The Lord blessed us
with an abundant weekend of celebration, jubilation, worship, and witness. He
blessed us with a "Full House" on Saturday evening of children's ministry,
worship, witness, and prayer, along with a great Easter Banquet at the First
United Methodist Church, Endicott. It was also a great Palm Sunday Worship at
both Union Center and Wesley United Methodist Churches. Alice preached at Wesley
and I preached at Union Center. We had special time of celebration with
children at Union Center following the morning worship services. It was great
day of celebration, of prayer, praise, joy, and
jubilation.
It must have been
quite a scene as Jesus rode into Jerusalem. First of all, He was not riding a
warrior’s horse, but instead He is riding on the colt of a donkey. And all
around Him was a motley crowd. Former prostitutes, shouting children, people
who had been lepers but who were now cleansed, people who were once blind who
now could see, people who at one time had running sores and untouchable
diseases, tax collectors, foreigners — all of these who had been touched by
Jesus came. The Bible says, “The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to
praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen” (Luke 19:37).
I see Palm Sunday as
one grand act of invitation. Jesus rode into Jerusalem inviting, not forcing,
them to receive Him as King — only not the kind of king they wanted. He came
with His arms open wide. Jesus’ invitation was for everyone to come and
recognize the King of this new kingdom. This was an invitation to the religious
and non-religious, for saint and sinner alike. It was an invitation to leave
their directionless and self-absorbed lives of confusion and ambiguity. It was
more than an invitation to be saved from personal sin; it was an invitation to
leave a life of futility and stupidity and enter into the God-life He was
offering. It was an invitation to leave dysfunctional lives and have instead
lives that worked, because it was life lived God’s way. It was an invitation to
leave a religion mixed with politics and national interests to enter the kingdom
of God for its own sake.
I like the way Brian McLaren put it in his book "The Story We Find Ourselves In". He says, “For prostitutes, the call of Jesus was to leave their story of men who pay money for love, and to enter the story of God, who in love pays for us with his own life. For Pharisees, it was to leave their story of religiosity and superiority and rigidity and judgmentalism, their story that was exclusively focused on their own narrow little sect, and instead to enter God’s broader and deeper and better story of grace and compassion and mercy and love for all people. For Zealots like Simon, it was to leave the political story of violence, to stop slitting Romans throats, as if that would bring the story to its desired end, and instead to enter God’s spiritual story of peace for all people, to risk persecution for justice and to prefer suffering over causing others to suffer. For tax collectors like Zacchaeus or Matthew, it was to stop collaborating with the Roman Empire, and profiting in the process, and instead to collaborate with the kingdom of God, and sacrifice in the process. For the rich — like that young ruler Jesus met — it was to abandon the hollow story of acquisition, and instead to enter God’s better story of generosity. For farmers and shepherds, it was to realize that there’s more to life than just planting seeds of wheat or tending flocks of sheep; instead, Jesus invited them to enter into the bigger story of planing seeds of truth and seeking lost men and women, every one of whom is loved and counted and missed by God. For fishermen like Peter and Andrew and James and John, it was to trade in the story of catching fish for a bigger story of fishing for men and women, inviting them into God’s story of ongoing creation and redemption. For the middle class, who want nothing more than to create a little social aquarium for their family. . . . it’s a call to care about the families of their neighbors too, especially the poor, to see them as family too, as children of Adam and children of God.”
Jesus also invites atheists to leave their story of a gray world where God does not exist, and enter a beautiful, new, colorful world where God is the cause of everything that exists. He invites the humanist, whose story is all about depending on himself to discover meaning and ultimate reality in the material world, to enter the story of God where God’s greater purpose is bigger than any one person or group of people — a meaning and purpose which God has built into the universe. He invites us to move beyond a list of rules and right doctrine to a life of ongoing relationship with himself. He invites us to live as the salt of the earth and as the light of the world. He invites us to be His channels of grace and love in the dark places. He desires for us that we might declare His greatness and proclaim His Kingship and Majesty in the public Arena, in highways and the byways. He desires to shine in us and through us where people still walk in darkness. May we live our lives under His Kingship and May serve Him as our Lord and King in such way that others may see His glory and taste His grace in our witness and worship.
I like the way Brian McLaren put it in his book "The Story We Find Ourselves In". He says, “For prostitutes, the call of Jesus was to leave their story of men who pay money for love, and to enter the story of God, who in love pays for us with his own life. For Pharisees, it was to leave their story of religiosity and superiority and rigidity and judgmentalism, their story that was exclusively focused on their own narrow little sect, and instead to enter God’s broader and deeper and better story of grace and compassion and mercy and love for all people. For Zealots like Simon, it was to leave the political story of violence, to stop slitting Romans throats, as if that would bring the story to its desired end, and instead to enter God’s spiritual story of peace for all people, to risk persecution for justice and to prefer suffering over causing others to suffer. For tax collectors like Zacchaeus or Matthew, it was to stop collaborating with the Roman Empire, and profiting in the process, and instead to collaborate with the kingdom of God, and sacrifice in the process. For the rich — like that young ruler Jesus met — it was to abandon the hollow story of acquisition, and instead to enter God’s better story of generosity. For farmers and shepherds, it was to realize that there’s more to life than just planting seeds of wheat or tending flocks of sheep; instead, Jesus invited them to enter into the bigger story of planing seeds of truth and seeking lost men and women, every one of whom is loved and counted and missed by God. For fishermen like Peter and Andrew and James and John, it was to trade in the story of catching fish for a bigger story of fishing for men and women, inviting them into God’s story of ongoing creation and redemption. For the middle class, who want nothing more than to create a little social aquarium for their family. . . . it’s a call to care about the families of their neighbors too, especially the poor, to see them as family too, as children of Adam and children of God.”
Jesus also invites atheists to leave their story of a gray world where God does not exist, and enter a beautiful, new, colorful world where God is the cause of everything that exists. He invites the humanist, whose story is all about depending on himself to discover meaning and ultimate reality in the material world, to enter the story of God where God’s greater purpose is bigger than any one person or group of people — a meaning and purpose which God has built into the universe. He invites us to move beyond a list of rules and right doctrine to a life of ongoing relationship with himself. He invites us to live as the salt of the earth and as the light of the world. He invites us to be His channels of grace and love in the dark places. He desires for us that we might declare His greatness and proclaim His Kingship and Majesty in the public Arena, in highways and the byways. He desires to shine in us and through us where people still walk in darkness. May we live our lives under His Kingship and May serve Him as our Lord and King in such way that others may see His glory and taste His grace in our witness and worship.
In Christ,
Brown.
Holy Week Events in the Life of our Lord
as they are recorded in the Gospel according Mark.
Sunday Mark 11:1-11 Palm
Sunday
Monday Cleansing of the Temple Mark 11:
12-19
Tuesday Discourses Mark 11:
20--13:37
Wednesday Anointing in Bethany Mark 14:
1-11
Thursday Passover, Last Supper, Arrest.
Trial Mark 14:12-72
Good Friday Trial before Pilate,
Crucifixion, Burial Mark 15: 1-47
Saturday Jesus our Lord in the Tomb Mark
15: 42-47
Glorious Easter Sunday Resurrection Mark
16: 1-8
Ministry
Events during this Holy Week:
Wednesday
6 PM
Dinner
6:30 PM
Bible Study
7:30 Prayer
Meeting
7:30 A
special Choir Practice
Thursday 5:30
PM Seder Service to be held at First Presbyterian Church,
Endicott
Good Friday
6:30 PM Combined Good Friday Service at the Union Center Christian
Church, Boswell Hill Road
7 PM Good Friday
Television outreach, Time Warner Cable Television Channel
4
Easter
Sunday
6:30 AM
Sunrise Service under the Pavilion at Union Center Christian Church. Pastor
Marshall Sorber will be Preaching.
7:30 AM
Family Breakfast at the Union Center United Methodist
Church.
Resurrection Sunday
Celebration and worship
8:30 AM and 11:00 AM at Union Center UMC, 128 Maple
Drive, with Pastor Brown preaching. The Choir will be singing during both services.
9:30 AM
Easter Celebration at the Wesley United Methodist Church, 1000 Day Hollow Road.
Pastor Brown will be preaching.
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