By Rev.
Brian Wilkie
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario
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PODCAST LINK to CFRA
broadcast - Sunday, April 13th, 2014:
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Broadcast Notes:
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‘All Glory, Laud and Honour!’
Welcome to
Good News In the Morning a program of words and music bringing a Christian
message of hope and encouragement to those who are looking for intelligent
meaningful and spirited approach to faith and to life.
This program
is sponsored by Good News Christian Ministries PO Box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario
K0G 1W0. I'm your host today, Brian Wilkie of St. Andrew's Christian church in
Rockland. As always I want to start by thanking you our listeners. We are so
grateful for your encouragement and support. Please remember that you can
always visit our website for materials to encourage and support you in your
Christian walk.
If you miss an
episode of the show you can go to our website and download the podcast or the
MP3 of our broadcast. Today I also want to invite you to come and join us for
an evening of worship and encouragement as Dr. Rick Reed, president of Heritage
College comes to Ottawa to speak at an event for Good News Christian
Ministries at Parkdale United Church,
7:00 on Friday May 9, 2014. More details can be found on our website.
I hope
you'll find our posters and and bookmarks promoting this event around town as
well.
It's Palm
Sunday as this broadcast is first going to air, and I'd like to read you the
Scripture concerning Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem the week before he
was crucified. Let's turn to Matthew
chapter 21 verses 1 to 11
Scripture Matthew 21:1–11
21 As they approached
Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two
disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at
once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and
bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, tell him that
the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 “Say to the Daughter of
Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They
brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on
them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while
others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The
crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who
is this?”
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in
Galilee.” (NIV)
To take a look
at the meaning of this honor and glory that Jesus is given we’re going to take a
look at what it means for us to glorify and honor Jesus with our lives. We’ll
do that in just a few minutes, after we listen to this hymn of triumph and of
honor to God: Lead on O King Eternal is sung by one of my favorite a cappella
groups, the group called Glad.
Those who know
me know that I just love music .I am fond of hymns, I love contemporary music,
I love the old gospel songs, and love to sing spirituals with my gospel
quartet. To sing all kinds of different genres of Christian music. Some of the
hymns that come up on Palm Sunday just have a special place in my heart. Remember
the hymn ‘All glory, laud and honor to thee, Redeemer King, to whom the lips of
children made loud hosannas ring’ or the other song, ‘Ride on, ride on in Majesty, in lowly pomp ride on to
die?’ Hymns that remember this day in Jesus’ life a day when the sun shone,
when the crowds were friendly, when everything was going well. A great day of
praise and honor; honor that Jesus greatly deserved. They shouted ‘Hosanna to
the Son of David.’ Hosanna was the cry that was made to the Messiah who was to
come, who was to deliver the people from their bondage. They called him blessed
and they called him the Son of David. All of these things are true about Jesus.
He is, in fact, the Messiah that was promised, and he did come to deliver his
people. These loud praises were so ‘spot on’ that that when some Pharisees
objected and said to Jesus that he needed to quiet the people, he said, “do you
not know that if they were silent even the very stones would cry out?” Yes the
praise was praise that is due to Jesus. It was due to Jesus and will always be
due Jesus. Praise for his Majesty, his glory, his great love, his great power, his
great compassion and all that the greatness of our God; for Jesus Christ had
come to save his people.
Now we
sometimes guess that the Pharisees were upset, not just because Jesus was
getting the praise and they weren't, but also because this cry ‘hosanna’ was a
dangerous term. With Romans occupying Jerusalem there might be some fear on
their part that that if Jesus is lauded as a person who is going to be the
Messiah bringing deliverance, then the Romans might take that as a sign of
rebellion, meaning many people would be harmed. That may be why Caiaphas the High
priest said about Jesus, “It is better
that one man should die than that the whole nation should suffer.” You’ll remember
that when Jesus was born just the announcement that King had been born in Israel
was enough to send the paranoid King Herod into a frenzy and a fury so that he
massacred children - babies under two years of age - just to squash any sense
of rebellion. So Jesus’ praise was an unguarded praise and it was right that it
should be. The people feared nothing, for Jesus was in their midst. They were
confident and hopeful, they believed that that nothing could stop Jesus. They
understood that they were with someone in whom they could rejoice.
And can we ask
who they were praising? They give the answer themselves: They were praising the
prophet from Galilee, they were praising a man who had come and spoken the
oracles of God. He had spoken with authority, so that not only his words of
healing and his words of deliverance for the demonically oppressed, but also
his words of guidance and command were understood to be the very words of God. They
were counting him as a prophet like Elijah, like Elisha, like Isaiah and Daniel
and all the prophets of old. Jesus was like them. The crowd’s answer is, for
those of us who are Christian, a rather faint praise. Just a prophet?
Was Jesus just
a prophet? Well certainly a prophet who comes and faithfully bears the word of
God deserves such praise. They deserve to be lauded, and the word that they
bring deserves to be honored. But Jesus was more than a prophet, and these
people were excited by more than just a teacher who spoke words of wisdom. Because
he was a healer, many of these people had heard about and perhaps many of them
had experienced the healing power of Jesus Christ. They were praising him
because he had brought health and wholeness to people who were broken and in
great need. Why there were people who would been blind from birth and now they
could see. There was a young boy restored to his mother. She a widow whose only
son had died, and Jesus had raised him from the dead. There was Lazarus and
there were sufferers of all kinds of diseases: from fevers to paralysis; from
leprosy to demonic possession. People who had been delivered, healed, set in
their right mind – and Jesus was the instrument of all of this blessing. He
brought good news to the outcast, he told sinners that they could be forgive. He
told tax collectors and prostitutes and drunkards and all kinds of people, that
they could be restored, return to God's good graces, and live in salvation and
eternal life.
What good news
he brought! Who wouldn't praise God and honor the prophet who brought the good
news if they had felt separated from God by their sin and now knew that God had
reconciled them. There would be a great joy in understanding that the prophet
not only brought words, but brought health.
But there were
a few things they didn't know about Jesus. A few things that were going to
become apparent very soon. Even though their praise died in their lips over the
next week, Jesus became worthy of even greater honor than he received on this
day.
We will take a
look at more of that after we hear another song. This is a song from a great old
gospel quartet, The King’s Heralds, and it says, ‘if we ever needed the Lord
before, we sure do need him now”
As Jesus
approached Jerusalem and came into the city he was met by crowd that was ready
to welcome him and praise him for all that they'd seen: the prophet, the healer,
the bearer of good news; the teacher of wonderful
truths from God.
But he draws
attention to himself in a couple of other ways, that perhaps the crowd hadn't
quite noticed yet. He tells his disciples about the prophecy that that is given
in the Old Testament that the king would come into Jerusalem on a Colt, the foal
of a donkey. As King on a colt he would be bringing peace, indicating to the
people of God that he came not to bring wrath or judgment upon them but to
bring reconciliation, forgiveness and joy.
So when Jesus
enters into the city he is coming humbly on a donkey, yet he is coming as a
humble King. Not as a servant of low
stature, but he comes as a king who has come to serve his people with good news.
Did everybody who met him with palm branches recognize the claim he was making
when he wrote on a donkey? Did they recognize that he was saying, ‘I more than
a prophet, more than a healer. I am the king that is spoken of in Daniel, the
king that is spoken of in Zechariah, and Zephaniah.’ He is the King the spoken of throughout the history of
Israel, the king that will sit on the throne of David forever. Did they know
that there were praising him for that? or is there yet more praise to be given
as that realization comes to the believer? In fact they were completely unaware
of the greatest act that Jesus would do, because the greatest act of Jesus’
life had not yet taken place. He had done all these mighty things for which
they praised him, but dying on the cross,
as strange as that may seem, is the greatest thing he's ever done. He laid down
his life for his people.
Paul ponders
this mystery saying, ‘you know is very possible that for a good man one of us
might lay down our life.’ It might happen! But he said the real mystery of God
is this that while we were yet sinners Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
How great a
love we have seen – and these people who praised him on the road into Jerusalem
had not seen the fullness of his love yet! So we today have more reason to
rejoice, more reason to praise. We have more evidence of his love and of his
identity as the very son of God, for we have seen the cross. We have seen God's
love fully expressed and we have witnessed the resurrection. We have heard the
testimony, from over 500 eyewitnesses, that God did not see fit to leave his Son
to decay in the tomb but raised him from death, and has set him at his right
hand above every name, every authority and every power. At the end of all time,
in the vision of John's, a glorious insight that God gave him into the things
were yet to come, we are told that on the throne of the most high God there is
the Lamb who looks as though he had been slain. He receives all honor and glory
in that day. What a glorious day! Much more glorious than this sunny day where
crowds meet Jesus and wave palms before him and greet him with the greetings
that they feel are due to a prophet, to the deliverer that God has sent. Here
we have in the highest place in heaven, at the culmination of all history, we
have unending praise to Jesus, because we know something more than this crowd
did.
On Palm Sunday
I'm accustomed to having the kids waving palm branches in church and marching
around singing one of those great songs about his entry into Jerusalem. It can seem a little bit corny sometimes,
maybe a little bit silly when we act like that a church, but I wonder why we don't
rejoice more energetically? More like David when he was bringing the ark into
Jerusalem. He danced about so much that his wife was ashamed and embarrassed by
his enthusiasm. When he was confronted with her rebuke he said, ‘I will be even
more undignified!’ because David saw that there was someone himself there as the
ark of God was coming into Jerusalem. The Lord was with them.
And Here
people are waving palm branches and shouting of hosanna completely ignorant of
the of the Roman guards wondering what's going on. Completely forgetting about
the oppression in which they live because they have a deliverer in their midst.
And what about
us?
Are we lifted
up above our present distress by the by the certainty that we have in Jesus
Christ? By the great demonstration of his love? Are we encouraged because he died for us and
now lives for us at the right hand of God the Almighty? Even now he intercedes
for us! He looks upon us, He sends his Holy Spirit to us. He keeps us and
continues his good work in us, promising to complete what he's begun in us for that
day when he comes to claim us.
Do we not have
more reason to rejoice, more opportunity to show love to him? I hope today is a
day of joy in your heart. I hope the today is a day of joy that overflows into a
smile on your face, into a song of joy on your lips, into an exuberant display
of love to your neighbor, to your brothers and sisters, and to your God, as you
honor him with joy and with gladness because of his great love.
Let's turn to
God in prayer:
Almighty God,
thank you so much for all that you've given us in Jesus Christ. We cry hosanna,
we cry praise to your name. We say blessed is he, Jesus Christ, who comes in
the name of the Lord. Lord, let your joy fill our hearts, let our eyes be fixed
on Jesus. Teach us to take encouragement from him over and above any
discouragement we find in the world. To place our hope in him and to live and
rejoice in that hope day by day. We know that you came to deliver us from
darkness. Let your light shine into our hearts today through Jesus Christ our
Lord, amen.
Well once
again I want to thank you, our listeners, for your encouragement and support. It
is you who keep us on the air week by week. We do want to encourage you to
support our ministry financially. Do you know the Good News Ministry has only
one major cost? Your hosts Brent Russett, George Sinclair, Juliet Schimpf and
myself are volunteers, and so are the people who manage our website, organize
our events and operate our board. Your gift can help us to continue to meet
that one vital expense, the cost of broadcasting, which enables us to reach you
and over 7000 listeners in the Ottawa River Valley. If you can please make a
check payable to Good News Christian Ministries and send it to PO Box 184 Rideau
Ferry Ontario K0G 1W0. We will be happy to send you a receipt at income tax
time.
I also want to,
once again, extend that invitation to come and join with us for an evening of
worship and fellowship as Dr. Rick Reed, the president of Heritage College
brings an encouraging word and a strengthening word to us as he speaks for Good
News Christian Ministries at Parkdale United Church on Friday, May 9 at 7
o'clock. More details can be found on our website.
So be sure
going forth from this hour together, be sure to worship in a church where the
gospel is soundly proclaimed and lived out with compassion, integrity and
resolve. Now to conclude our program I'd like to have you listen to this song
about the amazing work that God does for us on the cross. Today it's sung by
the a cappella group This Hope and the song is ‘There is power in the blood.’
I do pray the
Lord will hold your heart and you would know Jesus personally and profoundly. Let
the Holy Spirit reside deep within your heart. May the heavenly Father surround
you with his constant and abiding and accompanying love.
- Rev. Brian Wilkie
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland,
Ontario
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To listen to the above broadcast, click on the following link:
