
scenes and doing something that far exceeded any of their
thoughts or dreams. So Mark records it this way.
Mark Chapter 11. I'm going to start at verse 7.
You can kind of read some of the background on your own, but
start in verse 7. And they brought the cult to
Jesus and they threw their cloak on it and he sat on it.
And many spread their cloaks on the road and others spread leafy
branches, palm branches that they had cut from the fields.
And those who went before and those who followed were shouting
these words. Hosanna, blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord. This word hosanna means
literally means save us. We pray.
It's kind of 2 words that are put together, Save us, we pray.
So this is a call because you got to realize these people are
people that that are going through hardships.
They're people that are that are occupied by the Roman Empire.
So they're not able to kind of self govern the way they would
normally do. And so they're somewhat
restricted. And this is call of desperation.
And if you really look at it, it's a call for salvation.
It's a it's a call to be rescued from from this tyranny that
they're under or these these difficult times that they're
under. And when you look at this
Passover week being the week before, the celebration of what
we have is Easter is something that's been celebrated by the
Jewish community for about 3000 years.
And, and it has been celebrated virtually unchanged for most of
that time. It adapted a little bit.
And then they have this, this formality to it that has been
passed down from generation to generation.
And, and it culminates with this Passover meal, the, the Seder
meal and, and the whole meal is orchestrated and it's steeped in
tradition. And there's a because it's meant
to tell a story. It's meant to convey what God
has done in the past to the next generation so that they will
remember. And of course, it all starts
with Charleston Heston in 1956, Cecil B DeMille movie of the 10
Commandments. Now that's going to date me.
And because a lot of you are looking at it and say you've
never seen that before, but this is the story of the 10
Commandments. This is the story of Moses.
And this scene right here is the scene on on that Passover night.
And if you know the story from from back there, God speaks to
Moses through the burning Bush, says, I want you to go back and
I want you to free my people. He goes back and he says,
Pharaoh let my people go. And Pharaoh kind of thinks about
it and goes, no, I don't think that's a good idea.
And so God proceeds to send 10 different plagues.
So it starts off with blood and then frogs and then lice and
then flies, and then the livestock get infested, and then
there's boils and then there's hail, and then there's locust
and then there's darkness. And then the final one was that
the first born of every family would die.
But before they get to that plague, God steps in and does
something through Moses and he tells him to instruct the people
to do some very odd things. And so if you go back to Exodus
chapter 12, verse one, God gives Moses some very particular
instructions. We're not going to go through
everything. You can kind of read that on
your own. But the first thing he does, he
says this, he says this month shall be for you the beginning
of months. Now it's the 7th month on the
calendar. So the first thing God does is
he changes the calendar and he says this, this 7th month with
this a month of Nissan or Nissan is going to now be the first
month. And so on a Jewish calendar,
they actually have two different calendars.
They have one that's called the the civil 1:00, which gives you
the, the new year being right around September.
And then they have the religious one, which starts right around
now, right around March, April. And it's the month of, of
Nissan. And this month, he says it's
going to be the beginning of months.
And every Jewish festival now is, is marked by this month.
It shall be the first month of of the years for you tell all
the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month
every man shall take a lamb according to his father's house,
a lamb for the household. Now the second thing he does is
this. He says I want you on the 10th
day of the month to go and get a lamb.
Now take note. Doesn't say I want you to go and
kill a lamb or I want you to go and get a lamb from the the
grocery store. He says, I want you to go get a
living lamb. And he wants them to do
something very peculiar. He wants them to bring the lamb
into the house, to stay in the house, become part of the
family, if you will. And over the course of days,
they're going to inspect this for any blemishes or any broken
bones over a three day period. So looking at this chart,
you'll, you'll see on the 10th they get the lamb.
The next three days, the lamb is part of the family.
It, it's in the home. But while it's in the home, it's
being inspected to see if it's, it's worthy of, of the
requirements. And then you get to the, the
last part of the, the 14th day and on the 14th day and, and
again, he goes into very detail about this.
He says, I want you to cook it in a very specific way.
But then there's this line. I want you to eat it in haste.
So they were to, to be all fully dressed, but not only dressed,
but dressed and ready to go. So belts on which would be their
weaponry on coat pulled up, tucked in so they can move and
they were to eat it quickly. And and the other thing that
happened that night was with the lamb is he said it's very
important. I want you to take part of the
blood from the lambs and put it over your door frame.
Now again, if you're in that land at that time, you're going,
this isn't, this isn't normal. Like we, we've never done this
before. Why would we do this?
This is kind of strange. But they had to have faith that
what God said and that God was their deliverer to do what he
said to do. So they put the, the, the blood
on the lamb or the blood of the lamb on the doorpost.
They go in, they eat this lamb in haste.
And that night, it says the Angel of death swept over the
land. And this is where you get the
name, anywhere where it saw the blood, it passed over those
homes and went to the next. And that night, God says it's
time to move. And they quickly move out and
head out into the wilderness. And that was the first Passover.
From that point on, they celebrate this event every year,
mostly unchanged except for a few things.
Few things got added, few of the traditions and the customs kind
of got kind of settled over the years.
But three things got added. One was what they called the
bread of affliction. And the bread of affliction
comes from what, what was later delivered to Israel in
Deuteronomy 16 and three. And it says you shall not, you
shall eat no leavened bread with it, talking about the Passover
meal seven days, you shall eat it with unleavened bread, The
bread of affliction for you came out of the land of Egypt in
haste. This spread without yeast.
And when you look at the Bible, Bible has these images that it
continues throughout the Bible. One of the images is that yeast
is a symbol of, of sin, not that yeast is evil or sin is yeast is
bad. It was just a symbol of sin
because yeast puffs up and, and most sin is us being puffed up
thinking we're better or that we're independent.
And so they developed this over the years, kind of like good
Mennonites would. They developed a, a recipe that
gets passed down generation to generation.
And so today, if you were to go to the grocery store, if you
have enough Jewish people in the community, you could find this
in your grocery store. In the bread section, there'd be
a box that's labeled matzo. And if you open it up, it would
look something like the picture that you see.
It's a square loaf, has all these perforations through it.
And it has these lines because it's cooked over, theoretically
over an open fire. And when you look at that matzo,
you begin to look and you go, what?
This seems a little bit like what Isaiah talked about, that
Jesus was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace was on him.
And he by his wounds or by his stripes, we are healed.
So it's seems like even from the beginning, God had this plan
that he was working in. The second thing that got at it
is, is what's called the cup of Elijah.
And this comes from a prophecy of Malachi.
Malachi being one of the last prophets for Israel.
And and Malachi had this prophecy that there would come a
day what he called the great day of the Lord.
And he says this in Malachi chapter 4.
He says, behold, I will send Elijah the prophet before the
great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the
hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the
children to their fathers. That's like common, I strike the
land with the decree of utter destruction.
So after Malachi's prophecy, what they incorporated in was
this cup, and it was a very special cup.
It was a cup that nobody drank from.
And So what they would eventually do, this is one of
the customs that developed, is they would actually create a
place setting for Elijah. And so even today in Jewish
households, when, when it comes to this point in the service,
they'll send usually the youngest or one of the young
children to the front door. They'll open the front door and
they're asked, do you see Elijah?
And, and of course they answer no.
And then they close the door and they come back and they eat.
And that place setting remains untouched.
Nobody touches that place setting because it's for Elijah
when Elijah shows up on the great and wonderful day of the
Lord. So that was the second thing
they've incorporated. The third thing is this thing
that they call their, it was called the ceremonial flock.
Now, if you're a farmer, you're going to understand this.
If you require every year thousands of lambs that are pure
white without blemish, what's a good marketing ploy that you're
going to breed? I, I, I heard that is mostly
pure white that has very few blemishes.
So through the years, you, the Levites began to, to cross breed
these, these lambs and create a breed that was, that was very
white and, and without blemish, without spot, so that they could
be used for the Passover celebration.
Because as Israel expanded and moved out and people were
dispersed, the men would still come back at, at the time of the
Passover and they would need a lamb.
And So what they would do is they would need a lamb that
could pass inspection. So what better thing to do?
Have the priest create this flock, bring the flock to the
temple, go to the temple, buy your lamb, make the sacrifice.
It's a win win for everybody, right?
So they had this flock and the Levites created this and it
became very lucrative for them, of course, as we see in the time
of Jesus when he clears the temple.
So we go to this Passover week, Jerusalem.
It's a big deal for everybody and it's a true celebration.
So what happens at that week is they they take the lambs that
are out in the grazing and they open up one of the gates and
these these lambs are paraded in through the city.
Now anybody who's Jewish is there and they're celebrating
and they're going. That's the lamb.
That's a symbol of our freedom. That's what delivered us.
So they would have this celebration.
So crowds would gather for the parade of the lambs.
So the way the chosen presents it is these lambs come in and
then Jesus comes right in behind.
And as the people are there to celebrate the Passover lamb, as
John the Baptist said, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins
comes riding in and you go. That's quite a coincidence that
he would pick that day at that time and that gate to enter.
And when those sheep would come in, it would be taken to the
temple. And these priests, these, these
young priests would, would inspect these lambs one after
another to, to give them the OK that they would give them the
priestly blessing so that they could be used for the sacrifice.
So go back to the story in Mark, Mark, Mark 11.
They're shouting this as they celebrate the lambs coming in.
Jesus comes in as one who's just raised Lazarus from the dead.
Word about him has been spreading.
The raising Lazarus from the dead just outside Jerusalem in
in Bethany was a huge event. People are looking to Jesus as
being something spectacular, not really understanding what he is.
Not truly convinced that he's a Messiah necessarily yet, but
definitely a king, the Liberator, the one who's going
to bring salvation. Now, what salvation they thought
he was going to bring? Well, that's up for debate.
But but when they see Jesus come in following the parade of the
lambs, they begin to cheer. And they have those words.
Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord. Lord save us, we pray, and here,
here he is. So now let's go back to this
chart. Remember on the 10th day of the
of of of Nissan that the lamb was to be in the first Passover
was to be brought into the home. Now what they did is on the 10th
day of the Nissan they would parade in with the lambs.
The day Jesus comes into Jerusalem is 1/10 day of the
month, 10th day of Nissan. He comes in with the lambs and
they declare these words the day of the parade, the day the the
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world comes riding
in. And what does Jesus do when he
comes riding in? Where does he go?
Now if you read your gospels in personally in Mark and and
Matthew record this, he does something very specific.
Matter of fact, they go to great lengths to say this that he came
in and he went immediately to the temple.
Now he goes the temple one, one account is he goes the temple
and he clears the temple. And the other account is he goes
the temple and he leaves and then he comes back the next day
and he clears the temple. There's a little bit of
discrepancy there, but what we see is that he goes to the
temple as the first thing he goes and subjects himself to be
inspected. And what we begin to see here is
that in this, at that time, a 1500 year tradition, the story
that gets told generation to generation about God's
liberation from slavery, this great day, Jesus Christ as the
Son of God begins to live out the story all over again in real
life. So these people that are
preparing to do a symbolic meal to talk about the liberation of
God don't realize the extent that Jesus is in their midst and
he's, he's bringing liberation to them.
So you go to that chart and you see for the next three days,
especially Mark records that Jesus went back to the temple
every day. On the next day, the 11th, he
showed up and he clears the temple.
The next day, the 12th, he shows up and the priests and the
elders confront him. And they asked him this, by
whose authority are you doing these things and who gave you
the authority to do them? And you begin to see the
authority, you begin to see the testing taking place.
On the 13th day He comes back and it's recorded in Mark 14th.
And it says these words that the scribes and the Pharisees found
nothing to accuse him of. It's very specific words.
So they've been inspecting him for three days, wanting to find
fault. And at the end of three days,
they could find no fault with him, to accuse him or to
disqualify him. Now, you remember, Pilate does
the same thing. Pilate actually says words.
I don't, I don't find anything wrong with this.
So he's tested by the Jews, the leaders, and he's tested by the
Gentiles. Neither one finds any fault with
him. Neither one of them finds a
blemish. So what Jesus does is after the
third day of the inspection in the temple, Jesus celebrates
Passover meal with his disciples a little early.
But you'll notice he waits till the end of the day when the sun
went down. Then it says then they celebrate
it, which in Jewish thinking, we, we think, well, the next day
starts when the sun comes up. But in Jewish thinking, the day
starts when the sun goes down. So he's, he's jumping in right
at the very front of the day to, to play on the rule that you
could have it the day before under certain circumstances.
And that's what he does. So he jumps in basil law and
they have this Passover meal and you know the story how they set
this all up and it says that sunset, which was the beginning
of the next day, Jesus sat down with the disciples to celebrate
Passover. And Mark records this in in
chapter 14 where he says, where will you have us to go to
prepare the meal for the to eat the Passover?
And they were going to do this 1500 year tradition exactly the
way every one of them had grown up doing it.
But here's what happens is Jesus does something odd that for us,
we don't pick up on it. But if you were Jewish, you'd
pick up on it really quick because here's one of the things
he does. Jesus actually takes the bread
of affliction and he holds it up.
Now there's this pouch that they would have, and in the pouch
there'd be 3 pockets. And the one pocket they take the
bread out and they break it and they give it to everybody.
And that symbolizes one thing. And then they would take the
bread out of the second pocket and they would pass that around
the bread from the third pocket nobody touches.
It was this tradition that was part of the Jewish culture for
for thousands of years and nobody really fully understand
it. But Jesus takes out this bread
of affliction and he holds this up.
Now if you're there, you're going, wait a minute.
This isn't part of the this isn't part of the ceremony.
What are you doing touching that?
And he holds this up. Remember the words.
He says, this is my body that's broken for you.
This is my body that's going to be afflicted for you.
He says, I want you to eat it. The first time these guys had
ever eaten that bread was that night that they celebrated with
Jesus. And he takes his bread
reflection and he makes it very clear, this is me.
And we read that in Peter. Peter understood this.
Later on, Peter writes this. He himself bore our sins and his
body on the tree that we might die to sin and live in, but to
righteousness. By his wounds you have been
healed. By his afflictions, you've been
set free. And Peter knows that now.
But that night, there's that confusion.
I don't know what he's doing. I don't know if this is right,
but then Jesus takes it even further because it says, and
you, you know this part, but it says he took the cup.
Now it's important to notice that it doesn't say he takes a
cup, it says he takes the cup. It's a very subtle inflection
that points us to something without saying it, that the cup
that he took was the cup that nobody touches, which would be
the cup of Elijah. And he takes that cup and that
cup that Malachi prophesied that when Elijah comes who who they
said John the Baptist was. But that's that's kind of
unpackaged that. But he takes this cup that was
to usher in the great day of the Lord and he says what?
This is my blood that's being shed for you.
This is my blood of the new covenant of the new start or the
fresh start, the great day of the Lord.
And again, these guys are sitting around going.
Nobody touches that, but the ones who would catch on would
go. This is the day.
This is significant. This is the great and awesome
day of the Lord that Malachi talks about Paul the apostle
Paul. He writes about this when when
he talks about communion service that Last Supper Paul got it
because he says in the same way he he took the cup after supper
saying this cup, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often you drink in remembrance of me and he took
that and ushered in the great and awesome day of the Lord.
So after the meal, Mark says this in in in Mark 14.
And when they had sung A hymn, so you you got to think of Jesus
singing. That's remember thinking about
that. And when I never thought of him
singing. But for Jewish people songs was
was a great thing. Jesus sings with his disciples.
Then he went out to the Mount of Olives and the story unfolds.
And and it's what we will celebrate on Good Friday and
what we'll celebrate on Easter is within 12 hours of Jesus
celebrating this Passover meal with his disciples, he's going
to be arrested and tried and beaten and hung on a cross and
will die and he'll die as a sacrificial lamb.
And Mark records it this way because Mark gives you details.
And when something's there in the Bible, it's not there just
by chance or it's just not there for no reason.
It's there for a very specific reason because Mark says this.
And when it was 1/6 hour had come, that's noon, there was
darkness over the whole land. That's the middle of the day.
And at the 9th hour, which is about 3:00 in the afternoon,
Jesus cried out with a loud voice, My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders
hearing it says, behold, he is calling Elijah.
And Jesus uttered a loud cry and he breathed his last, and he
died 3:00 in the afternoon. And you go, well, that's
interesting, but irrelevant unless you know what happens in
the temple at 3:00 in the afternoon.
At 3:00 in the afternoon, all those lambs that have been
inspected are taken by the priest and they're slaughtered
beginning exactly at that time because the law said to do it
between the the evenings and this was the time between the
evenings and at exactly the time those lambs are being killed in
the temple courts. Mark makes it very clear that
Jesus utters his last and he dies.
This picture that gets presented is this, this powerful picture
that that we see in stained glass sometimes of, of this lamb
that is is pictured as a conquering lamb.
This meek, insignificant animal is pictured as this conquering
leader. And Jesus who's so meek and so
loving and so kind, lays down his life for the sins of the
world. Jesus, the Lamb of God, who came
at the direction of His Father, who so loved the world that He
sent His Son, that whoever believes in him will never
perish but have eternal life, would be set free.
Now those are the two things that Jesus did.
What about the third thing? This is purely theory.
You can do with this what you want.
This is, this is the word, according to Andy, which you can
take or reject. I just find this curious.
Remember the ceremonial flock? I want you to think of the
Christmas story. Remember the Christmas story
Luke records in Luke chapter 2? And lo, there are angels in the
fields keeping watch over their sheep at night.
Now here's the theory. Who were those shepherds and
why'd the Angel show up to those shepherds?
Could it be, take it for what it's worth, that the shepherds
that the Angel appeared to were the shepherds of the ceremonial
flock that are out in Bethany outside of Bethlehem in the
lowlands where the sheep are, are grazing.
The sheep that would be taken into Jerusalem and and
slaughtered as sacrificial lambs.
That the Angel would appear and say, hey guys, this flock you're
watching over. If you come with me, I'm going
to show you the real lamb, the lamb that's going to completely
change everything that these lambs that you have to raise
every year. This one is going to do
something once and for all that's going to completely
change everything. That's one of those things in
the story that makes me go, what was God up to and how great is
this story that pulls together? So Mark says there in Mark 11790
save us, we pray. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord. And when those people shouted
that or chanted that or sung that because it's a it's
actually a song and the song that they begin to spontaneously
sing as a group as Jesus comes in following these lambs are the
words of David from Psalms 118 and Psalms 118 at verse 25 it
says this and these words is hosanna.
But it save us, we pray, O Lord, oh Lord, we pray, give us
success. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord. We bless you from the House of
the Lord. The Lord is God, and He has made
his light to shine upon us. Now here's your homework.
Read the verses that precede that, the verses that that come
before this passage, and then read the verses that come after
because this psalms ends with this line.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good for his steadfast
love endures forever. Here's the thing.
In the everyday things of life, in the rituals and the customs
that you have for Easter, in the everyday encounters of work or
school or or whatever you're doing in your routine, you
realize that God can intervene in that and show up in something
that seems so mundane or so ordinary.
So what we want to be is people who understand that God steps
into our lives and reveals himself because he loves to do
that. And in the times where we're
most confused or we don't know what's going on, the times where
we feel so oppressed, we feel like everything is is is is
falling apart is a time that the Lord is most likely to show up
to say, let me show you something.
So this Easter season, go in with the attitude of Lord, I
need to see something. I need to see your hands upon
this. I need to see your fingerprints
on my life. I need to see that what I'm
doing is not in vain. I need to see that you're still
there. I need to see that there's hope
that as we cry out, Lord save us, that our faith says there he
is and see Jesus in the story of our lives and see Jesus in the
practices that we have as we begin to trust the sacrificial
lamb. It's not just for our salvation.
That's the big part that that while we were yet sinners, Jesus
came, that he said his whole mission was to seek and to save
the lost. And we would look and say, those
who don't know Jesus, the lamb is, is the way to know Jesus.
But I know most of you know Jesus.
But sometimes in our knowing Jesus, especially if we've known
Jesus all of our lives, sometimes we forget that Jesus
does interact in the everyday. And we haven't had that fresh
encounter. We haven't had those fresh
moments. We've had the traditions, we've
had the customs, we had the the rituals that we do.
But maybe this year we need to see Jesus in a brand new way and
he needs to disrupt a little bit so that our attention not goes
not just to what we're doing, but to who he is.
So take everything that's going on and and yeah, we will deal
with this, but take everything that's going on.
But make your prayer. Lord, save us.
Show yourself to us that we can follow you.
And that's my prayer for you guys that that that there would
just be this. There he is.
I see it.
Got a glimpse of it. And that will stir your faith to
keep going, to keep trusting. Are you willing to trust him for
the first time? Are you willing to trust him all
over again? Are you willing to trust him
when you have no idea what's going to happen?
Are you willing to trust that the Father loves you so much
that he would send his son and his son loves you so much that
he says, I will send my spirit who will be with you always to
the very ends of the age right here, right now that we just
need to pause and say, Lord, we want to see you, we want to feel
you, we want to know you and we want to follow you.
Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for your
steadfast love. That doesn't it doesn't wane,
but sometimes we get callous, we get cold, we get we get settled.
So Lord, we pray that we don't turn away from You when times
are difficult, but we turn to you in desperation, like the
crowd that recognizes that thing that just went by is good, but
it's not Jesus. And that we would celebrate you,
Lord, and we would look to you, and we will listen for you, and
we'll follow you, and we will enjoy the presence of your
Spirit. Guide us Lord as a church, guide
us as a conference, guide us as individuals that we can radiate
your glory, that we can live out your salvation and we can be the
light that others need to find you.
So Lord, may you bless his congregation, bless the people
that are here, bless those that are wandering even now.
And Lord, may we all come together in the unity of the
Spirit and bring glory to you. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.