Call to Worship: ‘See your king coming to you riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey’. Let us welcome Him with open hearts and songs of praise!
Hymn: StF 264
- Make way, make way, for Christ the King in splendour arrives;
fling wide the gates and welcome him into your lives.
Make way, make way, for the King of kings;
make way, make way, and let his kingdom in.
- He comes the broken hearts to heal, the prisoners to free;
the deaf shall hear, the lame shall dance, the blind shall see.
Make way, make way, for the King of kings …
- And those who mourn with heavy hearts, who weep and sigh;
with laughter, joy and royal crown he’ll beautify.
Make way, make way, for the King of kings …
4.We call you now to worship him as Lord of all,
to have no gods before him, their thrones must fall!
Make way, make way, for the King of kings …
Graham Kendrick © 1986 Make Way Music/Thankyou Music
Prayers of Praise and Confession
Almighty and Eternal God, on this Palm Sunday we come as your people to praise and worship you. We come as those in that crowd on that first Palm Sunday to express our joy and the hope we have in Jesus Christ: ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!’ For we have seen and known Jesus present and active in our own lives; through the Holy Spirit we have experienced His love and His peace, and we have even more reason to be joyful because we know, as those crowds didn’t know, the end of the story, of His glorious resurrection.
But we also know that this could only be achieved through death, and that this week, which began in triumph, would end in suffering, in humiliation and a Cross. It’s so easy, Lord, to gloss over the bits we don’t want to hear or see or know, and yet it is only through that self-giving, and the sacrifice which Jesus made for us, that we can come to you as Father, and know ourselves to be your children; only through this that we can know our sins forgiven and receive His gift of new life, eternal life. Forgive us, Lord, if we take all of this too lightly and forget the cost involved.
And so we pray, Lord, that as we read this familiar story once again this morning, you will open our hearts and minds to a new understanding of all this means for us, so that we may go forward with renewed courage to live out our faith, and to share with others the love, the joy and the hope we have in Jesus, in whose name we offer our prayer. Amen
Reading: Luke 19: 29-40
9 When Jesus had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.”’ 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ 34 They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,
‘Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!’
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ 40 He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’
Sermon
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, a journey which had, in realty, started some time before in Caesarea Philippi. There, in answer to Jesus’ question, ‘who do you say I am?’, Peter had responded: ‘You are the Christ’, and Jesus, perhaps figuring out that they were as ready as they ever would be, had then spoken to His disciples of His suffering and death, revealing to them for the first time what was going to happen to Him in the not too distant future. And now, as they come closer to their destination, Jesus again speaks openly about what awaits Him there, and one can imagine the growing feeling of alarm, of foreboding, that must have gripped the disciples, maybe a sense that things were spiralling out of control – and yet, of course, this was definitely not the case. For as far as Jesus was concerned, it was all very much the outworking of a plan, God’s plan, a plan that Jesus had chosen to be part of, a plan that was now drawing to its fulfilment.
Indeed, as they approach the villages of Bethphage and Bethany, both of which were very near to Jerusalem, other preparations come to light. A colt has been tied up ready for Jesus to collect when He is ready, and a coded message agreed. The stage is set and the curtains are about to be drawn back for the entry of Jesus into the city, for the arrival of the Messiah into the very centre of Jewish orthodoxy, into the heart and soul of the religious life of the people. Was it meant as a show of defiance? Was it a challenge to the power of the Jewish authorities? Was it done to attract publicity, or as a call for people to rise up against Roman domination? No, it was none of these things, though some among the crowd welcoming Jesus into the city clearly saw it that way. Rather, for Jesus, it was a statement about who He was, a sign of the incoming of God’s kingdom, and a fulfilment of prophecies make around 500 years earlier by the prophet Zechariah: ‘See your king coming to you riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey’ – a king coming not in war but in peace, not in confrontation but in love, not in retribution but in forgiveness and reconciliation.
But if Jesus was maybe in a more sombre mood, knowing what was to come, one might imagine that the disciples were feeling excited and somewhat relieved. True, Jesus had warned them three times about His impending suffering and death; He’d made no secret about where and how it would happen, but maybe it wasn’t going to be like that after all. Look at the greeting He’s receiving from the crowds! The cheering, the shouts of joy, the cloaks spread on the roads, a welcome fit for a king! And this by people who knew their history, who were aware of prophecy, people who had not come to Jerusalem as sight-seers or tourists but as pilgrims for the Passover Festival, some having travelled long distances to be there. And now they were witnessing something more amazing than they could ever have imagined possible – the coming of their promised Messiah! What a tale to tell their children and grandchildren – ‘I was there!’
And also in that crowd, many of the wider group of followers who had witnessed, perhaps benefitted from, Jesus’s healing ministry, whose voices would surely be among the loudest – so loud that the Jewish authorities objected! “Tell them to be quiet”, they said. Were they surprised at the fervour with which Jesus was being welcomed? Were they afraid that a riot would break out, fearful that the Romans would hear of it? Or was it that they could see their plans to get rid of this troublesome prophet being scuppered by His popularity among the people? Whatever it was, there was no silencing them – indeed, Jesus declared, if they were silent, the very stones would cry out, as the sound of their praises reverberated around those ancient walls of Jerusalem.
How easy, how much more comfortable it would have been for the disciples, for the people, to have stayed in that Palm Sunday scene with the excitement, the acclamation, the anticipation of what it might lead to. To capture it and hold onto it, and not have to see beyond it to all that was actually going on – or its implications. And for us too, particularly in today’s culture with its desire to ‘live in the moment’, for you can be sure that if Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem in 2025, social media would have been swamped with selfies of people with the donkey! How much more reassuring, how much safer to stay there than face the reality of all that Holy Week would bring.
And yet, of course, we can’t do this, for just as Jesus ‘walked that path of obedience all the way to His death on the cross’, as Paul puts it in his letter to the Philippians, so we too must continue on our journey with Jesus, and leave the cheering and the hosannas behind. We must sit with the disciples, share that last meal, and allow Jesus to wash our feet. We must follow them into the Garden of Gethsemane and see Jesus betrayed and arrested; witness the suffering of Jesus and stand with the women at the Cross. For we know, as Jesus knew, and as His disciples would discover, that only by entering into this journey to the Cross will we be prepared for an empty tomb. Only by entering into Jesus’ suffering and death can we truly celebrate His Resurrection, and this is important if we are to hold on to our faith in all the problems, the difficulties, the confusions and the disappointments we encounter in our own lives.
For so often those things that offer comfortable, more acceptable solutions – the type of rewards that the world offers us – like those cries of ‘Hosanna’ turn out to be short-lived, an empty illusion, promising much but ending in dissatisfaction. It is only as we walk our ‘path of obedience’, as we seek to embrace and live out God’s will for our lives, that we will have a faith that will hold us secure. A faith that doesn’t guarantee us a trouble-free ride, or offer us easy answers; that doesn’t steer us round the potholes and pitfalls of everyday life, but does promise that God is alongside us in all our struggles to make sense of life, and will, through His Holy Spirit, give us the strength and the resilience to rise above and to overcome all that would threaten to alarm and overwhelm us.
And we can be sure of this because the One who gives us this guarantee has travelled the road before us; He has lived our life, tested it out, and overcome the power of evil and death. By His resurrection Jesus has opened the doorway to eternal life and invites all who put their trust in Him to enter into it. And through this to receive, indeed to confirm that, in the words of St Paul, ‘there is nothing is all creation that can separate us from the love of God, which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord’, in other words, the certainty that in every circumstance we will surely be aware of His presence, His power and His peace. Amen
Hymn: StF 362
- Meekness and majesty, manhood and deity,
in perfect harmony – the man who is God.
Lord of eternity, dwells in humanity
kneels in humility and washes our feet.
Oh, what a mystery – meekness and majesty:
bow down and worship, for this is your God, this is your God!
- Father’s pure radiance, perfect in innocence,
yet learns obedience to death on a cross:
suffering to give us life, conquering through sacrifice –
and as they crucify, prays, ‘Father forgive.’
- Wisdom unsearchable, God the invisible,
Love indestructible in frailty appears:
Lord of infinity, stooping so tenderly,
lifts our humanity to the heights of his throne.
Graham Kendrick © 1986 Make Way Music/Thankyou Music
Prayers of Intercession
Loving God, as the crowds welcomed Jesus and sang their praises, we pray that this Easter many more will welcome you into their hearts and lives. We pray for opportunities to spread the good news of Jesus, and the courage to take hold of them. Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer
We recall the donkey that Jesus rode, reminding us that He entered Jerusalem as the Servant King. We pray for the leaders of the nations, for leaders in local government and in the community, that they may recognize that with all power comes responsibility. May all authority be accompanied by humility and the desire to serve. Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer
As the crowds responded to all they had witnessed Jesus do, and to the healing love they had seen in action, we pray for all whose hearts are broken, all who are suffering, and for all who need healing in body, in mind or in spirit. We pray for those living in war-torn areas… for the people of Myanmar … and those for whom we have a special concern. Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer
Jesus knew He was riding to His death, and we pray for all those on that last journey, especially those who are burdened by fear, by guilt, or by regret. For all those who stand alongside them, all who seek to ease pain, provide comfort, and give reassurance. We pray for all who are grieving the loss of loved ones. Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer
As we express our thankfulness for all you have done for us, and the amazing extent of your love, help us to welcome your Kingship in our lives, to seek to walk that path of obedience, and to give of ourselves, that in us and through us your kingdom may come and your will be done.
Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn: StF 265
1. Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Hark, all the tribes ‘Hosanna!’ cry;
your humble beast pursues its road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.
2. Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die:
O Christ, your triumphs now begin
o’er captive death and conquered sin.
3. Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The wingèd squadrons of the sky
look down with sad and wondering eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.
4. Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
the Father on his sapphire throne,
expects his own anointed Son.
5. Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow your meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, your power and reign.
Henry Hart Milman
The Blessing
May the peace and the blessing of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be with you and remain with you this Easter and always. Amen