Ladies, what would you think if your husband came home with a box of Valentine candy and twelve long stem roses? In July? Well, he certainly would get your attention!

Today I am doing something I love to do—preach about a familiar seasonable passage, out of season! Why? First, it is the next text we come to in Mark. But, second, liberated from the church calendar and from some of the expectations and trappings¾helpful and unhelpful¾we are free to explore deeper meaning and richer application for our lives as God’s people and as those who need to be God’s people.

I have prayed that God will do that as we read and study His Word.

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village in…