Palm/Passion Sunday
Prayer
(1) Focus statement:
This scripture tells of the crucifixion of Christ and how he willingly experienced our death and
separation from God.
(2) Function Statement:
The congregation will feel a sense of gratitude and commit more deeply to Christ who loves them so as to
suffer even separation from God on
their/our behalf.
1st movement
I have always been a fan of the “Columbo” movies. There is something about watching this guy
who they at first perceive to be kind of dumb and an idiot catch them in their
crimes. There is one episode of "Columbo" where a mother and her
daughter both fall in love with the same man: the daughter in Europe and the
mother in the United States. The women
do not at first realize they are seeing the same man, but the man does realize
what he is doing. They realize that it
is the same man by little phrases that he uses.
The man hurts and threatens further harm to the daughter, so they plan
together his murder. For the mother, it
is a murder in defense of her daughter.
Columbo thinks he knows that the mother is the one who committed the
murder, but he can't find the evidence to convict her. He finally stumbles on to the existence of
the daughter and suspects that she might be involved. Columbo has the daughter taken in and
interrogated in the presence of the mother who is looking on through a plate
glass window. The officer is going at
the daughter very hard, and Columbo tells the mother that he doesn't know who
she is but he thinks she did it. It is
just a matter of making her brake. The
mother feeling great love for her daughter asks Columbo if he will let the
daughter go if she signs a written confession to the crime. He agrees and sets the daughter free, telling
her this is the way her mother wants it.
The mother confesses to doing the crime with an un-named male
accomplice. While the mother was guilty
of the crime, I couldn't help but admire the love that she had for her
daughter. Even though the daughter was
involved in the crime also, the mother wasn't willing to let her take the blame
for the crime and was even willing to take the blame for her part and let
her go free. Columbo counted on the
sacrificial love of a mother to get a confession even though he didn't have
enough evidence to convict her and it worked.
Isn't the sacrificial love of a parent amazing?
2nd Movement
What started out as a time of celebration as Jesus rode into
town on a donkey along with the other Jews to celebrate Passover, ended with
our text for today and Christ being taken to a place called
Ironically, as the Passover lambs were being prepared this time,
Christ was being prepared as our Passover lamb to be finally sacrificed for our
sins so that we do not have to die spiritually (experience eternal separation
from God and all that is good), even down to the detail that none of his bones
were broken? For the early Christian
Jews, Christ was their Passover lamb!
Christ died for our sins and experienced our separation from God? That seems to be the case when Christ calls
out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It seems that at that moment Christ
experienced our Hell! He felt the
emptiness, loneliness, and fear of being out of the presence of God and all
that is good. Instead of being
surrounded by the presence of God and all that is good, he was surrounded by
the presence of evil. He had never
experienced this before, and now, he is experiencing it for the entire
world. Oh, what a load he was bearing
when he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Oh, but there is also something else taking place here. Christ was God. In Christ's humanity, he experienced our
separation from God, but in another sense, the God of the universe loved us
enough to die in our place, to take on our punishment. Oh, isn't the sacrificial love of a parent
amazing? While I am not sure I agree with the daughter getting off scot free in
the Columbo movie, it gives us a vivid picture of what God did for us! We are the daughter; our heavenly parent took
our punishment!
3rd Movement
This is the message of Passion Sunday: that Christ loved us enough to die in our
place, to experience our separation from God and all that is good, and to a
real extent experience our Hell, and
that the God of the universe loved us enough to take on our punishment. During Lent, we have been acknowledging our
sins that caused Christ to have to die.
Today, we realize that God has taken our punishment for those sins. We can never repay such love, but we can
respond to that love through our service!
Let's dedicate our lives more fully today as we have a time of silent
prayer, after which I will lead us in a prayer of confession. After that, we
will encounter Christ at the table; we can draw closer as we have this intimate
moment with the God who loved us enough to die for us! If you feel the need,
after you have received communion, you can kneel at the cross for a moment of
prayer, maybe a moment of thanks!
Prayer of Confession
Service of
Communion
