He Entered Jerusalem

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29, and Mark 11: 1-11 Sermon title: He Entered Jerusalem Preached on March 28, 2021 For the last five weeks, Rev. Cassie Waits and I have had the honor of talking with experts in different fields to learn more about how to practice our faith. To learn about observing the Sabbath we talked with two women, one protestant who just started really resting on the Sabbath and one Jewish who grew up doing it. Then, thinking about singing, last Wednesday we talked with two who have each dedicated their lives to music. To learn about how to celebrate our bodies as a temple where the Holy Spirit resides, we talked with a fitness instructor and an ER doc. Each week we, two of your pastors, took the seat of student to learn about things we don’t know a whole lot about, and each Wednesday Cassie assigned homework so that we all might practice doing these things we haven’t mastered and maybe get a little bit better at them. That’s what practice is for. You haven’t mastered it, so you try it and get better and better. I remember baseball practice. At the apex of my baseball career, I was sitting the bench for the Marietta High School Blue Devils, but five or six days a week we practiced, and I took that practice seriously. Why? Because at any moment Coach might send me into the game. That’s how it is with so many of us who practice at different things. Choirs practice and practice and then they sing. Some people practice their French in private but then take a big trip. On the day the plane lands in Paris, maybe they’re still not masters, but there is a difference between practicing something at home and doing it out in the open where people can hear and see you. What I want to point out to you this morning is that we have to practice our faith to get better, because on the one hand, following Jesus just like anything else. The more we practice the better at it we get, but there’s also a difference between baseball practice and practicing our faith. The baseball games are scheduled. You know when they’re coming up. When it comes to our faith, there’s no way of knowing when practice is over, and the game has begun. You just have to practice and practice for that moment, knowing that you might need the honed skills of a Christian at the drop of a hat. Scripture says these moments come like a thief in the night. Thieves don’t call a week ahead to let you know that they’ll be stopping by. Likewise, we don’t know when that moment will be that we’ll need to know how to pray, but we do know that the moment is coming. I remember so vividly this moment just before our oldest daughter was born. We didn’t know it, but the cord was wrapped around her neck and during delivery, all at once her heartbeat slowed. You can imagine what this was like. We went from anticipation to dealing in matters of life and death. Out of nowhere, my wife was being pulled from the room and into surgery. Her bed went down the hall and I wasn’t allowed to go with her. I said to mother-in-law, “What do I do?” And she said, “Joe, this is when we pray.” You see, we practice our faith because we don’t know when the big game is scheduled. We practice our faith, and when the moment comes, either we’re ready or we’re not. Either we know what to do or we don’t. Jesus was ready and this is his moment. For so long he’d been telling anyone who would listen: “I must go to Jerusalem to die.” That’s what I came here to do. These sinful people don’t understand anything. They have confused love and power, faith and laws, so I’m going to Jerusalem, and maybe if they crucify me, they’ll finally see that they have this whole thing turned upside down. That’s what Palm Sunday is all about, you see. He’d been practicing, and it hadn’t been easy for him. You remember how he told Peter that he has to go to Jerusalem to die? It was when they went up on top of the mountain, and not only did Peter try to get them to stay up on top of the mountain top, but Peter also tried to talk Jesus out of going to Jerusalem. Surely it wasn’t easy for Jesus to say to his friend, “Get behind me Satan, for you are setting your mind, not on divine things but on human things.” In that moment, Christ set his sights on Jerusalem. Likely, he had been preparing himself for it long before then, but today is game day. Today the plane has landed and he’s getting off whether he’s ready or not. The people are cheering, but you can imagine him weeping, because he’s been preparing himself, not with rose tinted glasses, but seeing right through the cheers, knowing that before him is the cross. He was ready, and he rode onward. On the other hand, we know that for so many others who claim to follow him, game day came, and they forgot everything. I’ve been thinking a lot about the two mass shootings that have happened recently. The editorial cartoon in last Wednesday’s paper said, “I guess now we know things really are getting back to normal.” Two mass shootings in one month. You know as well as I do that this is not normal. And a sobering reality of how out of whack our society is, is how so many of these murderers were raised in church. Which leads me to my point: we all need to practice this faith a little bit harder because there are some who take action in this world, who walk out onto the field on gameday and act as though they’ve never heard the words: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Render no one evil for evil.” “This is the day that the Lord has made, so let us rejoice and be glad in it.” “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his steadfast love endures forever.” The game came and they forgot everything. Or else, they had been practicing hate instead of love, for they denied the Gospel with their actions. They mistook their brothers and sisters. They did exactly the opposite of what the one we follow exemplified, and it tears me up inside. It makes me sick to my core, and it makes me want to shout from the mountain tops: “Christians, it’s time to practice what we preach.” For what we preach is love. What we preach is freedom. What we preach is human dignity, having sung since the nursery that each and every one are precious in his sight. That’s what we must practice. That’s what we must practice until the Father’s love spills right out of us. We need to practice our faith. And let me tell you what happens when we do. A couple weeks ago Rev. Joe Brice and Katherine Harrison were talking with Cassie and me about our book. The chapter was about saying yes and saying no, and Joe walked us through a series of statements trying to prove to us how easy it can be to say no if we just practice. He says, “Repeat after me, the light is on.” You see, you can just say that. It’s easy to say. The light is on. “The wall is green,” he said next, and we said that. Then, “I don’t have time to do that as well as I would like,” which we all repeated, though it was a little difficult because we don’t all often say it. The purpose of the exercise was to prove that the more you practice saying something, the easier it is to say it, and I tell you all this so that you’ll know why what I’m about to tell you matters. Last Tuesday was Bud Tubb’s funeral, but Dr. Jim Speed said to the family, as soon as he saw them, “This is a good day,” and he said it, not as forced words, not as empty words, not as hopeful words, but as a matter of fact. He said it just as plain as if he had just said the light is on or the wall is green, because when people practice their faith it’s there when they need it and having practiced his faith since the day he was born, Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem knowing what he was in for, ready for what awaited, that you and I might face death without fear. Because he practiced what he preached and did what he knew was right, because he rode into Jerusalem though he knew death awaited him, today we may know full well that those who die in the Lord are not lost. Instead, we trust that they are going home. Let us practice our faith so that like them, we know the way there. Amen.