King Jesus

Prayer/Welcome/ Intro

Opening Prayer:

Would you join me in preparing our hearts to receive what God has for us this morning in prayer?

Yahweh King of the Universe, We come before you this morning hungry. Hungry for more of you. We might not even be aware of our hunger, but its there. We may have tried to satisfy it with things that will perish and rot, but we are hungry still. We ask that you provide for us now, the Spiritual food that we need to grow up in maturity in Christ. May we be transformed by this encounter with the written Word, each other and the Living Word, Jesus. May we walk out of here with the courage and power to Go be the church sent to live and love like you Lord! AND ALL GOD’S PEOPLE SAID?

Good Morning Church! I pray and Hope you are doing well!

Thinking about Kings and Kingship in our Day in Culture if you go on google images and search “King These are some of the images you will find.

Show slides-

yet, what images come to mind if we think about Jesus?

here are a few from google of Jesus as well. (Show slides)

This morning we are going to walk through the triumphal entry together. We spent the last week dwelling on the synoptic tellings of this story.

Does anyone know what synoptic means? It comes from a greek word meaning seeing all things together. Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain parallels of the same stories, sayings and events. Thats why they are called synoptic gospels.

Yet, as we will see this morning synoptic does not mean same. Each of these authors have a story to tell. They each highlight a different aspect of Jesus’ Kingship

Walking through the Text:

What they all Share: The Description of the Triumphal Entry

Disciples Fetch and unridden donkey

Jesus sits on the Donkey

The People spread out their cloaks and Palm Branches

Luke leaves out the “leaves” or Palms

The people respond in Praise

Mark’s Portrait of King Jesus

The writer of Mark unveils Jesus as a ruler who stands in glaring contrast to the rulers known by his Roman audience.

While all three synoptic writers include, “the Lord needs it,” Mark is the only writer to record that “the Lord will send it back here immediately.”

This immediately Paints a different portrait of a King for the audience

The people of Jesus’ day only knew rulers that collected and never freely returned anything.

Think about our leaders today, how often do goverment leaders take more than they ever give? Even in our day, taxes only increase. But Jesus is a different king of King Establishing a different kind of Kingdom

Mark calls for a new ethic for God’s People under the Rule of King Jesus

It challenges Jesus followers to consider how much we take in the name of need.

Time, energy, resources

Will we be like King Jesus and give back far more than we take?

Luke’s Portrait of King Jesus

Only Gospel Writer to Identify Jesus as the coming King

In contrast to Mark and Matthew, the disciples enthrone Jesus on the steed[1], instead of Jesus placing himself on the animal(s) in the other narratives.

In Luke’s recounting of Jesus’ entry into the Holy City, he casts Jesus as a King, proceeded by a crowd proclaiming their witness to deeds of power that bring not violence or revolt, but peace.

Culturally, this is incredibly divergent, when a King would enter the city, the people would proclaim their feats of battle and and conquest.

Think about the stories of King Saul and David or Samson, they are all about the battles won, enemies slain.

Luke invites his readers to see Jesus’ Kingship as one verified by many “deeds of power,” but a Kingship and Kingdom distinctly characterized not by forceful violence but heavenly peace. As Christians today, we must not rely on the tactics of dominating kings and powers but follow the path of King Jesus, the way of peace

Matthew’s Portrait of King Jesus

Jesus as the Fufilment of Scripture

Two Donkey’s Quoting Zech 9:9 although in the passage we only seem to have one donkey, Matthew includes the Donkey and it’s foal. Male and Female

Matthew also adds “Son of David” to the crowd’s cry advancing the motif of Jesus as a fulfillment of Hebrew scriptures

It seems Matthew explicitly desires his readers to see Jesus as the fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible

What do these varied tellings of the same story inspire us to do?

As we read Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in the Synoptics, the storytellers invite us to be shaped not only by the story told or the storyteller but the subject of the story: King Jesus.

Who is King Jesus to YOU?

I want to close our study of the synoptics by asking a question:

What does it mean to you that Jesus is King? or What is one thing you learned about Jesus’ Kingship from these passages?

I would invite you to stand and Go share with someone you are not sitting next to, I will bring us back together in a few minutes.

Communion

We are going to shift our perspective from Palm Sunday to HOLY Week and Before Can We move toward Resurrection Sunday, We must Look toward the Cross and Jesus’ Sacrifice. Communion is a sacrament, a work of God’s people to remember the grace and forgiveness, God has showed us on the cross. Although, the elements are symbols of Christ’s body and blood, this act of communion that we participate in is a sacred moment for God to work powerfully in our lives.

Preparing our hearts/Silence

I would like to invite us to take a moment of silence and pray as we prepare our hearts for this Holy Sacrament. Use this time to bring yourself in the presence of the living God and simply be still. Let the Spirit prompt you to confess, praise, or simply thank God.

I invite you to sit and read this confession to yourself or simply reflect on these words as I read them out loud.

Confession

We come to you, Jesus, burdened with our own sin. Our own calls for revenge and violence, which may or may not have included the words, “Crucify, crucify!” Our own betrayals, with or without the thirty pieces of silver. Our own denials, whether or not we have heard the cock crowing. You know the sins we carry, secretly or openly, the way they crush us, the weight of them. We bring these to your cross…*

You carry our burdens, Lord. These, the simplest and gravest of sins, are magnified into organizations and systems, amplified in the actions of corporations and governments. Selfishness, revenge and violence unfold on the largest scale, bringing forth misery and destruction in our world every day. You carry all of our burdens.

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6 NRSV)

Instructions:

This Morning we are going to take the elements in a very personal way. We have already heard the words of confession in the prayer I just read, but now is the time to bring our confessions before the Lord. On the Pews there are pieces of dissolvable paper. Id encourage you to write a way that you have sinned and need to bring to Jesus, or a burden you carry that keeps you from going deeper with him. One at a time, place your piece of paper in the bowl and swirl it around and watch it disappear. Then, you have the opportunity to take communion and return to your seat. Please come up one at a time, do not wait in a line.

While you are waiting the worship team will sing all the poor and powerless. Use this time to simply sit in God’s presence knowing you are deeply forgiven and deeply loved. Before we Begin, hear this invitation to God’s Table.

Table Invitation:

we praise you for your unswerving love for us though we are fragile though we are wounded though we are broken you have never stopped loving us and you have never forsaken us

greater love has no one than this that they lay down their life for their friends you take what is broken and transform it through your death and love what once was hurt what once was friction what left a mark no longer stings because grace makes beauty out of ugly things

in your last meal with your friends before your betrayal you took the bread and gave thanks you broke it and shared it saying 'take and eat. this is my body broken for you' christ's body is broken we are christ's body, we are broken may christ's broken body nourish you in all the right places you took the cup of wine, gave thanks and shared it saying 'drink this, my blood shed for you' christ's body is wounded we are christ's body, we are wounded may the blood that flowed from christ's wounds heal you in all the right places send your holy spirit on us heal our brokenness

this is the table of christ today it is literally made of our brokenness a sign that christ welcomes us all as we are there is no need to pretend and no need to hide

so gather at this table not because you are whole but because you recognize your need for healing not because you are good enough but because you recognize these gifts of god

Please come to the Table as you feel lead!