Readings for the Day:
The Liturgy of the Palms
The Liturgy of the Word
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
This is an interactive manuscript. To follow links, click the highlighted words below.
I once served under a clergy person who we’ll call Freddy. His wife, who we’ll call Sarah, was an organist, which meant their respective ministries very much went together. Now years before I knew them, when they were getting ready to get married and Freddy was finishing seminary, they happened to be traveling through some town in Ohio. For some reason, Sarah wasn’t very into the place. At the end of their visit she said how much she hoped they never had to go back. Freddy chuckled and said “Don’t say that! I might end up getting called there!”
Sure enough, Freddy was right. He ended up called to serve there for a time, and Sarah, to her credit, followed him and served God there too.
I tell this story because it is one we can all relate to. It can be really difficult to put aside our own will for God’s. It can be even harder when what God wants doesn’t always “jive” with what we want.
Yet we are still called to follow God. Jesus shows us this today. He knows what is ahead of Him. He knows He will have to die, and understandably, He does not want to. We hear the agony in His voice from the Gospel. We see his pain in our art, including one of our own stained glass windows in the back here at St. Luke’s. We understand Jesus’ pain because it’s probably how we would feel too.
With all this, though, Jesus doesn’t run away. He does ask the Father to take this cup away from Him. He also says, “Yet not what I want but what You want.”
Jesus says the words knowing He will soon face His Death. He knows everything this death entails from the pain and suffering to the fact that the gift He is providing us through that death is not one we deserve. Yet Jesus has the courage to face that Death anyways because it is the Father’s will.
When faced with what God wants versus what we want, will we have the same courage as Jesus?