Rev. Dustin ParkerHe Did NOT Hide
Concordia Lutheran Church
Passion Sunday, April 17, 2011
He didn’t Hide.. from this Journey
Isaiah 50:4-9
† In Jesus Name †
May you realize the great dedication Jesus has for His mission of seeing you rest in His grace , basking in His love, embraced by His peace, for this is the very wisdom the Father!
As He rides the colt through the adoring crowds, did his thoughts wander to the mission he knew this journey was to complete? As He heard them acknowledge that He was the Christ, the Chosen deliverer of Israel, did He think of the great cost He would pay, to deliver them from their worst enemy? As they adored and sang to their King, did His thoughts wander to the sign that would be placed above His head, just a few days from now?
What would go through His mind, if He thought that this fickle crowd whose words proclaimed they trusted and believed and had hope because He as in their midst, would soon cry out to crucify Him, and would belittle and torment Him?
If we only look at Palm Sunday as people praising the God that comes to them, and ignore the fact that He is on this journey that ends at a brutal cross, I don’t think we grasp the depth, the greatness of His love for us. I think we need to see the crowd as fickle as it is, as two-faced, as able to be influenced by their own desires, and those who would cry out Hosanna, only to then cry out CRUCIFY HIM!
Only God can reconcile those cries, only He can see the torture and death of His only begotten INNOCENT Son as something which gives justice, which declares righteousness.
Only the love of a Father, instilled in the Son, could see one endure such a journey, with an unshakeable, unbreakable rock-steady, rock-hard determination.
How deep a love must you have?
People say that churches are full of hypocrites. It is a classic way to avoid being involved in a church; sometimes it is true. I think more often, it is what we see between Palm Sunday and Good Friday – people who will appear hypocritical or two-faced because they radically switch their views, or appear to, in a short period of time. One moment they seem your friend, and the next moment you feel betrayed and hurt by them. Sometimes so deeply, that you wonder if you can ever be in the same building as them again. Sometimes it is because they are not consistent or fickle, sometimes it is because they are hypocritical, two faced, betrayers of confidence. Either way, the pain is… there.
As we look at the end of the Journey to the Cross, as we see this crowd cry “Hosanna” which means “Please deliver us!” how would we deal with the crowd, if we were in Jesus shoes, knowing they will call for death in less than 130 hours?
It is a challenge to hear Jesus call us to forgive, even as we are forgiven. To love those who betray us, even to the extent we love ourselves. That second great commandment seems like an intolerable burden for us, when our neighbor is revealed to be one who betrayed us.
How deep does your love have to be, to overlook such wounds, such pain?
People hide from such as these
Do we hide from such people, such wounds?
Is it much easier to hide in the shadows, to hide behind smiles, to ignore the pain, to ignore the loss of someone we counted so close to our hearts? We find ways to compartmentalize it, until it eats us apart, or causes us to explode!
It amazes me that Jesus knew His journey, knew the fickleness of the crowd and how they would betray Him, knew that Judas would betray him with a kiss, and that Peter would betray him not once, but three times, within Jesus’ sight. Blow after blow after blow, and no hiding from it! How could you know this… and receive the adoration of the ones who would cry to kill you?
Hebrews tells us it was for the joy that Jesus endured all of this. He didn’t hide from this journey!
He freely offered his back to those who would leave it beaten, bloody and striped. He let them insult Him and deny his role as rabbi by yanking his beard out. He didn’t hide or turn away as they mocked him and spit in His face.
His faith in the Father’s will didn’t waver, He chose to set his face like stone, knowing the end result. He chose to love His neighbor more than himself, and showed a staggering level of obedience to the Father’s call for us to love without reservation…
To love even those who would betray Him.
He didn’t – He chose to deal with it.
Comfort the people first – it’s why He was sent
Don’t hide- there is no shame in the long run
According to Luke’s gospel, it was just after the Transfiguration, that Jesus set His face towards Jerusalem and began this journey. It is no great mystery that the Transfiguration is the reading the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. We started observing Christ’s journey to the cross, through the eyes of the prophets, and at each step of the way, we see His determination, His caring for us, His providing for His people.
Even here in Isaiah, the passage starts out with Jesus acknowledging His Father’s influence and “training”, Look at verse 4, 4 The Sovereign LORD has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will.
Even before He starts talking about facing the cost, or depending on the Father’s will and presence, He talks of comforting the weary, those broken by life and near exhaustion. You see, even as Jesus deals with our fickleness, our inconsistency, He looks to our brokenness and knows the love of the Father that desires to see that weakness healed, the pain comforted.
The cost is the detailed in the verses, as the Father calls the Son to embody the love and devotion that is seen in the great commandments – Love the Father fully (and trust in Him) and love your neighbor. That is why the prophet’s words talk of no shame coming from the beatings, no disgrace, no declaration of guilt – but instead justice being fulfilled, and the Sovereign Lord’s assistance.
One thing that hit me, as we hear these words from Isaiah, the close connection of Jesus to the Father, the confidence in the Father’s promise and presence, the assurance that this will of the Father is so ingrained in the Son – that requires a faith and trust that is only found in relationships that are formed by the deepest love.
Such confidence allows one’s eyes to look past things the world sees them. To look past the betrayal, and the two-facedness, past the flighty and flip-flopping of those who one minute adore you, and the next moment cry out abhorring you.
Such love vindicates any instance, even being put to death, despite one’s innocence.
Such love of Jesus is not just for the Father.
That love is for the crowds chanting Hosanna, Save us, and Blessed be Your Name (which means Yhwh Saves – remember) It is for the flighty and the hypocrite, it is for those wearied and exhausted by loving those who are such. In reality, they are the same, for we all are hurt, and we all can that two-faced. We need His healing, and His strength, and to trust in Him that we can and will be declared righteous.
Reconciling the Cries!
I said at the beginning that only God could reconcile the cries of Hosanna (save Us) and CRUCIFY HIM. For it indeed takes His ability to love, proven as He did just that. That’s the point of Passion Sunday, and Palm Sunday. He looked upon those people with mercy and love – and chose to journey to the cross for them…. And for us.
As they cry out for salvation, for deliverance, they must cry out for His death. We have to know it is our only hope. It is the place from which we draw comfort, for if the Father’s love extends that far; if the love of Christ will cause Him to stride toward that cross – looking aside from its shame to realize its joy….then we shall know rest, and comfort and peace.
When you come up here today, to this rail, to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, which is your hope, the evidence of His love. Know this.
His sacrifice was intentional.
He did not hide in the least from this journey.
In it He proved what loving your neighbor means… and why we adore Him!
For He loved us…
AMEN!
Passion Sunday, April 17, 2011
He didn’t Hide.. from this Journey
Isaiah 50:4-9
† In Jesus Name †
May you realize the great dedication Jesus has for His mission of seeing you rest in His grace , basking in His love, embraced by His peace, for this is the very wisdom the Father!
As He rides the colt through the adoring crowds, did his thoughts wander to the mission he knew this journey was to complete? As He heard them acknowledge that He was the Christ, the Chosen deliverer of Israel, did He think of the great cost He would pay, to deliver them from their worst enemy? As they adored and sang to their King, did His thoughts wander to the sign that would be placed above His head, just a few days from now?
What would go through His mind, if He thought that this fickle crowd whose words proclaimed they trusted and believed and had hope because He as in their midst, would soon cry out to crucify Him, and would belittle and torment Him?
If we only look at Palm Sunday as people praising the God that comes to them, and ignore the fact that He is on this journey that ends at a brutal cross, I don’t think we grasp the depth, the greatness of His love for us. I think we need to see the crowd as fickle as it is, as two-faced, as able to be influenced by their own desires, and those who would cry out Hosanna, only to then cry out CRUCIFY HIM!
Only God can reconcile those cries, only He can see the torture and death of His only begotten INNOCENT Son as something which gives justice, which declares righteousness.
Only the love of a Father, instilled in the Son, could see one endure such a journey, with an unshakeable, unbreakable rock-steady, rock-hard determination.
How deep a love must you have?
People say that churches are full of hypocrites. It is a classic way to avoid being involved in a church; sometimes it is true. I think more often, it is what we see between Palm Sunday and Good Friday – people who will appear hypocritical or two-faced because they radically switch their views, or appear to, in a short period of time. One moment they seem your friend, and the next moment you feel betrayed and hurt by them. Sometimes so deeply, that you wonder if you can ever be in the same building as them again. Sometimes it is because they are not consistent or fickle, sometimes it is because they are hypocritical, two faced, betrayers of confidence. Either way, the pain is… there.
As we look at the end of the Journey to the Cross, as we see this crowd cry “Hosanna” which means “Please deliver us!” how would we deal with the crowd, if we were in Jesus shoes, knowing they will call for death in less than 130 hours?
It is a challenge to hear Jesus call us to forgive, even as we are forgiven. To love those who betray us, even to the extent we love ourselves. That second great commandment seems like an intolerable burden for us, when our neighbor is revealed to be one who betrayed us.
How deep does your love have to be, to overlook such wounds, such pain?
People hide from such as these
Do we hide from such people, such wounds?
Is it much easier to hide in the shadows, to hide behind smiles, to ignore the pain, to ignore the loss of someone we counted so close to our hearts? We find ways to compartmentalize it, until it eats us apart, or causes us to explode!
It amazes me that Jesus knew His journey, knew the fickleness of the crowd and how they would betray Him, knew that Judas would betray him with a kiss, and that Peter would betray him not once, but three times, within Jesus’ sight. Blow after blow after blow, and no hiding from it! How could you know this… and receive the adoration of the ones who would cry to kill you?
Hebrews tells us it was for the joy that Jesus endured all of this. He didn’t hide from this journey!
He freely offered his back to those who would leave it beaten, bloody and striped. He let them insult Him and deny his role as rabbi by yanking his beard out. He didn’t hide or turn away as they mocked him and spit in His face.
His faith in the Father’s will didn’t waver, He chose to set his face like stone, knowing the end result. He chose to love His neighbor more than himself, and showed a staggering level of obedience to the Father’s call for us to love without reservation…
To love even those who would betray Him.
He didn’t – He chose to deal with it.
Comfort the people first – it’s why He was sent
Don’t hide- there is no shame in the long run
According to Luke’s gospel, it was just after the Transfiguration, that Jesus set His face towards Jerusalem and began this journey. It is no great mystery that the Transfiguration is the reading the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. We started observing Christ’s journey to the cross, through the eyes of the prophets, and at each step of the way, we see His determination, His caring for us, His providing for His people.
Even here in Isaiah, the passage starts out with Jesus acknowledging His Father’s influence and “training”, Look at verse 4, 4 The Sovereign LORD has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will.
Even before He starts talking about facing the cost, or depending on the Father’s will and presence, He talks of comforting the weary, those broken by life and near exhaustion. You see, even as Jesus deals with our fickleness, our inconsistency, He looks to our brokenness and knows the love of the Father that desires to see that weakness healed, the pain comforted.
The cost is the detailed in the verses, as the Father calls the Son to embody the love and devotion that is seen in the great commandments – Love the Father fully (and trust in Him) and love your neighbor. That is why the prophet’s words talk of no shame coming from the beatings, no disgrace, no declaration of guilt – but instead justice being fulfilled, and the Sovereign Lord’s assistance.
One thing that hit me, as we hear these words from Isaiah, the close connection of Jesus to the Father, the confidence in the Father’s promise and presence, the assurance that this will of the Father is so ingrained in the Son – that requires a faith and trust that is only found in relationships that are formed by the deepest love.
Such confidence allows one’s eyes to look past things the world sees them. To look past the betrayal, and the two-facedness, past the flighty and flip-flopping of those who one minute adore you, and the next moment cry out abhorring you.
Such love vindicates any instance, even being put to death, despite one’s innocence.
Such love of Jesus is not just for the Father.
That love is for the crowds chanting Hosanna, Save us, and Blessed be Your Name (which means Yhwh Saves – remember) It is for the flighty and the hypocrite, it is for those wearied and exhausted by loving those who are such. In reality, they are the same, for we all are hurt, and we all can that two-faced. We need His healing, and His strength, and to trust in Him that we can and will be declared righteous.
Reconciling the Cries!
I said at the beginning that only God could reconcile the cries of Hosanna (save Us) and CRUCIFY HIM. For it indeed takes His ability to love, proven as He did just that. That’s the point of Passion Sunday, and Palm Sunday. He looked upon those people with mercy and love – and chose to journey to the cross for them…. And for us.
As they cry out for salvation, for deliverance, they must cry out for His death. We have to know it is our only hope. It is the place from which we draw comfort, for if the Father’s love extends that far; if the love of Christ will cause Him to stride toward that cross – looking aside from its shame to realize its joy….then we shall know rest, and comfort and peace.
When you come up here today, to this rail, to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, which is your hope, the evidence of His love. Know this.
His sacrifice was intentional.
He did not hide in the least from this journey.
In it He proved what loving your neighbor means… and why we adore Him!
For He loved us…
AMEN!
