Tracy Niven
Wednesday 5 April 2023

Preacher: Revd Samantha Ferguson
Readings: Isaiah 50: 4-9a; Matthew 21: 1-11

For the very first time…
In the name of the father, son and holy spirit
Amen.

Please be seated.

For the very first time I will bless our palms for today’s service from the pulpit.
They will be distributed to you at the end of the service as you depart.
They are a symbol of the week ahead and will be used to make the ashes for next years Ash Wednesday service.

Let us pray:
God our Saviour,
whose Son Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem as Messiah to suffer and to die;
let these palms be for us signs of his victory
and grant that we who bear them in his name
may ever hail him as our King, and follow him in the way that leads to eternal life; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

For those of you who, like me, grew up in the 1970s and 1980’s, the Gen Xers in the room, (apologies for the climate crises), this sermon’s title may bring back memories of Robin Beck, Coco Cola and a very dodgy advert with saxophone and huge hair – probably the reason for said climate crises!

But indulge me.

For the very first time in 20 years, I am preaching on Palm Sunday.

You have probably noticed over the last couple of weeks we have been doing something different with the delivery of our readings in Chapel.

They have been presented to you in the form of dramatic readings, with different voices bring the ancient dusty biblical texts to life once again, with live vibrant voices of different tones, sexes and ages.

In my Christion tradition as an Anglican Priest, in my parish role as Rector, I would usually celebrate and rejoice with great glad tiding when Palm Sunday rolls round.

Because this is the one Sunday in the entire liturgical year when I DIDN’T have to preach!  51 weeks every other Sunday yes, with time off for good behaviour maybe but on this Sunday, No.

I DIDN’T have to prepare a sermon as the emotions, the theology, the richness of our faith is seen and heard and felt once again almost viscerally as the entire passion of Jesus is read out during the service by members (who occasionally I have even remembered to ask before the day!).

The annual dramatic reading always ends abruptly with Jesus’s death and with his tomb being sealed with the stone.  The end.

No more.  No spoiler alert.

Nothing to give a hint of what is to come.

The hope, the joy the expectation, the life resurrected, and the risen Christ calling the name of his friend and telling her to be his first evangelist.  A teller of good news.

That Death was no more.

That Life will go on beyond the veil.

Nada.

But, believe me when I say that I am not upset about this challenge to preach on the one day I have never preached before – really.

After 4 years in this job, I am still getting used to the quirks of Presbyterian and it is a good practice in theology and in patience to do this at least once in my lifetime.

Donald, you are up next year!

And, not only am I preaching for the first time today, little Mackellan got baptised for the first time today as well! Congratulations

Today, Mackellan, you have become a member of a universal faith that goes a little bit mad this time of year as we are about to enter holy week – a very emotional and charged time for Christians throughout the world.

And now because of your baptism, anywhere you travel in this beautiful world of ours, throughout your long life, you will be welcomed and affirmed in Christians churches across the globe – you will always have a home and you will always have friends.

Welcome and may God bless you on your journey of faith as you will be a blessing to all you meet.

And speaking of journeys, this photo that you see on the front of your Order of Services is also a first.  It was the first thing my daughter Robina took a photo of on the first day she was in Rome.

It is poignant that is a picture of a cross in the sunshine at the Colosseum – the theatre of death – because everything that we will hear about, sing about and pray about this week, is done with the image of that Cross and death, of what is to come, constantly in our minds.

It begins today with Jesus entering Jerusalem, returning to his spiritual heart home to celebrate Passover with friends and family alike, coming back to the temple which was the centre of his faith.

Three long years have passed since his baptism and the beginning of his earthly ministry of healing, preaching teaching and generally bothering all sorts of people.

Those same people who would soon get their revenge for all the slights, all the insults and all the bare faced cheek this man, who considers himself to be the messiah, had inflicted upon them.

And in our reading from Isaiah we hear a foreshadowing of how Jesus would respond to what these people were planning to do to him.

To give his back to those who would strike him down and offer his cheek for more to those who would pull out his beard whilst insulting him and spitting at him.

But all those lovely joys were to come, for now, for today there is joy in the air.

A sense of celebration, of expectation, of hope.

There was a party atmosphere and Jesus, always knowing how to play to a crowd, preps his disciples to go and fetch a donkey and colt.

Now this part of the Palm Sunday narrative always bring me personal joy.  I grew up in those blessed 1970s and 1980s on a small island off the coast of France called Guernsey and us Guern’s are known fondly as ‘Donkeys’.  Mainly because we are stubborn whilst being faithful.

Those who are from the other island that shall not be named. Jersey.  Are known as crapauds – and no I am not swearing for the first time in the pulpit Donald, it means Toads in Normandy French.  Oh how we laugh about that at home.

Anyway. Donkeys.

Fascinating fact – did you know that all donkeys have a cross on their backs which comes from Mary riding on them when she was pregnant with Jesus and so blessing them forever more.  And now Jesus blesses them as well.

How I love donkeys!

And so Jesus, always one to make a dramatic entrance via a stable or through the turmoil at the city gates, comes to Jerusalem with hosannas and joyful cries of acclamation and blessings ringing in his ears on a donkey who walks on a carpet of coats and palms.

For the very first and last time.

And what was he moving forward towards?

Well, we know the end of this story don’t we?

In a weeks’ time we will be celebrating with singing and chocolate.  After all the betrayals, the sacrifices, the prayers of despair and doubt, the pain of torture and trial, the denial of friends and the ignominy of dying the way a common criminal such as a thief, all of it, all of it, lies ahead as the days of the coming week, one that history has never forgotten, unfolds before us.

Join us.

Walk with us through this week.

Experience with us all the emotions this week evokes, both within those on the pages of the bible that we have tried to bring back to life for your like those old bones of Elijah we heard about last week, and within ourselves.

We are all emotional at the moment, be it from the stress of deadlines, from not even having started writing our dissertations that are due in a week,from marking the endless piles of essays and from setting exam questions that are fair but taxing.

We are all emotional at the moment, from what we see on our tv screens and hear on our radios, to what we are witnessing in the lives of family and friends, visibly struggling with difficult circumstances and losses, that we can do nothing to change or help to forget.

We are all emotional at the moment, but let us get through this next week together.  Remember having a chaplaincy with real live chaplains means you do not have to suffer alone.  Although you really do have to write that essay and start that dissertation.

Spoiler alert – you are here to do a degree.

Jesus knew the end was coming.

He had his God-given spoiler alert in full technicolour.

His friends had no idea – they were coming to town to party and not for the first time.

This week is your chance to see and hear and feel how that party moves from hope to despair to unremitting joy.  For fifty days after next Sunday.

Jesus goes through it all for us,

we remember it all for him.

Curious?

Come and see and hear and feel it all with us this week, and maybe it will help put what you and those you care about in perspective and help you to understand that

All will be well my friends, for the first and for the last time.

All will be well.

Amen.

 

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