Palm Sunday

Pr. Mark Stirdivant:

The Lord be with you! This Sunday, April 5, is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Even though we aren’t gathered together in the usual way, the facts remain that this is the week of our Lord’s gracious gift of His sacrifice for our eternal salvation.

Let us prepare our hearts for study in God’s Word, using this Sunday’s Collect of the Day, which gives us a helpful theme to begin our contemplation on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray:
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. 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.

Isaiah 50:4-9
Isaiah depicted the Messiah with vivid terms throughout the latter part of the book that now bears his name. Remember the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts who asked Philip, “Tell me, of whom is the prophet speaking, himself or another?” You can see the man’s confusion, because Isaiah spoke of the Christ’s sacrificial passion as though it were happening to himself. Jesus was the Suffering Servant, who was actually willing to suffer, verse 6: “I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced.” Yet when Isaiah asks the question, “Who will declare me guilty?” the ironic twist is that for Jesus, before He is vindicated ultimately by the Resurrection on Easter, first He must be “declared” guilty on the cross and die for your sins and mine, that He didn’t do, but willingly took responsibility for.

Philippians 2:5-11
This is probably a song or a chanted text that Paul quoted from the Early Church hymnal, if you will. The Passion of Our Lord is His great humiliation; He lowered Himself not only to be a man, but to be the lowliest of men. Then we have the early Easter announcement that God the Father raised Him to glory, as Jesus Himself said at the end of Matthew 28: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me…”

Matthew 27:11-66
The Passion reading has been used on Palm Sunday for a couple generations now. It will be repeated as Holy Week goes on. This year, the focus is on Matthew’s perspective of the all-important Good Friday events. I suggest you include the entire Matthew chapters 26 and 27 in your home devotions this coming week.

The saying “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” tends to remind us of what to expect of the weather in the month of March, as the seasons change from end of winter to beginning of spring. We can see a similar pattern, though, in this climactic week of our Lord Jesus Christ’s mission of mercy for the salvation of the world. On Palm Sunday, the triumphant Messiah entered the city gates of Jerusalem with cheers of the crowds and hopes of victory in the air. On Good Friday, the great Lion of Judah has become the Lamb who gave Himself willingly for our ransom.

The hymn that rejoices in what Christ’s sacrifice has won for us is “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth” LSB 438, especially stanza 4:
  Lord, when Your glory I shall see
  And taste Your kingdom’s pleasure,
  Your blood my royal robe shall be,
  My joy beyond all measure!
  When I appear before Your throne,
  Your righteousness shall be my crown;
  With these I need not hide me.
  And there, in garments richly wrought,
  As Your own bride shall we be brought
  To stand in joy beside You!

In the name of the Father, and of the ✝ Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

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God bless you!