Sermon and Worship Resources

[While King Duncan is enjoying a well deserved retirement we are going back to his earliest sermons and renewing them. The newly modernized sermon is shown first and below, for reference sake, is the old sermon. We will continue this updating throughout the year bringing fresh takes on King's best sermons.]

Original Title: "A Colt Is Not a Horse”
New Title: Palm “Slash” Passion Sunday

The well-known Christian Writer Philip Yancey grew up in a fundamentalist church which didn't observe the major events of Holy Week. He never attended a Good Friday service and shied away from crucifixes because they were "too Catholic." He writes, "The church I grew up in skipped past the events of Holy Week in a rush to hear the cymbal sounds of Easter." (1).

We can understand this desire to skip through Holy Week. Jesus on the cross is death, Jesus risen is life! A sanctuary stripped bare for Good Friday is depressing, a lily bedecked sanctuary is glorious! Who doesn't want to skip through Holy Week? Yet, the adult Philip Yancey has learned that the Bible "slows down rather than speeds up when it gets to Holy Week." What the church wants to get through quickly, the Bible takes slowly. One early Christian commentator went so far as to say that the gospels are actually the record of Jesus' final week . . . with extended introductions.

Here's the challenge for Holy Week. We have but this Sunday to cover everything from Jesus entering Jerusalem to "Hosannas," through the moment when Jesus was laid in a borrowed tomb. Even the name for this Sunday reveals our challenge. Today is "Palm/Passion Sunday." It's not "Palm or Passion Sunday," not even "Palm and Passion Sunday." It's Palm slash Passion Sunday, two different subjects jammed up against each other. One Orthodox priest labeled it "a historical and liturgical mess!"

If you look through the Christian calendar you move from Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Baptism, Ash Wednesday, Lent and then you arrive at this weird label: Palm slash Passion Sunday. Not the word “slash” but the actual character on your keyword. Palm slash (make the hand motion for a slash) Passion Sunday. These two concepts are jammed together by a slash this Sunday. It’s as if they couldn’t decide. Is this a week of Celebration, Yay! Wave the Palms! Or, a story of passion and suffering. Yes, it is. Both.

In the light of this messy slash it's not surprising that we focus more on the Palms than we do the Passion. Palms suggest triumph and we love winners! The great children's hymn, "Tell Me the Stories of Jesus," ironically expresses this:

Tell me the stories of Jesus, I love to hear;
things I would ask him to tell me, if he were here.
Into the city I'd follow the children's band,
waving a branch of the palm tree high in my hand,

Into the city I'd follow the children's band,
Waving a branch of the palm tree, high in my hand;
One of his heralds, Yes, I would sing
Loudest hosannas, "Jesus is King!"

Well, it's a great hymn, but though the hymn ends there, the story of Jesus in Holy Week doesn't end with the Palms. It ends with the Passion, with the death of the innocent Jesus. That's not a story of Jesus we love to hear . . . it's too painful.

The irony of the Palm Sunday story is how it ends with a fizzle instead of a sparkle. It begins with elaborate preparations to secure a colt. Jesus then parades into Jerusalem as the crowds hail him. He enters the Temple in triumph and then, most curiously, he just looks around and leaves. His day of victory ends not with a bang but with a shrug . . . and that's the clue for us. Palm Sunday's meaning can only emerge as we observe what happens to Jesus during the rest of the week.

Palm Passion Sunday, sorry, Palm “SLASH” Passion Sunday, may be a historical and theological mess, but it's a good historical and theological mess. The day begins with Jesus telling his disciples to go into the city of Jerusalem where they will find a colt. In the Bible a colt is not a horse but is a young donkey. If Jesus were to have conquered Jerusalem through might, he would have ridden a fine horse, the animal of war. Jesus rides a donkey, the animal of peace. Jesus is doing the equivalent of conquering Washington, D.C. in a Dodge Neon instead of a Sherman Tank!

Here's another issue. Doesn't it seem odd that Jesus would walk 90 miles from the Galilee to Bethany and then secure a donkey for the final two miles to Jerusalem? If you're going to borrow a donkey shouldn't you borrow one which comes with unlimited mileage? Jesus' feet weren't tired. Instead, he was carefully planning his entry into Jerusalem by observing every nuance of the Biblical understanding of who the Messiah was. Jesus fulfilled Zechariah 9:9: " . . . your king comes to you: triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey." The triumph of Jesus came not through might but through service.

As Jesus nears the city, the crowd calls out, "Hosanna!" They are caught up in the moment, Jesus is experiencing a groundswell of support as the crowd both leads and follows. At this point Jesus could have done most anything but refuses to use his power for wrong. Jesus knew who he was. That's important for us to see: Jesus knew who he was. I love the story told of the air passenger whose flight had been canceled. His patience was gone, so he shoved his way to the head of the ticket line and angrily demanded a first class ticket on the next available flight. The ticket agent explained that he'd be happy to help, but he'd just have to wait in line like everybody else.

That was more than the man could stand so he said, "Young man, do you have any idea who I am?" Whereupon the ticket agent picked up his microphone and said, "Attention please. There's a gentleman at the ticket counter who doesn't know who he is, If anyone can identify him, please come to the counter."

Jesus knew who he was. The Palm Sunday parade was a prelude to Good Friday and not an end in itself. The Cross was the moment to which Jesus had pointed his life! When we look at the Cross of Jesus, we find ourselves moved as the forces which put Jesus to death nearly 2,000 years ago still are the evils of today. I've never seen this more succinctly summarized than by Henry Sloane Coffin who identified these ills as religious intolerance (the Pharisees), commercial privilege (the Sadducees), political expediency (Pontius Pilate), pleasure loving irresponsibility (Herod Antipas), unfaithfulness (Judas), mob spirit (the crowds), militarism (the soldiers) and public apathy. Those are our ills and so we sing, "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" The Cross reveals the reality of sin. Evil's reality is evident in that the only ones who were with Jesus when he died were the disciple John, and a few women, including his own mother, Mary. Mary experienced a parent's worst pain, to outlive your own child.

There's pain on Good Friday, but we still call it GOOD Friday. What's so good about it? I've received insight through learning that our Greek Orthodox friends greet each other with the words, "KALI ANESTASI" (Good Resurrection) not on Easter Sunday but on Good Friday. They anticipate the resurrection.

Here's the miracle . . . God took the worst the world could do to Jesus and made it a good. If Good Friday reveals the reality of Sin, then Easter Sunday cancels the power of Sin. St. Paul wrote that though Jesus was "in the form of God, (he) emptied himself" and "became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (2) That's KALI ANESTASI Good Resurrection. At Easter, hope is resurrected. A mother named Mary sees her Son again. Life beyond the grave still is true: KALI ANESTASI! The disciple Peter betrays the Lord but finds forgiveness. Forgiveness still is possible . . . KALI ANESTASI! The doubter Thomas has his doubts shattered. How good to shatter doubts! KALI ANESTASI! Mary Magdalene weeps outside a grave but hears her name called. Those who weep shall be comforted. KALI ANESTASI!

In the heart of Renaissance Italy, there lived a man whose passion and torment shaped the very fabric of art and history. His name was Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Michelangelo’s ecstasy, was found in the soaring heights of the Sistine Chapel. Commissioned by Pope Julius II, he embarked on a monumental task: to paint the chapel’s ceiling with scenes from Genesis. For four grueling years, he toiled atop scaffolding, his brush strokes breathing life into divine figures, celestial landscapes, and the very essence of creation. As he lay on his back, neck craned, he transcended earthly limitations. The ecstasy of creation surged through him, and the chapel’s vault a celestial canvas.

If that was Michelangelo’s ecstasy, there was a marble block that was his agony. Before he painted the Sistine Chapel, there was a massive stone—flawed, discarded, deemed unworthy by others. It was a burden, a challenge. Yet Michelangelo saw beyond the rough surface. He believed that within that stone lay a masterpiece waiting to emerge. With hammer and chisel, he carved, chipped, and shaped. Agonizing hours turned into days, weeks, years. The marble resisted, fought back. His hands bled, his spirit wavered. But he persisted. And from that stubborn rock emerged the David, a towering symbol of human potential, strength, and vulnerability. The agony of creation had birthed a masterpiece.

That’s the Enigma of Life: Faith against the flawed. Persistence in the face of resistance. Michelangelo’s life epitomized the enigma of existence. Ecstasy and agony danced together, inseparable. The same hands that painted angels also wielded hammers. The same eyes that beheld heavenly visions also scrutinized imperfections. His faith in the unseen—the potential within the marble, the divine spark in his art—kept him going. He knew that life’s highest peaks were often carved from the deepest valleys. (3)

Palm/Passion Sunday is ecstasy and agony jammed up against each other, which is the enigma of life. We go from high to low, and the art in life is to have faith, even when that faith seems illogical. Many choirs across our land today will sing the "SANCTUS" from John Rutter's Requiem. It's the Palm Sunday piece. It's the most joyful movement in the REQUIEM, but immediately following it comes the somber AGNUS DEI, in which the men sing with rumbling tone: "In the midst of life we are in death, we are in death, we are in death." It's chilling. It's real, but is there anything more?

The motion picture The Mission tells of a 19th century slave trader who murdered his blood brother in a rage and then becomes a Jesuit serving in South America. In penance for his previous life he slogs through the mountains with a rope tied around his neck. It is his albatross, but is there anything more?

Yes. Palm/Passion Sunday is linked to Easter Sunday. St. Paul said it so well: God exalted Jesus and gave him "the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend . . . and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." (4) That turns defeat into victory. Death does not have the last word. God will prevail. KALI ANESTASI.

In the Rutter Requiem when the men are done singing "we are in death" the women begin to sing in ethereal tones: "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord, he that believeth in me shall never die, but have everlasting life." (5) KALI ANESTASI!

In the film The Mission the Jesuit who bears a noose around his neck enters the village where as a slave trader he had wrenched children from their parents to sell them into slavery. A man approaches him brandishing a knife . . . and cuts his noose to liberate him! KALI ANESTASI!

John Donne captured this victory: "I shall rise . . . from the prostration of death, and never miss the sun . . . for I shall see the Son of God . . . I shall rise from the grave . . . I shall look up and never wonder when it shall be day, for the angel will tell me that time shall be no more." (6) Let's not rush to hear the cymbals of Easter. Let's wrestle with the paradoxes of Holy Week, this strange, eternal battle between Good and Evil, and let's remember that KALI ANESTASI is not just "Greek to us" but is the essence of the faith.

As you navigate through your life, remember there’s a slash between the Palms of celebration and the Passion of the cross.

As you navigate through your life, remember Michelangelo. When ecstasy lifts you to the heavens, savor it. When agony threatens to break you, persist. When there appears to be no hope, have faith in the unseen potential within you. The most exquisite sculptures can emerge from the roughest blocks.

As you navigate through your life, remember God loved this world enough to send his Son of Peace, who experienced our pain, who conquered on a colt, and who bids us to follow Him, KALI ANESTASI! Good Resurrection! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen!

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1. CHRISTIANITY TODAY September 9, 1996.

2. Philippians 2:68.

3. Adapted from Agony and Ecstasy: The Art World Explained: The Nation article November 13, 2008. And from The Agony and the Ecstasy: more passion would’ve been less painful: The Guardian article. Both articles address and review Irving Stones book The Agony and the Ecstasy.The Agony and the Ecstasy Analysis - eNotes.com

4. Philippians 2:9-11.

5. From the English text for the Burial Service, 1662 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (John II: 2526).

6. As cited by Frederick Buechner in THE SACRED JOURNEY, pg. 92.

7. TODAY IN THE WORD. The author of this sermon, Frank Lyman, is pastor of the University United Methodist Church of East Lansing, Michigan.

[ORIGINAL SERMON]

Philip Yancey, an editor at Christianity Today magazine, grew up in a fundamentalist church which didn't observe the major events of Holy Week. He never attended a Good Friday service and shied away from crucifixes because they were "too Catholic." He writes, "The church I grew up in skipped past the events of Holy Week in a rush to hear the cymbal sounds of Easter." (1).

Here's the challenge for Holy Week. We have but this Sunday to cover everything from Jesus entering Jerusalem to "Hosannas," through the moment when Jesus was laid in a borrowed tomb. Even the name for this Sunday reveals our challenge. Today is "Palm/Passion Sunday." It's not "Palm or Passion Sunday," not even "Palm and Passion Sunday." It's Palm/Passion Sunday, two different subjects jammed up against each other. One Orthodox priest labeled it "a historical and liturgical mess!"

In the light of this mess it's not surprising that we focus more on the Palms than we do the Passion. Palms suggest triumph and we love winners! The great children's hymn, "Tell Me the Stories of Jesus," ironically expresses this: "Tell me the stories of Jesus, I love to hear; things I would ask him to tell me, if he were here. Into the city I'd follow the children's band, waving a branch of the palm tree high in my hand, One of his heralds, yes, I would sing loudest hosannas, ˜Jesus is King.'" Well, it's a great hymn, but though the hymn ends there, the story of Jesus in Holy Week doesn't end with the Palms. It ends with the Passion, with the death of the innocent Jesus. That's not a story of Jesus we love to hear . . . it's too painful.

Palm/Passion Sunday may be a historical and theological mess, but it's a good historical and theological mess. The day begins with Jesus telling his disciples to go into the city of Jerusalem where they will find a colt. In the Bible a colt is not a horse but is a young donkey. If Jesus were to have conquered Jerusalem through might, he would have ridden a fine horse, the animal of war. Jesus rides a donkey, the animal of peace. Jesus is doing the equivalent of conquering Washington, D.C. in a Dodge Neon instead of a Sherman Tank!

Jesus knew who he was. The Palm Sunday parade was a prelude to Good Friday and not an end in itself. The Cross was the moment to which Jesus had pointed his life! When we look at the Cross of Jesus, we find ourselves moved as the forces which put Jesus to death nearly 2,000 years ago still are the evils of today. I've never seen this more succinctly summarized than by Henry Sloane Coffin who identified these ills as religious intolerance (the Pharisees), commercial privilege (the Sadducees), political expediency (Pontius Pilate), pleasure loving irresponsibility (Herod Antipas), unfaithfulness (Judas), mob spirit (the crowds), militarism (the soldiers) and public apathy. Those are our ills and so we sing, "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" The Cross reveals the reality of sin. Evil's reality is evident in that the only ones who were with Jesus when he died were the disciple John, and a few women, including his own mother Mary. Mary experienced a parent's worst pain, to outlive your own child.

Here's the miracle . . . God took the worst the world could do to Jesus and made it a good. If Good Friday reveals the reality of Sin, then Easter Sunday cancels the power of Sin. St. Paul wrote that though Jesus was "in the form of God, (he) emptied himself" and "became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (2) That's KALI ANESTASIGood Resurrection. At Easter, hope is resurrected. A mother named Mary sees her Son again. Life beyond the grave still is true: KALI ANESTASI! The disciple Peter betrays the Lord but finds forgiveness. Forgiveness still is possible . . . KALI ANESTASI! The doubter Thomas has his doubts shattered. How good to shatter doubts! KALI ANESTASI! Mary Magdalene weeps outside a grave but hears her name called. Those who weep shall be comforted. KALI ANESTASI!

This is the season of hope. Those who express hope and have experienced pain are worth hearing. Such a person is Bill Cosby. Since the murder of his son, Ennis, Bill Cosby knows that ultimate pain of outliving a child. Listen to what he said about good and evil: "Let me tell you how I feel about Ennis. When people die, you will hear some people say that God called that person. I don't believe that in this case. Yes, there are some people that God will call . . . But God didn't call Ennis. It wasn't his time. The person who murdered Ennis is somewhere out there riding with the devil." (3) Cosby's right. Never blame God for evil.

John Donne captured this victory: "I shall rise . . . from the prosternation of death, and never miss the sun . . . for I shall see the Son of God . . . I shall rise from the grave . . . I shall look up and never wonder when it shall be day, for the angel will tell me that time shall be no more." (6) Let's not rush to hear the cymbals of Easter. Let's wrestle with the paradoxes of Holy Week, this strange, eternal battle between Good and Evil, and let's remember that KALI ANESTASI is not just "Greek to us" but is the essence of the faith. I close with this:

Alexander de Seversky, U.S. aviator and engineer, was once visiting a fellow flyer in the hospital. The young man had just lost his leg; de Seversky, who had had an artificial leg for some time, tried to cheer him up. "The loss of a leg is not so great a calamity," he said. "If you get hit on a wooden leg, it doesn't hurt a bit! Try it!" The patient raised his walking stick and brought it down hard on de Seversky's leg. "You see," he said cheerfully. "If you hit an ordinary man like that, he'd be in bed for five days!" With that he left his friend and limped into the corridor, where he collapsed in excruciating pain. The young man had struck de Seversky on his good leg! (7)

God loved this world enough to send his Son of Peace, who experienced our pain, who conquered on a colt, and who bids us to follow Him, KALI ANESTASI! Good Resurrection! In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen!

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1. CHRISTIANITY TODAY September 9, 1996.

2. Philippians 2:68.

3. "We Are Losing," NEWSWEEK, March 17, 1997 pg. 58.

4. Philippians 2:911.

5. From the English text for the Burial Service, 1662 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (John
II: 2526).

6. As cited by Frederick Buechner in THE SACRED JOURNEY, pg. 92.

7. TODAY IN THE WORD. The author of this sermon, Frank Lyman, is pastor of the University United Methodist Church of East Lansing, Michigan.

Dynamic Preaching, Collected Sermons, by King Duncan