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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Sunday. Drive to church for Palm Sunday. Also Passion Sunday, April 13th, year of our Lord 2025. This is a big one. We enter now into Holy Week and we go into real time. It always reminds me of that TV show 24. That was like 10 years ago, where it was like, events that are happening are happening in real time.
[00:00:28] So that's how it is on Holy Week. So the Sunday that marks the start of Holy Week, we hear the Palm Sunday procession, Maundy Thursday, when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper. We get the institution of the Lord's Supper. We even have the Traore service this Good Friday from noon to three. That marks the three hours of darkness when Jesus. The last three hours that Jesus was hanging on the cross. And then at the Easter vigil, we kind of lean into the resurrection and celebrate it next Sunday on the anniversary of the events that happened in real time. In fact, this is the anniversary. Oh, I better do the math.
[00:01:08] 1990, two years ago. So it's the 1992nd anniversary of Palm Sunday today, at least if you're listening to it on Sunday like you're supposed to. I'm recording on Saturday. So now, two things to maybe note about the Palm Sunday service.
[00:01:30] It's really, in some ways, two different services. So there's the procession, which marks the beginning of the service. And so we have the greeting, the collect, the gospel. We'll have the kids waving the palms and walking down halfway into the church. And we hear the Holy gospel from John 12 about Jesus, fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming to you. And then all glory, laud and honor.
[00:01:55] Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And then there's a pause and a collect. And we go right into the readings for the Sunday of Holy Week. And the tone really changes from the festivities of Palm Sunday to the seriousness of Passion Sunday. And it goes right. And you'll notice that right at the. At the beginning when we have this collect late service, we'll have a baptism actually before this. And then we go into the collect. So we'll start with that collect and then talk a little bit more. Let's pray.
[00:02:34] Almighty and everlasting God, you sent your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, to take upon himself our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross.
[00:02:44] Mercifully grant that we may follow the example of his great humility and patience and be made partakers of his resurrection through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you. And the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:03:03] Now, one of the unique things about Palm Sunday is that we hear the Palm Sunday gospel, which is, as far as I can tell, the only gospel story that we hear twice a year. So we hear it on Palm Sunday. We also hear it on the first Sunday in Advent. And in a way, in an interesting way, we actually sing about it every single Sunday. Because in the liturgy we say, blessed is he blessed. It's part of the Sanctus. Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the lord. That's Psalm 118, hymn that the children and the crowds were singing when Jesus was coming down the Mount of Olives, riding the donkey into Jerusalem. And the children and the disciples were singing. Half the crowd from Bethany, the other half who heard about Lazarus resurrection, coming out to Bethany. And this great crowd kind of merges in the middle. And they're singing this. And that's what really upsets the Pharisees.
[00:04:01] In fact, they come to Jesus and they say, do you hear what they're singing? This is the hymn of praise to the Messiah. And they're saying that you're the Messiah and you have to stop them from singing this. And Jesus says, hey, if I stop them from singing this, then the stones would cry out and start singing it. This is true. And so Jesus confirms the truth, that he is the coming Messiah, the expected one, the one who was to receive all this praise and laud and glory and honor. But at the same time. And here's the great mystery of the Palm Sunday gospel and story.
[00:04:38] So while Jesus is presenting himself through all of these things as the coming Messiah, as God in the flesh to save his people, it's also a deep and profound act of humility.
[00:04:50] I think every single one of the Gospels. I'm not. I better check on this. But I think Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which we'll hear from today, from John, all of them, quote, Zechariah being fulfilled in the triumphal entry where Jesus says, behold, your king is coming to you righteous and having salvation lowly, sitting on a donkey's colt.
[00:05:16] And so it is the presentation of the king, but it is the presentation of the king in humility.
[00:05:25] It's also good to note all of the beautiful Palm Sunday hymns. We don't. You know, we only get Palm Sunday once a year, so we hardly get to sing these hymns. But, boy, we're packing them in. We have all glory, laud and honor. You know, that one to the Redeemer King and all these. Sorry, I'm flipping over. We've got the fancy bulletin again today.
[00:05:46] All these distribution hymns. Christ is the world's redeemer A lamb goes on complaining forth no tramp of soldiers marching feet Alas, and did my Savior bleed and then hosanna. Loud hosanna the little children sang the pillared court and temple the lovely anthem rang. It's beautiful. But we have, as the hymn of the week, this also fantastic hymn that has it in there twice. Right on, right on in Majesty in Stanza 2 and Stanza 5.
[00:06:15] Ride on, ride on in majesty in lowly pomp Ride on to die Bow thy meek head to mortal pain Then take, O God thy power and reign And I think that, I don't know, maybe any other part of the liturgy and the service that really captures this mystery of Palm Sunday, the glory and the tragedy. It's the cross and the crown all mixed together.
[00:06:47] Okay, well, let's take a look at the text a little closer look.
[00:06:50] I mentioned that we have two gospel readings, the processional reading and then the normal gospel reading. But they are beautifully, this year in year C, a continuation of one another. So the processional gospel is John 12:12 19, which is the Palm Sunday text from John. The large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, so they took palm trees and went out to meet him. It's from John that we learn about the palms. I don't think the other gospels mention that. Also, the Gospel of John is really interested in the Lazarus conspiracy.
[00:07:29] So it's in the Gospel of John that we hear about the raising of Lazarus. And it's that raising of Lazarus that becomes the real motivating or the real trigger for the conspiracy against Jesus by the Pharisees. And we hear about it in this text.
[00:07:47] It says the crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. And then the reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard that he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, you see, you're gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him. In fact, there's a plot. I'll just continue. I'll come back to the Old Testament and the Epistle, because we continue this in the Gospel reading with verse 20.
[00:08:15] It says.
[00:08:20] It says, after Jesus says these things, though he had done many signs before them. This is verse 37. They still did not believe him. So that the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us. But then verse 42. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him. But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. For they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
[00:08:52] And if you're reading in the text also, you see that not only at this point were the Pharisees plotting to kill Jesus, they were also plotting to kill Lazarus, because Lazarus walking around alive was a living sign of the power of Jesus. Of course, Lazarus will be replaced by the sign of the resurrection of Jesus himself. So anyway, it's in the Gospel of John that we get all this kind of Lazarus intrigue, remembering that Lazarus lived with his sisters Mary and Martha in Bethany, which is on the other side of the Mount of Olives. And that's where Jesus was staying, in the house of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And going back and forth every day during Holy Week to Jerusalem and then back and so forth. They couldn't figure out where he was because he wasn't in town. And anyway, it's great.
[00:09:43] The Old Testament is from Deuteronomy 32.
[00:09:48] It's a pretty important chapter in the Scriptures.
[00:09:53] The section that we have here is 36:39. And it starts with this line. The Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. And then when is he going to do that? When he sees that their power is gone, there's none remaining.
[00:10:12] When we realize that all of our worshiping of false gods comes to nothing, and so the Lord has to come and rescue us. In fact, at the end it says, the Lord says, even I am He. There's no God beside me. And then I kill and make alive. I wound and I heal. There's none that can deliver out of my hand. That's the Lord's law and gospel. And it's the opposite of what we expect. We think, well, you live and then you die, but not when the Lord is doing it. First you die, and then comes life eternal. That goes on and on, even into the resurrection. First the Lord puts us down by the preaching of the law, showing us our sin, and then he raises us up from the dead by the preaching of the gospel. And that's all part of the gospel, of the way the gospel works itself out in the midst of all of our being assaulted in this life.
[00:11:07] Dr. Kleineg, you guys know my respect for this Dr. Kleinig, this Australian theologian. I really love his stuff. And he was recently talking about vindication as the flip side. Of justification.
[00:11:23] So when we are repentant and sorrowful over our sins, the Lord comes to us and he forgives our sins. That's the doctrine of justification. We're declared righteous by grace, through faith. But the opposite side of that is vindication, where the Lord casts down the prideful, where the Lord comes and overthrows all of our enemies, which are most especially sin, by the forgiveness of sins and death, by the resurrection of the dead and the devil, by his triumphing over him and casting him out of heaven, by the power that by which he subdues all things to himself and the devil and all the demons are put under his feet. So that vindication is the Lord's power exercised on the enemies of his friends.
[00:12:15] And so we have this great promise, the Lord will vindicate his people.
[00:12:21] The Epistle lesson is Philippians, chapter 2, 5, 11, one of the most important passages in the Epistle, Paul's writing. This is one of those prison epistles, Paul's writing probably from his first Roman imprisonment. And he's writing back to the church in Philippi. Remember he started the church there, the first church established in Europe, when Paul came over there on the end of his second missionary journey. Now he's writing back to them. And remember, I think this is pretty important, that when Paul was the first time Paul was in Philippi, he was thrown in jail. And the angel came and opened the jail, but he didn't leave. And then the jailer who was about to kill himself, sees that Paul's there and he and his whole family are baptized. And the church starts there with the jailer and Lydia and their two households. But now the Judaizers had come to Philippi and said, well, look, maybe the Lord was with Paul back then, but he's not anymore. Because look, he's been in prison in Caesarea for three years. And then he was in a shipwreck and now he's been in prison in Rome for a year. Remember how when God was with him when he was here, he broke him out of prison, but now he must have lost favor with God. And so you need to abandon his doctrine and go for our new law based circumcision to be righteous doctrine, this old judaizer doctrine. And so Paul's writing from prison and says, rejoice, rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice.
[00:13:45] And his imprisonment is not an indication of God's lack of favor. This is how Paul wants us to think through Christ. We can do all things in the midst of our suffering. The Lord is with us, and he gives us joy. So that even when the Christian is locked up and in prison, they rejoice in the freedom of the Lord. Even when we're sick and dying, we rejoice in the gift of everlasting life. And this is all because Christ suffered and died to set us free. So he says. And most Bible scholars think that he's quoting a hymn that the church would have known. In this text, he says, have this mind in yourself which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
[00:14:42] Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Now, there's so many things to notice in this text. We could probably spend the rest of our lives studying it. It's the two states of Christ, humiliation and exaltation. And we notice that he humbled himself, but God the Father exalted him. Part of humiliation is that you don't exalt yourself. His humility. Remember, the state of humility begins not by the Incarnation, but after the Incarnation. Oh, this is a fun thing. This is one of these kind of tests that, you know, at the end of seminary, they give you a theological interview, a ti. To see if you're eligible to be a pastor. And they ask you all these trick questions. And this will be one of the trick questions. When does the state of humiliation begin?
[00:15:45] And the reason it's a trick question. We normally think, oh, the Incarnation, when Jesus took upon himself our human flesh. But that's wrong, because if the Incarnation was part of his humiliation, then he would have laid aside his human flesh for his exaltation. But he does not. In fact, he is still incarnate, even though he is exalted.
[00:16:08] So that the Incarnation is not part of the state of humiliation.
[00:16:15] It's what makes the state of humiliation possible. But the Incarnation technically is not part of it. But he's incarnate. And then his humiliation begins. He's born in a manger, not in a. You know, not like in a golden palace or something fancy like that. He lived a life of poverty, the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. But most especially he suffered.
[00:16:41] He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
[00:16:49] So that his suffering and death, and especially the deep, profound humility and shame of crucifixion, is what the Lord Jesus endured for us.
[00:17:01] And the result of his suffering is that the Father is going to lift him up so that he is highly exalted. And he has the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee bows in heaven, on earth, under the earth, every tongue confesses, either willingly, by faith or unwillingly. On the last day, when he judges the living and the dead, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.
[00:17:27] It's absolutely a beautiful text. And Paul says this same mind of humiliation should also be in us, that we are not grasping equality with God. We should hear a deep echo of the garden. There. Adam and Eve counted equality with God as something to be grasped when they reached out and grabbed the forbidden fruit. But we do not. We do not. That's not our goal.
[00:17:58] And then we get to the gospel text, Luke 20. We mentioned a few of it before, but just to highlight a couple of major points in the text, which absolutely beautiful. This is the story of some Greeks coming to Jesus. And they say to Philip, we want to see Jesus.
[00:18:15] If you look in the pulpit at St. Paul, you'll see the lamp that isn't the pulpit has engraved in it these words, sir, we would see Jesus. Philip tells Andrew. Andrew and Philip went to tell Jesus. And Jesus then says, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Now this glory is his death.
[00:18:35] So Jesus tells this little story. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. And then, not only speaking of himself, but also us, whoever loses his life, whoever loves his life, loses it. But whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
[00:18:54] And then he says, my soul is troubled.
[00:18:58] Which is an amazing thing to think about that Jesus, who is God, is a man in such a way that he can have a troubled soul.
[00:19:08] If our souls are troubled, Jesus can say, yeah, I know what that's like. It says, my soul is troubled. What do I say? Father, save me from this hour. For this hour I've come. Instead, I'm going to pray this, Father, glorify your name. And then a voice comes from heaven, I've glorified it, and I will glorify it again.
[00:19:28] This is only the third time. And it is the final time that we actually hear the voice of God the Father in all of the Gospels. The first, remember, at Jesus baptism, the second at the transfiguration. And now here, right before the crucifixion, where God the Father says, from heaven, I have glorified my name and I will glorify it again. Now what does that mean?
[00:19:49] I know that I will glorify it again refers to the death of Jesus because of what he says next.
[00:19:56] But what does it mean? God the Father says that I have glorified it. What does that refer to?
[00:20:02] The answer is I don't know. But I'm recording this on Saturday and if I figure it out by time we get to church tomorrow, then you're probably going to hear about it in the sermon.
[00:20:13] But here, God the Father says, I've glorified my name and I will glorify it again in the crucifixion. And then Jesus is going to describe what the glory is. He says, this voice came for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of the world be cast out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to him myself.
[00:20:39] And we might think that that lifted up from the earth might be talking about his ascension, but it's not. It's talking about his crucifixion. He's lifted up by being nailed to the cross and hoisted up so that he's hanging between heaven and earth. And we know that just because John tells us verse 33. He said this to show what kind of death he was going to die.
[00:21:01] So the crowd says, we've heard from the law that Christ remains forever. How can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up? So they understood he was talking about crucifixion and death. Who's the Son of Man? And Jesus says, look, you have the light now for a little while, believe the light, become sons of the light.
[00:21:15] But they're leaving again, like they always do in John. These are hard sayings and they depart. And John shows how this departure of the people, like basically, Jesus, you're crazy, is fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah. It's pretty, pretty amazing.
[00:21:33] We had the text that already that the Gospel ends on. They love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
[00:21:42] And this is really the point that John is putting before us. What glory are we pursuing?
[00:21:50] Are we pursuing the glory of God, which looks like Jesus being crucified? That is his glory. Amazing.
[00:21:58] Or are we looking for the glory that comes from man?
[00:22:02] And it's pretty clear. It's pretty clear. The glory that leads to the glory that leads to life.
[00:22:11] So we rejoice today in this. What did we say it was? The 1992nd. I better double check my math. But we rejoice today in this anniversary of the Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, that he came into the midst of all these people. Some who believed in him, some who were swept away by the crowds, some who were hoping to see a miracle, some who hated Him. And in fact, it was those who hated him, who would, only a few days later, capture him, arrest him, beat him, mock him, crucify him, hand him over to be laid in the tomb so that he could be raised for our glory and justification. So we rejoice that the Lord Jesus, knowing all of these things that would happen, still got on a donkey and rode down into Jerusalem into the midst of the poof. Into the midst of his enemies, into the midst of our enemies. That he does all these things for us. It's great.
[00:23:18] All right, that's what's waiting for you in a few minutes. We have a. This is a Holy Week's coming up. So a bunch of stuff happening this week. Wednesday evening we do not have a service, but we do still have our normal stuff. So Bible class at 4, no soup supper, no service. New member class at 7:30. That's this Wednesday. And then starting on Thursday, just bring your sleeping bag. We're going to be at church. Maundy Thursday Communion service, Remembering the institution of the Lord's Supper. 7:00, Good Friday. We have the three hour service from noon to three little 20 minute services. So come and go if you'd like on the seven last words of Jesus. Chief. Monday. Sorry, Chief. Good Friday Service, 7pm Friday night. Easter Vigil starts at 7pm on Saturday night. That's this crazy old service that gathers together all this stuff from the ancient. We start outside, we have a campfire. We mark the Paschal candle with all the stuff. We process into the dark church with the lights. We hear the reading of 2/3 of the Old Testament. Boy, it's a lot of readings. We hear all these great readings and then really halfway through the service, we even sort of peek into Easter. And the service ends with the joy of the resurrection. It's probably again real time because it wasn't much after the sunset.
[00:24:45] Remember that the Jewish day begins with sunset when you can glance up and see two stars or something. And so it probably wasn't much after the sunset on Saturday night that Jesus was raised from the dead. I mean, once he was into the required time, he wasn't going to stick around. And so we let the sun go down, or start to go down, and we celebrate the resurrection as well. And then we'll be back on, on Sunday morning celebrating it all the more, rejoicing in the Lord's conquering of death, 8:00 and 11:00 services. So normal times. And then all the youth are going to be working on breakfast tacos, and we'll have an Easter egg hunt at 10 o'clock, meeting out front at 10 o'clock for that. So that'll be really wonderful. So the Lord has a lot of great gifts for us this week, so can't wait to see you in a few minutes. Drive safe. God's peace be with.