The March

Scripture: Mark 11:1-11

Mark 11:1–11 NIV

1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’ ” 4 They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5 some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. 7 When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” 10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

3/24/2024

Order of Service:

Announcements

Ministry Celebration

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 4: Ministry Celebration

Opening Prayer:

Jesus, You are the one we have been waiting for. You are the King of our hearts. We set aside the distractions that plague us and the anxieties of our hearts because we know You will lead and care for us. Help us glorify You today as we worship You together. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The March

The What and the How

Not Enough Time

Our journey from the water to the cross is almost over, and this week, I realized something: We don't have enough time. The season of Lent always feels like a groundhog deciding whether to crawl out of its hole or a bear slowly shaking off its winter hibernation. Time slows down a little bit in January and February. But we are almost through March, and our lives are about to get very busy. Farming and yardwork, sports and celebrations, vacations and gardening will soon all be pulling us in fifteen different directions all the time, everywhere. And it’s an election year to boot.

I wonder how much time we will have at the cross—the end of our journey—before we get thrown right into the next one. This week, we are marching to the cross; there is no slowing down or turning back now, and we are beginning to see that there is not enough time.

Mise en place

Professional cooks constantly work where there is never enough time, and we can learn many things from them about navigating our busy lives. For them, it is important not only what they prepare but also how they prepare it. The first lesson professional cooks learn is mise en place, a French term I remember as meaning “getting my mess in place.” You cannot eliminate the mess that life will throw you, but you can put it all in its place and ready to be used. With God’s help, we can handle the mess, whether it is a fast food order for the baseball team, 500 orders at a truckstop diner on spring break, or the big hairy mess that has its eyes on our calendar for the next few months. If we don’t have our mess in place, we won’t be able to do it even with God’s help. We will ask God to do it for us instead of serving with Him faithfully.

Today, our scripture shows us how the world will hoot and holler, shout and jeer, and pull us in fifteen different directions away from Jesus, trying to make us lose sight of our part in following Him and His role in our lives. The crowds around us shout louder than Jesus but do not lead us to Him. Who are you following?

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The Donkey is in the Details

The Donkey is in the Details

How many donkeys were in Jerusalem when Jesus came to town? One for every couple of families. They were cheaper and more sensible than horses, especially in the city, but every merchant with a wagon probably had one to haul their goods from home to the marketplace. They were work animals, and they were ordinary.

Any Jew could have hopped on one and rode into town through the east gate, toward the temple, and claimed to be the Messiah, fulfilling this prophecy from Zechariah 9:9. But we never hear of anyone even trying it. Many people, especially those from Rome, didn’t even realize it meant anything. Look, here comes a rabbi who can’t afford a real horse! But the donkey was very important to Jesus. It was not just any donkey. It was a specific one. The day before His grand entrance, He had his disciples go ahead of Him into the big, bustling city and look for one very specific donkey.

That is a curious amount of effort and time used when everyone was very busy with a detail they probably thought would go unnoticed. And yet, here we are, 2000 years later, still wondering about that donkey. It is one of the things that helps us recognize this as an extraordinary day, the coronation parade for Jesus and the day the true King of Israel came home.

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The Party Begins

The sight of the donkey started it off, and some of the disciples were helping the people gather and wave the palm leaves. When I say “some of the disciples,” I don’t necessarily mean the twelve because Jesus had over 120 followers then. For this significant event, everyone had a part to play. Some led the singing and shouting, others handed out palms, and others brought and gathered cloaks to lay down on the road. Because all these little details came together at this one time, the people of Jerusalem and everyone who had traveled there for Passover took notice of Jesus. They recognized that this crowd of people claimed Him as the promised Messiah.

Like Jesus, this day was everything everyone hoped it could be and nothing they expected. The crowd shouted:

Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David! Hosanna in the Highest!

It was the welcome they were waiting for.

But the disciples, and Peter in particular, were torn. On the road outside Jerusalem, they had pledged their allegiance to Jesus, Peter professed Him to be the Messiah, and Jesus told them they knew better than the crowds. Then He explained again that He was not going to claim a throne but a cross, and He cast Peter aside, calling him “Satan” when Peter tried to question the plan. I’m sure Peter’s heart still hurt when he heard them cry out, calling Jesus the long-awaited son of David. They were all anxious when Jesus marched into the temple and turned over the tables. And I’m sure they were conflicted when Jesus took the gloves off and started calling out the Jewish leaders on their hypocrisy, feeling like perhaps Jesus was provoking the very death He predicted for Himself. It was as if the cup of reward and prophecy fulfilled had been given to them, but now they saw it overflowing, and there was nothing they could do to stop it but drink from it.

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The Prophecy

Our scripture today is an excellent example of prophecy fulfilled. Let me share with you three different levels of understanding and experiencing prophecy.

The first level is understanding that prophecy happens around us. God says He will do something, and then He does it, which helps us believe Him more. The more unexplainable the events, the better. The apostle Paul wrote that these are the gifts God gives us to catch the attention of non-believers. If you think back to the cooking illustration, this is like watching a chef prepare a meal on TV.

The second level of understanding prophecy is that it happens to us, not just around us. This is like watching a chef prepare a meal and then getting to eat it. It is a whole different experience.

I experienced prophecy like that during a tough junior year of college. That year, I was trying to figure out relationships, career paths, and all those life-changing decisions. In that anxiety and mess, God spoke to me in His still, small voice and let me know that He had someone set aside to be with me. Others had said similar things, but it was different to hear it from God. It filled me with a new hope that I clung to for years until I met Bekah, and it was finally fulfilled. That was part of the mise en place of my life that God claimed and set aside until the right time.

The last level of understanding prophecy is where we let God fulfill prophecy through us. It is when we realize that all of God’s Word is truth and that sometimes, that truth is fulfilled when we work with God. “Seek, and you will find” may not sound like a prophecy until you are the one seeking. Often, the “finding” part of fulfilling that prophecy happens to the seeker because a follower of Jesus runs an errand for Him, combing through the city and looking for one particular donkey, putting them in the right place at the right time.

As I said, anyone could have ridden a donkey into town and claimed to fulfill Zechariah’s prophecy. Jesus got a whole city that did not know or trust one another to come together to fulfill every detail, as they were each faithful to their own part. Can you ask any more from the King of Kings?

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The Agenda

Well, yes. We can ask for more from Jesus, and we do because we yearn to know and have control. We want our hopes fulfilled, but we want them done according to our expectations. We don’t like surprises, especially regarding changes in our lives. We may not always ask God to run His plans by us before He puts them into action, but we spend a lot of time sending our plans up His way, hoping He might decide they are good ideas. Indeed, sometimes, we get so excited about our plans that we forget that they came from our desires and not the will of God.

Then, there is the crowd to deal with. The noise of the crowd and the rest of the world around us almost always seems louder than the voice of God unless we learn to filter it out. We are led by what we see and hear. Suppose we are not intentional about our actions. In that case, we usually default to going with the flow of everyone near us, hoping they are following Jesus enough to keep us going in the right direction.

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Putting it all Together

So let’s put all of this journey from the water to the cross together.

We Pray to listen to God and stay close to Him.

We Worship Him in spirit and truth.

We Fellowship together to hold each other accountable and ensure no one gets left behind.

We also make sure we are learning from God’s Word so we do not get led astray but get our truth from the best source possible.

The power of being the Church happens when we do all these things Together. People are saved, disciples are made, and lives are healed and redeemed when we stay faithful to doing the part Jesus, not everyone else, asks us to do. There are moments when we can step back and see it all coming together. Sometimes, they fill us with joy. Other times, they make us worry that we can’t handle all God is doing. But we grow and bear good fruit when we share those testimonies of what God is doing in our lives today, the way we see the promises of scripture still coming through around us, for us, and through us. We never know what small errand Jesus sends us on will end up with someone praising, “Blessed are they that come in the name of the Lord, Jesus,” because we came looking for a donkey in His name.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus,

We want to follow where You lead us. Help us to hear Your voice above the noise that crowds our lives. Send us Your Holy Spirit and speak to us through Your Word. Help us share what we hear You say and see You doing with each other. As we share, teach us to receive and apply Your instruction before we preach and teach it to others. Help us to lead by example as we share the good work You are doing in us.

Today, we also pray that You will bring people into our lives who can mentor and counsel us. We need people who can hear what we have to share and help us discern whether we are hearing You clearly or confusing Your Word with our desires. We need help knowing whether our voices are sharing Your Word and will for us or if it is being twisted into something that sounds good but is not You. We don’t want to win the world and lose You. Lord, please bring us people who will help us follow You faithfully in all we do.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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