Baptism sermon 28/3/10 Palm Sunday

Almost what I said, and without the pictures.

Not long ago I watched ***** at our parent and toddler group, Smarties. ***** was just walking, and had also discovered ‘doors’, but when he encountered the door of the Wendy House he didn’t know how to get through the door and stay upright at the same time. Twice he toddled up to the door, leaned his weight on the door, which opened, and ***** fell through the gap, landing on his tummy - slightly puzzled, but unhurt. The third time, he put one hand on the door frame and pushed the door with his other hand. The door opened, ***** remained upright, and he then spent most of the rest of the afternoon opening and going through the door practicing this new-found skill.
That ability to use experiment, experience and reason to solve a problem is common to humans – it is ‘built in’, as are many other things.

One of those ‘built in’ human characteristics is our need to praise and worship God – individually and together. We all praise something; it is part of our created humanity. If we don’t worship God we can pervert that urge to praise and worship to focus on almost anything else; this week someone related to 'belief in' football teams or political parties as if it were equivalent to faith in God, and we can divert our worship to money, celebrity, fame, power, ourselves – to make those priorities in our lives instead.

“When we praise God we are simply declaring a truth about who God is - powerful, creative, actively engaged, and of course loving! This proclamation of truth is intended to change us”

Today, we are gathered to worship God in this place, as well as to celebrate adding ***** to our membership of Christ’s family and I want to encourage you to join in with the celebration of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem.

Jesus comes into the city with the cries of the disciples echoing around his head, celebrating his miracles, his teaching and all they have seen him do. Jesus has become famous, and people spread their cloaks on the road in front of him (in another version of the story they wave palms and spread those on the road before Jesus). The disciples are calling out, “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest”

Like champagne in newly opened bottles, the disciples are overflowing with their praise, because of what they know and understand; (in part) who Jesus is–the son of God, the Messiah, the Christ.

When the Pharisees ask Jesus to stop them, his reply “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” reminds us all that our response of praise is ‘built into’ creation. It is in all of us, and it must have an outlet.

Our praise comes out of and is rooted in reality.

But… we know, because we know the end of the story, that these celebrations are temporary, and that, once Jesus has entered Jerusalem the mood will change and events will spiral beyond what we want to think about or bear. Sometimes praise bursts out of us, sometimes it is an effort of will that we make because we are in a relationship that matters – a relationship with God through Christ.

We are on the edge of Holy Week . We know that in the middle of the celebrations, is the shadow of the cross to come, the horror of Christ’s betrayal, torture and death. There is no short-cut from Palm Sunday to Easter Day.

Our praise today includes the knowledge of that reality. We worship God in a world not yet made perfect, amidst the realities of our own lives week by week; our own human sadness, difficulties, grief, pain and struggles. Jesus did not escape the sacrifice of his own life on the cross, the journey through death to resurrection, and we share that journey with him, just as we share in his resurrection hope.

Knowing what is to come, the cheering and Hosannas of Palm Sunday are none the less real. We praise from where we are, because we are human, and it is in our nature to praise God, to celebrate from the reality of our lives. The praise of the disciples in today’s story tells us, even in the shadow of the cross, about yearning for the presence of the divine, about longing for God to be with us, and the sheer unbridled joy that can overtake us in the presence of God – even when our lives are not yet perfect and the future is uncertain.

As we experience worship we learn about our faith.

When I was a child in church, I used to look forward to Palm Sunday. It was a day of celebration, and it provided a pause point between the sombreness of the rest of Lent, and the darkness of Holy Week.

On Palm Sunday we would tell the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem by processing together as a group. We re-enacted the story we’ve just heard, waving palm crosses, and singing the hymn, “Ride on ride on in majesty” with that echo of Holy week in the words, “in lowly pomp ride on to die” before hearing the story read from the Bible. Everyone was involved, and it brought the story alive to me.

Later we would sing that great Palm Sunday hymn of praise “All glory, laud and honour, to thee Redeemer King” as part of our response to the recognition that all of us are made to worship God, in songs, in psalms, in the words that we use in our services, and in our prayers and daily lives. Sadly these hymns are not used much in modern worship, but they still have a special place in my life, and they remind me that as a child I learned much of my faith through the experience of worship as well as through teaching in church, in school assemblies, at home.

***** will learn about his faith too. He is too young to understand why we have palms for everyone today. Although he will have heard the word of God read from the bible, he doesn’t yet know what it means. But he will be absorbing, like a sponge, the atmosphere of this service.

***** won’t be able to explain his own baptism for many years, but it will make some impression on him; I hope part of that impression is of being loved – not just by his parents but by all of us here, and by God. I also hope,and we all pray, that ***** will be taught about his faith by family and friends, in stories and songs, in experience of shared learning, praise and worship in church, children’s and young people’s groups.

For *****, as for all of us, this faith is one that will need to sustain him through dark times as well as through joy; and enable him to continue to praise the God who loves him, who died to save him, and who lives forever.

By baptism ***** becomes part of our family, all of us who turn to Christ as the way, the truth and the life and are able to say, genuinely and meaningfully, of God, I know, I believe, I trust.

Those of us who recognise that, just as the Pharisees were told that if the disciples keep quiet “the stones will cry out”, in the middle of the realities of life today, know we are made to praise God.