Save Us Now: A Palm Sunday Detour

In one paragraph

Palm Sunday 2016 found Pastor Carl taking a detour from the Romans series to walk through the events leading up to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. He connected the Roman letter's argument about identity with the desperate hopes the crowd brought to that road outside the city. The thread running through everything was a single question: where do you put your hope when you feel like things are falling...

Read together

1. John 12:13 read at the opening to explain why the children were waving palm branches
2. Isaiah 53 quoted in the pastoral prayer to reflect on Christ's suffering: 'he was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows acquainted with deepest grief, he was pierced for our rebellion, he was crushed for our sins'
3. Hebrews 12:2 alluded to in prayer: 'for the joy set before you, you endured the cross, and it scorned shame'
4. Romans 2:25-29 read as the starting point of the sermon, on circumcision of the heart versus outward circumcision
5. John 11:1-46 read in full as the account of the raising of Lazarus, leading into the triumphal entry
6. John 12:12-16 read as the Palm Sunday triumphal entry account including Jesus seated on a donkey's colt
7. Psalm 118:25 cited as the source of 'Hosanna,' explained to mean 'save now, send prosperity now'
8. Zechariah 9:9 referenced as the prophecy fulfilled when Jesus rode in on a donkey's colt: 'fear not daughter of Zion, behold your king is seated on a donkey's colt'
9. Luke 19:41 cited as the basis for the painting of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem: 'when he was coming, he was looking down on Jerusalem and he wept'
10. Revelation 7:9-10 read as a closing vision of a vast crowd from every nation holding palm branches and shouting that salvation comes from God and the Lamb

Talk about it

1. Pastor Carl talked about Jewish identity in the first century being tied to practices like circumcision, Sabbath observance, and temple worship, and he mentioned a modern Jewish writer who said his identity was rooted in the Holocaust rather than religious practice. Where do you find your own identity, and how does that compare to finding it in Christ the way Paul describes in Romans?
2. Pastor Carl walked through the political, economic, and cultural setting of first-century Roman Judea and kept saying 'if anything sounds like it fits today, hold on to it.' What parallels stood out to you, and why?
3. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, He waited two more days before going. Pastor Carl said Jesus knew His hour was coming and that this moment was connected to it. What does it do to your faith when God seems to delay in a situation where you are hurting and waiting?
4. The crowd that came out with palm branches was shouting 'Hosanna,' which Pastor Carl said means 'save us now,' and they were looking for political and national deliverance. In what ways do we sometimes look to someone or something other than Jesus to save us, and what does that reveal about what we actually believe?
5. Pastor Carl closed with Revelation 7:9-10, a picture of an uncountable crowd from every nation holding palm branches and shouting that salvation belongs to God and to the Lamb. How does that future picture change the way you want to live and worship right now?