Brown's Daily Word 3-17-08

Good Morning.
The Lord Blessed us with a wonderful, and very blessed, weekend. Our young friend Michelle McPherson, whom we have known since November 1990, got married to her fiance James Felton on Saturday, March 15. Laureen came home, as she was the pianist for the ceremony. Our friends, Warren and Linda, from Vermont came down, and they were the official photographers for the wedding. Alice drove to Hamilton, New York to attend my Mother-in-law's 80th birthday celebration. Our friends, Allan and Senie Burns, came from Virginia to spend the weekend with us. We attended a portion of seminar, "A Bird's Eye View of the Book of Isaiah", presented by Dr. Sandra Richter, Old Testament Professor at Asbury Seminary. Sunita flew back to Washington safely, arriving Thursday, after spending almost two weeks in Uganda. Janice, Jeremy, Micah, and Simeon, spent the weekend in WilkesBarre, PA. Jessica flew on Saturday with Tom's parents to Costa Rica for a week. Our Choir presented the Easter Cantata during both of the morning worship services yesterday. The whole weekend was beautiful and bountiful. Praise the Lord, for He is indeed the Lord grace and mercy.
Praise the Lord for Palm Sunday. Jesus is marching to Jerusalem, going onward, upward, and forward. He is the King. He is the Lord of Majesty and Glory.
Billy Crystal’s monologue as Mitch in the movie City Slickers is as follows: “Value this time in your life, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so quickly. When you’re a teenager, you think you can do anything, and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, “What happened to my twenties?” Your forties, you grow a little potbelly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. You fifties you have a minor surgery. You’ll call it a procedure, but it’s a surgery. Your sixties you have a major surgery, the must is still loud but it doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it anyway. Seventies, you and the wife retire to Ft. Lauderdale; you start eating dinner at two, lunch around ten, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt and muttering, “how come the kids don’t call?” By your eighties, you’ve had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who your wife can’t stand but who you call mama.” Depressing isn't it? Yet, that is how many people view life.
We live in a world like this where we need a Savior like Jesus who is the Lord of meekness and Majesty. He triumphs over sin , grave and death. He rides on Palm Sunday in Majesty and Authority.
Jesus sets out from Bethany heading towards God’s Holy City, Jerusalem, and when he arrived in Bethphage on the Mount of Olives he called 2 of his disciples to Him, to "GO TO THE VILLAGE AHEAD OF YOU AND JUST AS YOU ENTER THE CITY YOU WILL COME TO A HOUSE WITH A DONKEY AND HER COLT TIED TO IT -- THE COLT HAS NEVER BE SAT ON.... UNTIE THEM BOTH AND BRING THEM TO ME. AND IF ANYONE ASKS YOU WHAT YOU ARE DOING TELL THEM THE LORD NEEDS THEM, AND HE WILL SEND THEM RIGHT AWAY..." So the 2 left the large group and headed for the village just up the dirt road. I wonder which two went? Peter? James? Andrew? Nathanael? What do you think they talked about on the way? Do you think they wondered if, with such a large crowd everywhere, it would be impossible to find a donkey and a colt tied up? Do you think they were asking each other, "do you really think we should just untie the colt and take it?"
Yet, as they were talking they looked up ahead and saw the colt and her mother tied up, just as Jesus had said. So they untied it, and as they were leaving the owner came out (probably a little on edge with Passover taking place. There was the great and constant noise of the crowd walking by his house day and night. It must have been much like people who live right next to a stadium during a big game. To make sure his property was safe, the owner said to them, "hey what are you two guys doing with my colt and donkey"? Then the disciples replied as Jesus had told them, "THE LORD HAS NEED OF THEM." Thus they left with the colt and her mother.
Upon arriving back where Jesus was, they took off their coats and put them on the colt and Jesus sat down. In the entire scene we see a sense of reckless love, reckless obedience, reckless self-forgetfulness, and reckless worship.
Jesus could have walked into Jerusalem on that Sunday morning nearly 2,000 years ago, but he rode on the colt of a donkey. This was a graphic and symbolic claim that He was the Messiah, for the prophet Zechariah, hundreds of years earlier, wrote in Zechariah 9:9, "REJOICE GREATLY, O DAUGHTER OF ZION! SHOUT, DAUGHTER OF JERUSALEM! SEE, YOUR KING COMES TO YOU, RIGHTEOUS AND HAVING SALVATION, GENTLE AND RIDING ON A DONKEY, ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF A DONKEY."
Previously thousands (after the feeding of the 5,000) wanted to make Jesus "King" but Jesus withdrew from them because it was not the right time. Many times Jesus had told people not to tell of the miracles he had performed. For nearly 33 years Jesus had purposely stayed out the limelight (as much as possible) because it was not time yet. Now the time has come (the tree is ripe) and Jesus announces that He is indeed the King, not according to the plan of man, but rather according to the plan of God, as revealed by his prophets in His Holy Word.
Jesus enters Jerusalem royally. Jesus enters Jerusalem freely; He is not a victim nor is he a prisoner. Jesus did not hide and He did not hurry. Jesus did it His way and on His time schedule. And Jesus was not afraid. He did not try to secretly slip into the city. Jesus acted deliberately and with purpose as he rode into the city. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords who is coming to the capital city of Jerusalem, the city of King David.
Not only was Jesus announcing His Kingship, but he was also announcing the character of His Kingdom. You see, Jesus did not claim his kingdom in the way that the world would expect. He did not ride in on a white stallion arrayed in fine attire, surrounded by a mighty army. Rather, he rode in on a beast of burden. His army was an unorganized mob of fishermen, farmers, and shepherds. You see, the Kingdom Jesus was establishing, as he told Pilate, was a Kingdom not of this world. It was not a physical Kingdom, but a spiritual Kingdom, not a temporary Kingdom but an eternal Kingdom.
Jesus is riding towards the Holy city, surrounded by thousands of people. With every step the excitement and energy reached epic proportions. It was like a volcano that had suddenly erupted with tremendous power after weeks and months of shaking and smoking. The people, after waiting months for Jesus to make his claim, now see Him making it. Their joy and emotion erupted and it’s fallout was flowing down the winding road from Bethany to Jerusalem.
In Mathew 21, we read that the whole city was stirred. The word Matthew uses here that is translated stirred is "seismos", which means quaking, trembling, is the same word from which we derive our word seismograph. The city, which had swelled to nearly 3 million was exploding with excitement; it was an emotional earthquake. Jesus was surrounded by thousands who were following Him, and thousands more as he neared the city, came rushing out to meet him.
Jesus was the one everyone was talking about, the one that had performed mighty miracles, the one everyone was hoping would show up, He was here, and they were literally in a state of frenzied euphoria. This crowd of thousands began taking off their coats and laying them on the road on which Jesus was riding. Many of them climbed palm trees and cut off branches to throw down for the colt to walk upon. Still others waved the palm branches back and forth. You see, palm branches are an emblem of victory and restoration (Rev 7:9), and these people felt that victory and restoration were riding right before their eyes on a colt (they were right, but they were wrong about how it would happen).
Suddenly the streets erupted with the sounds of praises, singing and shouting,
"HOSANNA (SAVE US NOW WE PRAY) , HOSANNA TO THE SON OF DAVID! BLESSED IS HE THAT COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD! HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST BLESSED IS THE COMING KINGDOM OF OUR FATHER DAVID BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD PEACE IN HEAVEN AND GLORY IN THE HIGHEST. HOSANNA BLESSED IS THE KING OF ISRAEL."
The people are shouting "King", but his garment is not a royal robe; it is homespun and seamless. His "charger" is a beast of burden. His court is made up of fishermen and hated tax collectors. His parade is an array of common people. Yet, no pageant that ever passed through the streets of any city has so set its mark on time as this one. The triumphal entries the Roman, and other, Empires have long since been forgotten, but this one, in every detail, is known and retold year after year, century after century.
Wouldn’t you love to have been there --- wouldn’t you have loved to be in that shouting, singing crowd as the King of Kings, the Son of God, esus our Lord and Savior, rode triumphantly into Jerusalem.
As Jesus sees Jerusalem, it is not for himself that His tears are shed; he was not weeping over the cross that awaited him. NO! He was weeping over the fate that would come upon the nation. Instead of the resounding and joyful shouts and praises, Jesus heard the screams, the cries, the shrieks and groans of the men woman and children who would die in the city. He could see the burning buildings, the city turned to rubble, and He could smell the odors of smoke and death.
He came to His own and his own did not accept Him, they crucified the son and invoked the fathers furious wrath. Jesus wept for those who would reject the gift he came to give, for those who would reject the crown of life he would win... For those who would reject him. There were many faces in the crowd that day as Jesus rode into Jerusalem -- and just as Jesus wept for the city’s fate -- he no doubt shed tears and sobbed for the many faces in the crowd. For behind those now exuberant faces, were people who would soon reject him and his word -- And in so doing incur the father’s wrath. And as Jesus looked at the faces in the crowd He wept.

As we ponder the mystery and the wonder of Palm Sunday, let us for a moment focus on the donkey that carried Jesus to Jerusalem. This donkey is a role model for us, because she carries Christ into the world. And that is what it is all about. That is the purpose of life: Carrying Christ into the world.
The name “Christopher” is derived from two Greek words, “Christos” and “pherein” “Pherein” means “to bear, to carry.” Thus, Christopher means Christ-bearer. The donkey was literally Christopher, Christ-bearer.
In our pride, we hesitate to take a donkey as a role model, but the donkey of Palm Sunday, has something to show us. We also are called to be Christophers.
There is on old Christian story about this donkey. I do not have a source for this story but it goes like this:
It was the next day. The donkey was still excited about the previous day’s ride into Jerusalem. Never before had she felt such a rush of pleasure and pride. She walked into town and found a group of people by the well. “I’ll show myself to them,” she thought. But they just went on drawing water and paid her no attention.
“Throw your garments down,” the donkey said. “Don’t you know who I am?” They looked at her in amazement. Someone slapped her across the rear and roughly ordered her to move. “Miserable heathens!” she muttered to herself. “I’ll just go to the market where the good people are. They will remember me.” But the same thing happened. No one paid any attention to the donkey as she strutted down the main street. “The palm branches! Where are the palm branches!” she shouted. “Yesterday, you threw palm branches!” Hurt and confused, the donkey returned home to her mother. “Foolish child,” mother said gently. “Don’t you realize that without him, you are just an ordinary donkey?”
Just like the donkey who carried Jesus into Jerusalem, we are most fulfilled when we are in the presence of Christ. Without him, all our best efforts are like “a filthy cloth” (Isaiah 64:6) and amount to nothing. When we lift up Christ, however, we are no longer ordinary people, but key players in God’s plan to redeem the world.
Notice that the donkey’s service to Christ consisted in doing what donkeys do. Donkeys carry burdens. But the donkey’s ordinary task was made sacred when it carried Christ. The lesson is that when we go about our ordinary lives, the ordinary things that we do are made sacred by bringing Christ into them.
Nicholas Herman was born around 1611 in Lorraine, France. He served as a soldier in the Thirty Years War. The atrocities he witnessed led him to become a Christian.
Later, he entered the Carmelite monastic order. As a monk, he was given the name Brother Lawrence and assigned work in the kitchen. He hated it. He thought, I have been a soldier, and I have decided to devote myself to God and I should be praying and reading the Bible and thinking high thoughts, but what am I doing? I am scrubbing dirty plates and pots in the kitchen. How demeaning! For ten years Brother Lawrence chafed against his situation. He was filled with spiritual anguish at this humiliating job he had to do. Then one day he achieved a major breakthrough and understood that washing pots can be a great thing to do—if you do it in and for Jesus. He was scrubbing those plates not because someone had assigned him a dirty job, but because that gave him a chance to make his small section of the world a little better, or at least a little cleaner, for Jesus, and thus he contributed in his own way and place toward realizing the kingdom of God. Lawrence now loved kitchen work. He said that he never felt closer to God than when he was peeling potatoes.
Jesus, as Brother Lawrence discovered, is what makes life worth living and work worth doing. When our work is empowered by Christ, it is transformed from mere drudgery into the most important thing in our lives. It becomes our contribution to the kingdom of God.
Back in 1942, Clarence Jordan founded of Koinonia Farm in Sumter County, Georgia. It was an interracial community before anyone had ever heard of civil rights. Jordan himself was a pacifist as well as an integrationist and, though he came from a prominent family, in the forties and early fifties, he was probably the most hated man in Georgia. The Koinonia Farm, by its very nature, was controversial and always in trouble. In the early ’50s Clarence approached his brother Robert Jordan (later a state senator and justice of the Georgia Supreme Court) to ask him to represent legally Koinonia Farm. They were having trouble getting LP gas delivered for heating during the winter even though it was against the law not to deliver gas. Clarence thought Robert could solve the problem with a phone call.
However, Robert said, “I can’t do that. You know my political aspirations. Why, if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I’ve got.”
Clarence replied, “We might lose everything, too, Bob.”
But Robert said, “It’s different for you.”
“Why is it different?” asked Clarence. “I remember, it seems to me, that you and I joined the church on the same Sunday, as boys. I expect when we came forward the preacher asked me the same question he did you. He asked me, ‘Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ What did you say?”
Robert replied, “I follow Jesus, up to a point.”
Clarence said, “Could that point by any chance be — the cross?”
“That’s right.” Robert said, “I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I’m not getting myself crucified.”
“Then I don’t believe you’re a disciple,” responded Clarence. “You’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his. I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to, and tell them you’re an admirer, not a disciple.”
“Well now,” said Robert, “if everyone who felt like I do did that, we wouldn’t have a church, would we?”
“The question,” Clarence said, “is, ‘Do you have a church?’”
[Stanley Hauerwas, cited in “When we don’t ‘carry’ Jesus far enough,”June 21, 2004, Odyssey Web Site,odyssey.blogs.com.]
The question for us is do we have a church? Clarence Jordan said that if we are not willing to bear Christ into the world, then we do not have a church. In other words, he calls on us to make Christ real in our ordinary lives, and thereby to stop being ordinary folks and start being Christophers, Christ-bearers, donkeys.
In Christ,
Brown
I don't preach Jesus' story in light of my experience as some sort of helpful symbol or myth that is helpfully illumined by my story. Rather, I am invited by Easter to interpret my story in the light of God's triumph in the resurrection. Only because we worship a resurrected Lord can we risk preaching.
William H. Willimon, "Easter Preaching as Peculiar Speech," in Exilic Preaching

Golgotha, the place of the skull, where nails smashed through the wrists and feet of Jesus, the teacher from Nazareth in Galilee, can stand for the skulls of every genocide. Betrayal by friends, self-preserving denial, making sport with prisoners, the mockery of crowds, spectators drawn to the spectacle, the soldiers doing their duty and dicing for his clothes, a mother in agony, and a knot of women helplessly looking on—it happens time, and time, and time again.
Richard John Neuhaus, First Things

We live and die. Christ died and lived!
John R. W. Stott, What Christ Thinks of the Church

Spike's Apology
Dear Spike,

I have been unable to sleep since I forced my daughter to break off her engagement to you. Will you forgive and forget?

I was much too sensitive about your Mohawk, tattoo, and pierced nose. I now realize motorcycles aren't really that dangerous, and I really should not have reacted the way I did to the fact that you have never
held a job.

I am sure, too, that some other very nice people live under the bridge in the park.

Sure, my daughter is only 17 and wants to marry you instead of going to Harvard on a full ride scholarship. After all, you can't learn everything about life from books. I sometimes forget how backward I can be. I was wrong. I was a fool. I have now come to my senses, and you have my full blessing to marry my daughter.

Sincerely,

Your future father-in-law

P. S. Congratulations on winning the Powerball lottery!