This was a Parade Service for Brownies, Guides and Rangers. The basic structure of the talks came from Scripture Union’s All Age Lectionary Services book (Year C).
Introductory Talk – What do we follow?
This morning when we came in you were given a cross like this one. Does anyone know why?
This is called a Palm cross. We give them out because today is a day called Palm Sunday. Does anyone know what Palm Sunday is all about?
Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter. Palm Sunday is the start of a special week for Christians called Holy Week. On this week, on Thursday we will remember how Jesus was betrayed by one his friends, Judas Iscariot. Then he was arrested and given a false trial. We’ll also remember how Jesus’ other friends deserted him, and perhaps his best friend, Peter, denied even knowing Jesus. Then on Friday we’ll remember how Jesus was condemned and killed by being nailed to a cross.
When that happened both Jesus’ friends and those who opposed him thought he was finished.
But next week we’ll remember how that wasn’t the end of the story. God raised Jesus from the dead.
But today is Palm Sunday.
Today we remember how, on the Sunday before Jesus died on the cross, he rode into Jerusalem and how the crowds followed him and cheered him on and greeted him like a king. They laid their coats on the road and waved palm branches. And they shouted Hosanna. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. It was the kind of greeting they would have given a great king.
This morning I want us to think about those crowds who followed Jesus that day and would have followed all the events that happened for the rest of that week.
But that got me thinking what sort of things do we follow? They might not be big things, they might not be important things, they might not be religious things… Any thoughts?
An example… A few weeks ago, lots of people tuned in every night to follow the story of who killed Lucy Beale? More than 10 million people tuned in to find out who the killer was. Quite a few of them probably didn’t even really know who Lucy Beale was, but oddly that didn’t stop them following.
What sort of other things do people follow?
I thought of a few. Some of you might be following The Voice. It’s the big live final next week and lots of people will be following it to see if their favourite wins. Can anyone stop Lucy O’Byrne? They’ll tune in to find out.
Others might recently have been following what’s going on with One Direction. What happened to them this week? That’s right Zayn Malik left. He wants to be a normal 22 year old – albeit one with however many millions he’s earned since they were on the X Factor in 2010.
Or some of you might be fans of Top Gear. You might have been following what’s happening with Jeremy Clarkson. He got sacked this week. And that’s such a big story that two weeks on a row it’s been a question on Question Time.
Or over the next few weeks some of us might be following the General Election. I know it might seem like they’ve been fighting this election since around 11 May 2010, when they formed the coalition, but Parliament breaks up tomorrow and the General Election really begins for the next six weeks. And lots of people have been following the story of whether there are going to be leaders’ debates, how many of them there will be and who will be on them. I thought I was following it, then realised the first debate had happened, and I totally missed it!
Still others over the last few weeks will have been following the Six Nations rugby. Just last Saturday lots of people followed all the twists and turns as Wales, Ireland, England and France all had a chance to win the tournament. Some of you commented that you thought I was very restrained in not mentioning it last week!
Well this morning we’re going to be thinking about some of those who followed Jesus into Jerusalem that day and those who would have followed all that happened to Jesus in the days that followed. We’re also going to ask what we can learn from them and what it might mean for us to follow Jesus.
Followers on the Road Part 1
When Jesus challenged people to be his friends, or disciples, one of the things he often said to them was ‘follow me.’ What he meant was that he wanted them to go with him wherever he went, watch what he did, listen to what he said and learn from it, so that they could do the same and teach others to follow Jesus too.
But this morning we are thinking about the crowds who were following into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, and who would follow all that happened for the rest of the week.
This morning I want to talk about four types of people who were following Jesus. They all begin with the letter C.
The first group are the confused disciples.
Some of these were Jesus closest friends. They went everywhere with him and had done so, maybe for as much as three years. They had heard Jesus say the most amazing things and tell so many great stories to help describe what God was like and how much God loves us. They had seen Jesus do lots of amazing things. Healing the sick, walking on water, feeding great big crowds with only a little food… They had really begun to believe that Jesus was someone special, sent from God. It was only a matter of time before everyone realised that too.
Or so they thought.
Now they arrived in Jerusalem for a feast called Passover. This was a people who hoped that God was going to rescue them from the Romans. And that feeling was particularly high at Passover. For Passover was a time when they remembered how God has rescued them from slavery in Egypt.
To the disciples it looked like everything had been building up to a moment like this. Jesus had seemed set to go to Jerusalem for some time now. And they were finally approaching the great city.
Then just as they were approaching Jerusalem, Jesus told them he had made plans for how he was going to enter the city. He was going to enter on a young donkey. He sent two of his disciples up ahead to fetch the donkey.
Then they set off. Crowds of people joined the disciples to follow Jesus into the city. They began shouting and throwing their coats down on the road. They began waving palm branches and lining the road with their coats and palm branches. They were welcoming Jesus like a conquering king.
The disciples must have thought that finally everything was falling into place. Yes there had been plenty of crowds before, but not like this. They were all shouting and singing about Jesus being a king who has come in the name of the Lord.
And they probably thought Jesus should have been thrilled. But he wasn’t. He seemed really sombre and serious. What was going on?
What’s more, as the week goes on, it looks less and less like things are going to work out as they planned. Not everyone wants to welcome Jesus. Jesus himself over the next few days talks about being rejected. He starts telling his closest friends that they are all going to desert him, betray him, or deny they even knew him. They had followed Jesus everywhere, and believed that Jesus was someone special sent from God. They couldn’t imagine life without him. Yet things weren’t working out remotely as planned.
In short the disciples were very confused.
Then there was a second group watching on. They were the Critical Leaders.
The Jews had different groups of leaders called the Pharisees and the Sadducees. For a long time they had been watching Jesus with suspicion. Wherever Jesus was, you could be sure to find them not far behind, keeping an eye out for what he was going to do next.
They could never guess what he would do. Jesus didn’t seem to care about the kind of things they cared about. They had a great big long list of things they did to please God, but Jesus wasn’t really interested in their lists. There were different types of people these leaders avoided, because they thought God would want nothing to do with them. Yet these were precisely the sort of people Jesus hung out with.
These people knew their Bibles and they knew that there was a prophecy in their Bibles, written more than 5000 years beforehand, that spoke of God sending a special king, called a Messiah. Zechariah said that one day this king would come to them riding on a donkey. Jesus didn’t do this just because he was tired and wanted to rest his legs on the journey. He didn’t just think this would be a really cool way to arrive in the city. These leaders knew that Jesus was sending a coded message that he was God’s special king. It was a message that they would get, but the Romans, who knew nothing about Jewish Bibles and obscure Jewish prophets, wouldn’t.
And they were worried that the crowds seemed to be quite excited about Jesus. As Jesus came closer they started complaining about the racket these followers of Jesus made. They didn’t want Jesus drawing too much attention to himself. So they asked Jesus to tell his followers to stop making such a noise. But all Jesus said was ‘if they were quiet, the stones would cry out.’ They couldn’t even work out what he was on about.
The sad thing was that the Pharisees and Sadducees were the very people who should have recognised who Jesus was. They knew their stuff from their holy books. And they saw Jesus in action often enough. They were always there amongst the crowds. Always following him around. Like the first group, they saw Jesus do amazing things and heard him teach so wonderfully about the love of God.
But they weren’t real followers. They were so busy trying to find fault in what Jesus was doing, too busy trying to trick him, catch him out or ask him a question he couldn’t answer, that they weren’t able to see what we was really doing, hear what he was trying to tell them. And they ended up rejecting Jesus. Because all they could do was criticise, they missed out on everything Jesus came to offer them.
So amongst the crowd that day were some confused disciples and some critical leaders. There were another couple of groups, but we’ll talk about them in a moment.
Followers on the Road Part 2
So we’ve been thinking about some of those following Jesus on the road to Jerusalem and following the events of the first Holy Week. We’ve thought of who? Confused disciples and Critical leaders.
But there was also the curious donkey owner.
We’re never told whether he joined the rest of the crowd on the way to Jerusalem. But he must have been pretty surprised when two people showed up in his yard, began to untie his youngest donkey and getting ready to walk it away. Then when he asked them what they were doing they simply said ‘The Master needs it.’
So far as we can tell he did not object. Maybe he already knew Jesus, or at least knew something about him. It seems that lots of people were aware of who Jesus was in Jerusalem. Else a crowd would not have gathered quite so quickly. But he might have known stories about the things Jesus’ taught, the amazing things he did, the way the critical leaders kept trying to trip him up, but he kept outwitting them.
Jesus had good friends, Mary and Martha who lived near Bethany. He might heard a story about a notorious, if tiny, thieving tax collector called Zacchaeus, from nearby Jericho who had lunch with Jesus then started giving money to the poor and repaying folk he’d cheated. This incident was not far from where a man called Lazarus lived, and Jesus had brought him back to life. So even if they had not already met, it seems likely he’d have heard of Jesus.
And if I’d been him, I’d have been curious and would have wanted to meet this Jesus. I’m sure he’d not have been the only one. Amongst that crowd there would have been those who had heard about this Jesus but would have been seeing him for the first time. They too would have been curious, wondering what Jesus would do next.
So we’ve had Confused disciples, Critical Leaders and Curious donkey owners. But perhaps there were others in that crowd who were Certain Followers. Some of them might have heard his teaching, been amongst those whose lives had been changed by Jesus and they had no doubt that Jesus was the King God had promised to send them all those years ago.
But there were others who were equally certain that they did not want Jesus as their king and they sought to destroy him. They could form quite a crowd too, because when Jesus was arrested the following Thursday night/Friday morning Pilate, the roman governor in Jerusalem tried to release Jesus. He could find no fault in him. But this crowd were certain they wanted rid of Jesus and they kept shouting ‘crucify him, crucify him’ until Pilate agreed.
And when Jesus was crucified, killed and buried, they were pretty certain they’d won. Those who had followed Jesus were certain that they had been wrong. If God had sent Jesus into the world, surely this would not have happened.
But, as we’ll remember next week, the following Sunday, what we call Easter Sunday, that would all change again, as some women go the tomb where Jesus was buried, and can’t find the body. But instead they meet some men, or angels, who tell them He is not here, he is Risen, just like he said they would. Then over the next few weeks they met Jesus several times, and became as certain as they could that Jesus was alive, that he was the One God had sent to save us. Jesus explained to them, that because of what He had done, we could be his friends and followers, that we could have a real relationship with the loving God who made us, and that one day, we can be with him forever.
So amongst the crowd that day there were at least 4 groups. Some were confused, some were critical, some were curious and some were certain.
But even today there are those who at one time or another find themselves like one of these groups. There are times when we can find ourselves confused. And we can be confused whether we are new to the faith and only know a little bit about Jesus, or even if we have been followers of Jesus for a long time. We all have things that we don’t understand sometimes. When we face tough times we can wonder whether God knows about it, or if he cares.
But the message of the Easter season is that God does know about us, and God does care about us. And even when we can’t understand it, God does know what he doing. When early Christians remembered how God raised Jesus from the dead, one of the things they came to see this taught us was that there was nothing we face, from which God cannot rescue us. Nothing can separate us from his love.
Or perhaps there are some who are critical. Not everyone who asks questions really wants answers. Sometimes people just try to make believers look a bit stupid. Or perhaps our questions are real, but because we can’t get nice easy answers, we can assume it all doesn’t make sense. Or maybe we look at other people and say ‘well, if that’s a Christian, I don’t want to know.’ And sometimes that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. But like the critical leaders, we need to be careful, lest our critical attitudes stop us from the important thing of knowing Jesus for ourselves.
Maybe there are those who are curious and would like to know more. Have a chat with me afterwards. We would love to help you discover more about Jesus. Come along next week and hear what happens next on the story. Come along and see the folk being baptised and sharing how they have discovered Jesus for themselves. Come along and meet Jesus in the bread and wine of communion. Jesus promised us that if we seek him, we will find him and that it would be worth it.
Then there are those who are certain of what they believe. They not only know about God, but have a real living relationship with Jesus. It doesn’t necessarily mean they have all the answers, but they trust that whatever they face God will be with them and that with him they are safe.
But there’s one thing we have in common whichever group we are in. God loves us and came for us. My prayer is that whether we are confused, critical, curious or certain, that we will use this Easter season to meet with the Risen Christ and by his Spirit, may he assure us of God’s love and the victory he won for us. May we know him as our King and Lord.
paper dolls 