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Praise God for Palm Sunday!

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Passage: Luke 19:28-40

Pastor Horton

Date: April 13, 2025-Palm Sunday

What a day!  Maybe you are wondering what I mean by that.  For you, the day is just beginning.  In fact, it is not even 8:30 in the morning.  But in my homeland on the other side of the world, the sun is about an hour away from setting over the Judean hillside.  The day is almost over for me, but it is a day that I will never forget.

This Sunday began like many others.  I woke up after the Sabbath with many things to do.  I had to take care of some business in the village.  I had to take care of my animals in the yard.  And like you with your holiday rush, I had to make final preparations for the Passover that was now only a few days away.

At least I had it easier than many of my countrymen.  Some God-fearing Jews had to travel over a hundred miles to reach Jerusalem in time for the Feast.  My house was only a few miles away.  And especially at this time of year it was common to see a steady stream of pilgrims passing by on their travel into the Holy City.      

But this particular day was different.  There was an excitement in the air, something I could sense but not explain, something I could feel but not fully understand.  Maybe it was because the crowds were larger than usual.  Maybe it was because the buzz was louder than usual.  I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but my life was about to change forever.  What I am about to share with you is everything that happened to me today, a day when the prophecies of the Old Testament came to life, a day when I saw the Messiah with my own eyes, a day that shares its name with the branches the people were waving in the air.  And at the end of the day, I want you to share in my joy.  I want you to be at peace.  I want you to raise your voices with me and…PRAISE GOD FOR PALM SUNDAY.

As the sun peaked over the horizon, I loaded up my donkey to go into the village.  There was a chance that I would be taking home more than what one pack animal could carry, so I brought along her colt just in case.  This foal was not ready to be ridden, at least not yet, but it was strong enough to carry a few things in its saddle bags.

After the short trip into town, I tied the animals to a post and left.  It was a good thing my business didn’t take long because when I came back I found two men untying them.  At first I thought they were trying to steal the animals, but these men were not acting like thieves.   They were working slowly and deliberately, as if they were the rightful owners.  As I approached, I didn’t really know what to do so I said: “Why are you untying the colt” (Lk 19:33)?  They weren’t startled.  They weren’t surprised.  It was as if they knew my question before I even asked it.  They simply replied: “The Lord needs them”, and they gave me their word that they would return the animals shortly (see Mk 11:3). 

Even though these men were complete strangers to me, even though I didn’t know where they had come from or where they were going, even though losing these animals would set me back quite a bit of money, I let them go.  But I decided to follow at a distance, partly to make sure that my animals were safe, partly because I wanted to catch a glimpse of this “Lord” who needed them.  The two men led the donkey and her colt to a larger group.  Some put their cloaks on the animals, and then one of them sat on the colt, the colt that had never been ridden before.  That was strange, I thought to myself.  He did it with such ease.  He sat on that colt like he was its own, like he was in charge of much more than this animal.  It reminded me of a Bible passage I had learned as a boy, taken from the great prophet Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!  Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (9:9).  As the group made its way on the road leading to Jerusalem, I wondered out loud: “Is this some kind of great coincidence, or am I in the presence of the Messiah himself?”

Now, I had work to do back at home, especially with the Passover only a few days away, but I couldn’t let this man out of my sight.  I decided to keep following at a distance, not knowing exactly what to expect.  And because there were many others on the road heading in the same direction, I was able to blend right in.

That was until one of the travelers almost ran me over.  He grabbed onto me to keep me from falling and exclaimed: “Oh, it’s good to see you!”  Since I had never met this man before, I had no idea what he was talking about.  “My name is Bartimaeus,” he said as he brushed himself off.  “I am from the city of Jericho, and until just a few days ago I was blind – I was sitting by the roadside begging for money one day when I heard this noise.  I was told, “it’s Jesus (as he pointed to the guy who just went past on the donkey).  I had even heard that he had the power to perform miracles, and hey, I had nothing to lose, so I shouted at the top of my lungs: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me’ (Mk 10:47).”  “Some people were embarrassed by me.  Others tried to silence me.  But Jesus listened to me.  I’ll never forget those precious words: ‘Go.  Your faith has healed you’ (Mk 10:52).  Immediately my eyes were opened, and I have been following Jesus ever since.”

The man then disappeared into the crowds as quickly as he had appeared.  I didn’t know if I should believe him, but I knew that I couldn’t turn back.  I needed to keep following this man, wherever he was going.  I needed to learn more, so I stopped to ask a woman standing on the side of the road: “Do you know this man, the one they call Jesus?”  And she said with a smile: “Well, yes, I actually do.”

Her name was Martha, and Jesus had been staying with her and her sister Mary in Bethany.  She told me that she also had a brother named Lazarus who had died.  I was beginning to express my sympathy for her loss when she stopped me.  And I could tell by the look in her eyes that there was more to this story.  Martha told me that Jesus reassured her that he was the Son of God, the “resurrection and the life.”  Even though Lazarus had been dead for four days,” Martha told me, “Jesus called: ‘Lazarus, come out’ (Jn 10:43)!  And he did, linen strips, burial cloth and all.  Lazarus walked out of the tomb alive.”  That helped to explain the absolute excitement of the people who had come from all over to celebrate the Passover.  They had heard other amazing stories about Jesus, but now they had proof.   Lazarus was a living, breathing illustration of this man’s power.  Jesus was different.  Jesus was special.  And he was on his way to Jerusalem.

My unplanned journey brought me to the edge of the Mount of Olives overlooking the Holy City.  As Jesus began his final descent into the valley, the crowds grew larger and louder.  They treated this man like a king.  They threw their cloaks on the road.  They waved palm branches in the air.  And they declared: “Hosanna to the Son of David (Mt 21:9)!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Mk 11:9)!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” (Lk 19:38)!  Maybe it was the power of the moment.  Maybe it was the testimony of Bartimaeus and Martha.  Maybe it was a combination of things, but before I knew it I was a part of this grand procession.  Once inside the gates of the city, the people were overjoyed.  Children were singing about him.  Pilgrims were praising him. 

But not everyone was happy.  The Pharisees were visibly upset.  They came up to Jesus and demanded: “Teacher, rebuke your disciples” (Lk 19:39).  Their anger caught me off guard.  I don’t know why they wanted the people to stop.  Personally, I didn’t want this day to ever come to an end.  And Jesus wasn’t ready to put an end to the celebration either.  He replied: “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Lk 19:40).

The stones didn’t have to jump into action that day but eventually the crowds dispersed and the people went home.  As I retraced the route I had walked only a few hours earlier, I was able to think about all the things I had seen and heard.  I knew that something special had happened.  About an hour later, I heard a knock at the door.  It was the two disciples returning the animals they had borrowed that morning.  I invited them in and immediately began to ask them questions.  “Who is the one you call ‘Lord’?  Who is this Jesus?  Why has he come?  What do today’s events mean?”

The disciples admitted that they didn’t have all the answers.  They had been with Jesus for three years, and they still had some questions of their own.  But one of them did share with me something Jesus had shared with them when they started out on their journey:  “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.  They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.  On the third day he will be raised to life” (Mt 20:18,19)!

I didn’t witness anything like that, but then again nothing on this day was exactly as it appeared.  Jesus was hailed as a king, yet he rode on a common beast of burden.  Jesus was treated like a conquering hero, but he led no army.  Jesus accepted the praises of the adoring crowds, but he knew that those praises would not last.  And there was something else I thought about, something I could not get out of my mind.  Jesus knew exactly where my donkey was.  Jesus knew exactly what I would say.  That means he knows the future.  That means he knows what is waiting for him in Jerusalem.  And if he knows about the betrayal, if he knows about the condemnation, if he knows about the mocking and flogging and crucifixion and death, then why did he come?

I think I know why.  He did it for me.  And He did it for you.  He did it for those times when we are not so willing to part with our possessions.  He did it for those times when we are not so quick to follow him.  He did it for those times when we are content to let the stones sing his praises instead.  Jesus knew that without Palm Sunday there could be no Easter Sunday.  And so knowingly, willingly, humbly, and lovingly Jesus entered Jerusalem to complete his Father’s saving work, to suffer and die and rise again to take away my sins and your sins in full.

This is my story, but it isn’t exclusive to me.  This is your story too.  Maybe you weren’t right here alongside Bartimaeus, Martha, and myself, but you have heard about Jesus and all that he had done for you through the Word.  What a blessing God has given to you and to me!  Today Christians all over the world wave their palm branches in the air.  Today we worship our King.  Today we sing, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  Today we proclaim, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” and realize that we are the ones who are truly blessed in Jesus.  He rode on to save us from our sins.  Praise God for Palm Sunday!  Amen.        

Forget it!

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Passage: Isaiah 43:16-21

Date: April 6, 2025

Pastor: Pastor Horton

If I were to ask you to name the top ten miracles God performed in the Old Testament in order to save his people…what sort of miracles come to mind?  I dropped the question into chat gpt just to see how AI might rank such a list.  What were the first miracles that came to your mind?  What were God’s great acts done to save in the Old Testament?  Maybe you thought about the individuals who saw great deeds done for them from a God who knew them and loved them and spared them for his good purposes: David and Goliath, Daniel and the lion’s den, Jonah saved in the great fish, and the three men in the fiery furnace all made the list.  Also, according to AI, there were acts done to save the people in the sense of sustaining them with manna in the desert.  Also on the list was delivering an enemy into their hands such as the miracle of the walls of Jericho that came tumbling down.  Topping the list was, and certainly as far as magnificent-miracles go, I found Noah and the life-saving ark during the flood.  But right after that (#2) was a miracle recalled in our reading from the prophet Isaiah. 

Listen again to the opening words: “This is what the Lord says, who makes a road through the sea and a path through mighty waters, who brings out the chariot and the horses, the army and the strong warrior.  They will all lie down together.  They will not get up.  They are extinguished.  Like a wick they go out.”  Can you guess the second overall pick by AI for God’s greatest Old Testament saving miracle?  It is the miracle of crossing the Red Sea.  Do you remember that one?  Do you remember God leading his people out of Egypt and their oppression only to find themselves with their backs to the ocean?  Do you remember how the Angel of God moved the pillar of cloud behind them to defend them from the aggressive Egyptians?  And how God had Moses raise his staff and hand as God sent wind to separate the water into walls and allow his people to be saved passing through on dry ground?  Do you remember how those heroic and fierce warriors of Egypt along with pharaoh barreled into the passageway in hot pursuit?  And how they didn’t dabble when it came to going on the attack but they all went in and none came out?  How were told that “the Lord threw the Egyptians into the middle of the sea.”  Every one of them extinguished like a wick in an instant. 

The Israelites certainly remembered God’s saving act.  They remembered the exodus by celebrating the passover each and every year.  It was a big deal before the Babylonian captivity and a big deal to bring it back upon their return to the Promised Land.  It served as a hallmark moment of God’s ability and willingness to save.

Do you remember?  Because God says today in our reading, that along with all those other miracles, “forget it.”  Wait what?  Verse 18, “Do not remember the former things.  Do not keep thinking about ancient things.”  Why would Israel and why would we forget it?  What is God talking about?  We don’t forget his great and miraculous acts to save!  But those events aren’t the best part of his grand plan of our salvation.  We are being told to not dwell on the past, because God had something even better coming in the future.  Something not even worth comparing to God’s gracious glories of the past.  Something great has been planned.  And that involves a promise fulfilled of a Savior in Christ the Lord.

“Forget it!  Forget the past!”  Those were also comforting words for the Israelites because not all of their history with God was good or glorious.  Their diary of events in the Old Testament was often downright putrid.  Like the former time when Israel stood in blatant rebellion against Moses and therefore also against God and many of them were swallowed alive when the earth opened up.  Or the former time when they grew impatient with God’s plan and they grumbled and poisonous snakes were sent into the camp as punishment?  Or the former time when God was up on Mt. Sinai yet the people’s hearts were down below honoring a golden calf?  Those former things?  Those former sins?!  “Forget it” declares God.  “Those former sins are now gone in the righteous blood of my Anointed One, the Christ.”  Through these words God is declaring reconciliation and peace for his people.

“Forget it!  Forget the past!”  We need God to say those things to each of us as well, don’t we?  It’s not all that hard and doesn’t take all that long to begin to think back to the former things that we have done that have been sinful.  We know.  We’re embarrassed by our sin.  We think back to those moments when we have done absolutely destructive damage to someone’s reputation with our words when we couldn’t control the firestorm of hurt we ignited.  There are those former thoughts that ran unchecked through our minds – thoughts not in line with God’s will.  And there are those former actions that cause great regret – a regret that can consume us as we dare not look up to a holy God in heaven.  Maybe you know all too well what I’m taking about.  Maybe you have scars, figurative but maybe even literally of your former things – our former sins.  The devil loves to have our past sin linger.  “Forget it!” declares God.  “Forget the past!”

This Lent, we traipse around in the desolate desert of our sin’s reality.  Just like Israel had done as they traipsed around while wandering in the wilderness, or as they traipsed off into Babylonian captivity, and then traipsed back home some 70 years later.  Their sin and God’s miracles were both before their eyes.  Like them, left to ourselves, our sin would only result in us traipsing into death – death now and forever.  Like them, we needed God to forgive, forget, make our loutlook new, and put the spring back into our spiritual step.

And has he ever done that!  Our reading continues as God proclaims, “Watch, I am about to do a new thing.  Now it will spring up.  Don’t you know about it?  Indeed I will make a road in the wilderness.  In the wasteland I will make rivers.  The wild animals, the jackals and ostriches, will honor me, because I am providing water in the wilderness, rivers in a parched wasteland, water for my chosen people to drink.  This people that I formed for myself will declare my praise.”

Now, we have a new reality.  For the Israelites, God would move monarchs to create a path back home for his people.  Now God alone would act to again save and to deliver.  Just as God alone has acted to save us from sin and death and hell.  God sent his son, whom he loves, into this world.  And even though, as we were reminded in today’s gospel, the world rejected him – still Christ Jesus bore all of our sins at his cross.  God would act to give us a path home to heaven through Jesus, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Where only desolation and death existed for us, a new change in Jesus is welcome!  It is God who gives us a faith to believe him and God who formed for himself a people who know him and trust in him by that faith.  In a spiritual landscape where desolation, despair, and death once reigned, now God has made the life-giving water burst forth and change our reality.  Now we have a clear purpose and destination in service to our Lord.  Now we have forgiveness and a new day of grace in Jesus.  Now, through Christ, our parched souls are quenched and our lives have a newness, relief, and restoration.  Paul rejoices in writing to the Philippians: “Forgetting the things that are behind and straining toward the things that are ahead, I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Israel of old could forget their past because God had forgotten and forgiven their past.  Even with all the great miracles, God had an even better future mapped out for them.  One to bring them home.  Deliverance was theirs.  And so it is with you, dear believer!  Deliverance is yours as well!  God has done some pretty amazing miracles in your life, bringing you to faith and keeping you in the palm of his hand.  Forget the former sins of your past.  For they are forgotten in the cross of Christ.  Appreciate who you are and what you are and where you are because of Jesus today – as you have new opportunity to live and serve him.  And look forward to God’s great and gracious miracle of bringing us home to heaven.  That is where our journey is headed in Jesus.  And may we never forget that!  Amen.

It is Hidden in the Savior’s Rejection by the World

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Passage: John 18:33-19:21

Date: March 12, 2025

Pastor: Pastor Horton

Up and under.  Up to Jesus’ cross.  And under our own.  As we continue the Lenten journey, we consider the cross bearing that we share with Christ and that he shares with us: The cross always brings rejection, and to our astonishment, that rejection has glory hidden in it.  And tonight we find rejection from the world.  The world does not understand the cross and does not want to.  Listen to a portion of Jesus’ trial before the world in the court of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate: “‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate.  Jesus answered, ‘You are right in saying I am a king.  In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’  ‘What is truth?’” Pilate asked.”

Could there be a sharper contrast?  On the one side is Jesus.  He testifies that he is a king and  that all who are on the side of truth listen to him.  Yes, listen to him in the sense of hearing and holding to his Word, in the sense of believing him, trusting him, and following after him. 

But on the other side, what does the world see?  A pathetic sight!  Ridiculous claim!  This Jesus a king?  Handed over by his own people who scream for his death?  Jesus’ kingdom consists of those who love the truth—and yet there is not one person who defends him, or speaks out for him, or is willing to come forward and declare himself a follower of this King?  Not one?  The world even prefers option B for Barabbas, a rebel and a murderer.  After all, how is it that this king is captive to a petty Roman official?  Beaten and spat upon by his own people.  Soon about to endure far worse at the hands of Pilate’s soldiers.  “Some king!”  The world says.  “Some kingdom!  Some truth!”

And there stands Pilate, vocal representative for the world.  He views and judges this Jesus through his eyes of human reason.  Will he uphold justice?  He listens to Jesus.  But no, justice would lose out to his love of his position and convenience.  His reason rules, and it finds the whole message to be nothing but foolishness, and a nuisance, and bother, and inconvenient, and sparking a troublesome mob.  Pilate sees no criminal in Jesus and yet punishes him anyways with flogging, a gruesome and painful torture that often killed its victims, and then the execution of this king. 

Why such hostility?  Such anger?  Such violence against someone that on the outside seems so weak and frail, even foolish?  It all hinges on that one little word that Jesus spoke to Pilate, the word “truth.”  Jesus said that he was the King of truth, who had come into the world to bear witness to the truth!  Pilate, however, wanted no truth from this Jesus.  He had already made up his mind.  He was not going to hear this guy preach about truth.  He reasoned, “there is only me; there is only the moment.  My truth is that I already have my needs, my wants, my will, my goals, my ambition, my pleasure, my power.  And we understand Pilate, because by nature we want what he does.  Any other truth is bound to get in the way of those things.  Something else?  Something more?  Such a truth would challenge me to give up my single-minded devotion to me. 

If Pilate would have listened, would things have turned out different?  No.  For the message of Jesus and his cross always provokes hatred and hostility from the world.  The truth of the law calling out my devotion to myself was there in fallen Eden and every day since.  This truth is that even in our best works and on our best days, we still offend the holiness and justice of God.  That truth is irritating.  We recoil at it.  Because we want divine truth to be about me in the moment.  This is evident over the pages of history, evident when I look into the honest mirror of God’s law, and evident from the mouth of Jesus.  And I still don’t want to hear it.  You and I declare with Pilate: “Away with this truth and the King who proclaims it!” 

But wait!  Thankfully there is more to the message from the King of truth than the guilty verdict over all of us and all our works.  He comes chiefly and primarily with this greatest truth of all: that he himself is the solution to the problem of our sin.  He is our only solution.

And how will he solve the problem of sin?  Will he give us a new law to keep?  Will he tell us that our sin doesn’t matter after all?  Will he bid us to just do the best we can and God will be satisfied and overlook the rest?  Is that the great truth that he brings?  No!  If that were the truth that Jesus brought, the people would not have flogged and crucified him.  But the King declares himself to be the only solution to the problem of sin, of death and hell that all deserve.  Christ alone will embrace all the sin and guilt of the world as our substitute.  The solution is that salvation will be a free gift, won by the crucified, secured for us by the crucified, and given in the message of the crucified.  But, tragically, the truth of the gospel that saves is even more despised than the truth of the law that condemns.

So here is the great mystery and the profound truth: So depraved is mankind that by nature we hate to be told the truth that we are depraved; and so great is our corruption that by nature we hate still more the truth that the only solution to the punishment we deserve is Jesus, the King of truth. You would think that people would stampede to this Jesus who delivers from death and hell.  Not so.  Now if we offered them free gas or free health care or free money, we would be trampled in the stampede.  But free salvation?  Free heaven?  Free rescue from hell?  No, not that!  “Away with him!  Crucify him!  Give us Barabbas!”

Jesus’ cross alone saves.  Up we go to follow.  Yet those who follow to the cross must also follow under the cross.  That is the mark of the Christian, the sign of the cross.  For wherever the King of truth appears with the message of truth, there will be hostility, opposition, and at times even violence.  

As a cross has two beams, so the hostility to the cross has two beams as well.  The first beam is the one that we carry from our own nature.  Our own flesh, along with Pilate, dismissed Jesus’ truth.  By nature we don’t want an answer outside of ourselves.  “Right and wrong that come from God?  I already have me” we reason.  “I’m going to value this today and that tomorrow.”  People shouldn’t commit adultery; but if my children or my friends live together before marriage.  “But I’ll just look the other way.”  People shouldn’t hold grudges or gossip.  “But, God, you don’t know what was done to me!”  People shouldn’t steal or cheat.  “But the prices are too high and people have stolen from and cheated me!”  People shouldn’t be arrogant and self-righteous, “but let’s face it, we really are better than most, aren’t we?”

Then comes the confession in the liturgy: “I, a poor miserable sinner.” “No, no,” objects our flesh, “I don’t want to hear about that.  It’s so depressing!.”  Then comes the message of forgiveness: “In the cross of Christ you have all you need.  You are forgiven.  Your sin washed away.  You are redeemed by Jesus and restored as a dear child of God!’”  But the inborn flesh likes that news even less!  “Well, yea but I work hard.  I deserve what I get.  God is at least a little bit lucky that I’m on his side, and be at least a little flattered that I believe in him at all, given the world we live in today.  And if he doesn’t treat me right, I’ll show him and walk away from him, his church, and his truth.”

So the first beam of the cross that we Christians carry is the beam of our own sinful nature that hates the truth of the law and despises the truth of the gospel.  The second beam is the hostility of the world, who simply can’t stand the message of truth about Jesus.  Our world wallows in vice and wears corruption as if it were a badge of honor.  Perversions demand honor and respect in the world.  And woe to anyone who says, “But the Bible shares truth.”  And woe to anyone who says, “Jesus is the only solution and the only way to heaven.”  “No, no!  Away with such a one,” the world declares.  “Away with such a one from the earth!” 

So we see Jesus today in our reading.  The King.  The one who brings truth, the only truth.  His glory and the glory of the truth that saves is hidden under the cross.  The world wants no part of him.  And still, watch his reaction!  You might expect a lightning bolt from heaven to strike the crowd or earthquake under Pilate’s to make the world listen to the truth that Jesus has come to proclaim.  He endures it!  He takes it!  

Truth from the King is enough.  The time will come for his awe and wonder – for his exaltation and for judgment.  But that is all in his hands and not ours.  We journey under the cross as we go up to the cross.  We share the weakness and the humiliation until the Last Day.  And why is that?  Because our glory too is hidden under the cross of rejection.  Jesus works his Word  quietly in hearts creating faith when and where the Spirit wills it.  It is a miracle brought on by the gospel message, not by our theatrics, cleverness, might, or merit.  

The whole world may want to get rid of the cross and its truth – and the world has tried for almost two thousand years.  Yet gospel truth remains in the world, creating faith as God wills.  The truth still creates saints who lay their whole lives of sin and shame at the foot of Jesus’ cross.  Thousands still rise up while under the cross, to sing the praises of the Lamb that was slain and has redeemed us by his blood.  They rejoice in Christ.  They do not depend on a poll or public opinion or the views of human intellect.  No, their certainty rests on the Word of God and the work of God, even under the cross of hostility and persecution.  Heaven and earth may pass away.  But what Jesus gives will last forever!  Oh, may we always remain in the blessed number of those who know that glory hidden under the cross. Amen.

“It is Hidden in the Savior’s Solitude”

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Passage: Luke 18:31-34

Date: March 5, 2025, Ash Wednesday

Pastor: Pastor Horton

Our Lenten journey this year begins with the Lenten journey of Jesus and his disciples as it was so many years ago.  We hear Jesus’ call to go with him up to Jerusalem and to the cross  in Luke 18:31-34:  “He took the Twelve aside and said to them, “‘Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished.  Indeed, he will be handed over to the Gentiles.  They will mock him, mistreat him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him.  On the third day, he will rise again.’  They did not understand any of these things.  What he said was hidden from them, and they did not understand what was said.”

Jesus’ call to them and to us on this Ash Wednesday, gives us a bloodcurdling preview of what we are about to see in

this great drama of Lent.  It is horrible in the extreme.  It is shocking.  The Creator of the universe will be mocked and insulted?  How can that be?  The one who gave us breath at birth will be beaten within an inch of his life?  Is that possible?  He who is the author of every good and perfect gift that we have ever had since we were born, will be cruelly tormented and then shamefully executed?  His glory is hidden – hidden completely in the cross.

Do you ever wish that you could have been there?  Does the thought ever spring to mind: “Ah, Lord Jesus, if only you could have taken me along!  Maybe I could have helped you.  Maybe I could have wiped your face with a cool towel.  Maybe I could have yelled to the crowds that all that you were doing was for our salvation.  Maybe I could have been at least one witness on your behalf at your trials.  Maybe I could have done something, just some little thing, to lighten your burden, to show my love and gratitude for what you were doing for me.”  Don’t you sometimes want to say that to him as he begins his journey again to the cross?

Jesus takes us aside with the Twelve and announces, “We are going up to Jerusalem.”  And by faith we follow after him but we cannot help him.  The Twelve could not help him either.  Take note of the glory hidden in the coming cross.  Jesus makes it clear that “We are going up to Jerusalem.”  And after that one little word, “we,” the subject of the sentence changes.  He does not say, “We are 

going up, and we will suffer.”  No.  We are going up.  But it is Jesus alone who will suffer.  The Son of Man alone will fulfill the Scriptures.  The Son of Man alone will be mocked, insulted, spit upon, flogged, and killed.  All who follow him to the cross, his first disciples and we along with them, can therefore only be spectators at this great drama that is about to unfold.  He will not go there to show off his glory.  His glory is that he alone is the Savior.  His glory is hidden in the horrible solitude of all he suffered that our salvation should be entirely the gift that comes through his cross and his alone.

This is the way it must be, Jesus would tell us.  For he is going with purpose.  He is going to fulfill the Scriptures, to fulfill all that was written about him in the Old Testament.  Nothing will soften the blows.  Nothing will relieve the pain.  No one will help him.  Not his mother, not the Twelve, not the church or the state; no one helped him. To be sure, the angels served him for a moment in Gethsemane.  But during his trial and execution, even the angels are nowhere to be told.  Oh, what sadness that we cannot help him whom we love and adore!

The truth is that we would prefer to have the shame of his passion hidden and the glory of his resurrection on display.  But Jesus will have none of that.  All will see his shame.  No one will view the glory of the resurrection.  That will be hidden and made known only by his Word and the testimony of the few who saw him after that incredible event.  

But there is still more to it than all that.  Not only do we not help him in his agony – we caused it all in the first place.  From beginning to end, all that he has said that he will do on this journey he is doing in our place, in our stead, and on our behalf.  Was he despised and rejected?  We should have been.  Was he left alone with no help in the hour of pain and sorrow?  We should be.  Did even his Father abandon him at the crucial moment on the cross so that in the midst of life he was suffering the torments of the condemned in hell?  That was our lot.  We were conceived and born deserving that.  We have turned aside from his Word and sinned every day so that we deserve his suffering for all time and for all eternity.  

And truth be told, we didn’t even care that our sins would bring him to such suffering, such abuse, such a death.  How many times in a day do we turn aside from him without even thinking and refuse even to go up with him to Jerusalem?  We have better things to do.  We have our minds and hearts fixed not on him but on our own pleasure and convenience.  It is easier to watch television or scroll on our phones than to pray.  It is more convenient to love gossip or the lusts of the flesh than his cross.  For family bickering, there is always time.  For his Word and a family devotion, well, perhaps later.  It is time now, we often think, for the sports highlights, not for highlights in his words of salvation.

And it gets worse still.  We imagine in our total wickedness and depravity that we are not totally wicked and depraved.  We yawn or maybe even get irritated when someone points it out, especially during Lent.  We vainly assume that somehow or other there is at least a scrap of merit in us for which we should not have to suffer and for which he should therefore not have had to suffer either.  To put it another way, we imagine there is some good in us that does not require his journey to the cross.  We don’t like to recognize, much less confess the sin of our arrogance. It is the sin of thinking that at least a little bit in us needs no forgiveness and, yes, is even deserving of some eternal reward.

Where’s Jesus?  Going up to Jerusalem to suffer for everything that we are and have been when we did not perfectly love God and serve him with all of our hearts, all of our minds, all of our strength.  And when was that?  Every moment of our lives!

For we go up to Jerusalem, up to the cross with him in Lent.  But don’t follow too closely, as if you were going to somehow be of help to him.  We can do nothing to help him.  All that we have done only adds to his sorrow, his pain, his suffering, his death.  We are the cause even on our best days.  We are his curse. 

And so we go up there with him, following him at a distance, as he carries his cross all alone.  It is Jesus who must suffer and die.  He, and he alone, must do it all, or we are doomed.  Just think of it!  If he had required our help in 

order to accomplish our redemption –  we only would have ruined it.  We are sinners.  We cannot do anything at all that does not carry the stench of sin, the smell of death, the sulfur of hell on it.  We go up with him.  But he must do it all, or we are lost.  That is the glory hidden in the solitude of the cross, the solitude that Jesus must do it alone or we must perish.

And yet take heart!  As we follow Jesus up to Jerusalem as he invited, we see in him: our deliverance!  Lent holds both sorrow and great joy.  He is our peace, our life, our salvation.  Listen to him as you go up with him to Jerusalem.  There is not one word of complaint that falls from his lips.  There is not the least trace of bitterness or 

anger in his tone.  He does not accuse us as we deserve.  He does not shame us as we might expect.  No, none of that.  He alone will suffer, and he will suffer alone.  

And that is exactly the way he wants it to be.  His march to Jerusalem is a march of doom for him but of triumph for us.  It is defeat and death for him but a victory parade for us.  His face is set with determination to do all that needs to be done to fulfill the Scriptures for us.  His will is like iron and cannot be bent to turn him away from his purpose of paying the price of our wickedness and our total depravity.  So full, so perfect, so complete is his love for us.  So full, so perfect, so complete is his yearning for our salvation.  He wants to do it!  He not only does not need our help; he does not want our help either!  Every fiber of his being strains and stretches on the way to the cross for our salvation.  Without our aid, he made us.  Without our aid, he redeems us.

Now let us go up to Jerusalem with him!  Let us follow him starting this Ash Wednesday, but not too closely as though we would help him.  Let us go up with him and follow to the cross.  Let us be filled with sorrow for our sin that caused it all.  But then let us be filled with joy beyond all sorrow, that he did it all and he did it alone in great love.  For that is the glory hidden on the cross, the glory that he wanted, the glory of redeeming us by his work there.  Let us watch and keep watching until we hear the victory cry: HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!  Amen.

The Offense of God’s Grace

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Once upon a time, there lived an evil king. He ruled over the people for 55 years. Evil, perhaps, is too kind of a word to describe him.

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Look Up!…Look to the Lord!

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A comedian once joked that when men reach middle age, they dive deeply into one of two things…either war history or smoking meats. 

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You Have Peace with God

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There are a multitude of incredible rescue stories that have captivated the world over the last number of years.

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You’re Dead to Me

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When I look at my sermon theme, I don’t know that I could ever imagine myself saying those words to someone else.

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Rethinking Trials, Tests, and Temptations

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I doubt that Mary Wells had any clue where her song, “My Guy,” would go when she recorded it back in 1964. Perhaps she thought it would make it to the top of the charts in 1964, which it did.

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Ashes on Ash Wednesday: The Why and the How

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Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the Christian’s 40-day journey with the Lord to the cross and tomb, preparing for the proclamation of Easter. The 40 days are reminiscent of several biblical events: Jesus’ 40-day fast at the beginning of this ministry, Moses’ stay on Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law, and Elijah’s fast on his way to the mountain of God.

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