Sermon for Palm Sunday 2021

I was happy that my pastor let me do the video sermon for Palm Sunday.  We are still meeting remotely, so it needed to be pre-recorded.  This time, I used still photos and wrote out most of the sermon before, so that I could record segments and put them together.

I still have much to learn, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.  It's too big to post here, but you can go here to my YouTube channel to see it. 

And because I wrote it out, I can paste the sermon below:

Palm Sunday 2021 Sermon

In some ways, it seems strange to be celebrating Palm Sunday again, here in year 2 of our pandemic. When we had to cancel in-person services last year, so many of us probably assumed we’d be back to “normal” again soon. And here it is, a year later. In some ways, nothing has changed. In some ways, so much has changed.

Palm Sunday reminds us of the cyclical nature of the world we live in. The palms we use on Palm Sunday traditionally would be burned to make the ashes that will be smudged on our foreheads in 10 months for Ash Wednesday. The baby that brings joy to the manger at Christmas will suffer the most horrible death--and then rise from the dead. The sadnesses we suffer will be mitigated by tomorrow's joy. Tomorrow's joy will lead to future sadness. That's the truth of the broken world we live in. Depending on where we are in the cycle, we may find that knowledge either a comfort or fear inducing.

Palm Sunday reminds us of life's journey. No one gets to live the triumphal entry into Jerusalem day in and day out. If we're lucky, there will be those high water mark periods; we'll be hailed as heroes and people will appreciate our work. Our friends will be by our side. We won’t grow disillusioned with our loved ones.

If we’re lucky.

But we know where Palm Sunday is taking the story of Jesus. As we move through Holy Week, we’re reminded that today’s adoring crowds can turn on us quickly and demand our death just a few days later.

Palm Sunday offers us some serious reminders. If we put our faith in the world, we're doomed. If we get our glory from the acclaim of the secular world, we'll find ourselves rejected sooner, rather than later.

If we put ourselves in the crowd on Palm Sunday, we’ve got lessons there, too. Those first century people with palms in their hands, welcoming Jesus—they, too, were expecting something totally different. They weren’t interested in spiritual liberation. They wanted a conquering hero, someone who would kick the Romans out of Jerusalem, someone who would restore the Homeland to Jewish rule. They didn’t want to be free to love each other. They wanted to be free of the rule of dictators.

Our world has not changed that much. The rule of government can still be tyrannical. We still live in a culture that will choose crucifixion over death. How can we live in such a place? How can we not yearn for freedom?

The passage from Palm Sunday to Easter tells us to take heart. God will not leave us abandoned in this crucifixion worshipping culture. God who has been working through time and outside of time to transform this human condition. We don't always see it, but Easter assures us that the process is in place and that resurrection will break through, even in the most unlikely circumstances.