Arise: Palm Sunday: Faith that Moves Mountains - 29 March, 2026

A city with a meaningful name live up to its name.

Like who wants to have to be the person that reports the crime

statistics, particularly violent crime for Philadelphia, the city

of brotherly love? Cities have trouble living up to

high and lofty names, and Jerusalem is also a city that

has struggled for thousands of years to live up to its name as

a city of peace. And as we come into a familiar

story today with the Palm Sunday in the triumphal entry and all

this, I want you to just take a minute and think about what it

meant to be a Jewish person living in Jerusalem 2000 years

ago. What does it mean to live under

an oppressor? We know we have talk a lot in

church about the desecration of the temple and about 160 years

before this the MAGA beans, the Hanukkah story where they had

light that lasted 7 days because the temple had been poorly

treated around 4 BC. I mean CE or common error or AD

depending which system you want to use.

There was actually a revolt in Jerusalem and they stoned a

whole company of Roman soldiers trying to get them out.

Which means that there is, by the time Palm Sunday happens,

High Roman alert Pontius Pilate would have come in in a parade

showing Roman authority because they don't want during Passover

to have another rebellion. But why would people rebel?

Why would people look for a saviour?

Think about what you know in history and about oppressors.

You see, Roman soldiers would come, they would charm Jewish

girls and they would leave children behind as they got

resettled in another place. You know that Jesus says go the

extra mile and we think, oh, that's cheap and easy, but it

comes because a Roman soldier could just grab anybody and say

carry my heavy pack and you would have to go a full mile by

law. And Jesus said go extra.

So when Jesus saying go in the extra mile, it wasn't, oh, give

your friend two birthday presents instead of one.

It was there was some oppression to this.

Their sons saw who was getting higher positions and frankly, it

wasn't the ones that were following after God.

It was the ones that were willing to do what Rome wanted.

And so their sons were being wooed into jobs that shamed the

whole family. So when we think about what

Jesus's triumphal entry meant, enter into the space of what

does it mean to be an oppressed people who need salvation?

And let's read now in Matthew chapter 21.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

And this is not for today, but this is for you at home.

I was at a conference last week and I just want to encourage you

when you read, get your physical Bible.

Do you know the research coming out with cognitive

neuroscientists are saying that we can't help it when we read a

screen, we skim and that there's something that happens when we

have a physical book. There's a space place in our

minds that gets activated. Jesus also activates the space

place in our understanding of who God is because he is an

embodiment of who the Father is. And so let's read Matthew 21.

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage on the Mount of

Olives, Jesus sent 2 disciples saying to them, go to the

village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied

there with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me.

If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and

he will send them right away. This took place to fulfil what

was spoken through the prophet. Say to daughter Zion, See, your

king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a

colt the foal of a donkey. The disciples went and did as

Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the

colt and placed the cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on.

A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others

cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed

shouted Hosanna to the Son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the

highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem,

the whole city was stirred and asked, Who is this?

And the crowds answered, This is Jesus the prophet from Nazareth

in Galilee. And Jesus entered the temple

courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there.

He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches

of those selling doves. It is written, he said to them,

My house will be called a House of prayer, but you are making it

a den of robbers. The blind and the lame came to

him at the temple, and he healed them.

But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the

wonderful things he did, and the children shouting in the temple

courts hosanna to the Son of David, they were indignant.

Do you hear what these children are saying?

They asked him. Yes, replied Jesus, have you

never read from the lips of children and infants?

You, Lord, have called forth your praise.

And he left them, and went out of the city to Bethany, where he

spent the night. Early in the morning, as Jesus

was on his way back to the city, he was hungry.

Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found

nothing on it except leaves. And then he said to it, May you

never bear fruit again. Immediately the tree withered

and when the disciples saw this, they were amazed.

How did the fig tree wither so quickly?

They asked and Jesus replied, Truly I tell you, if you have

faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the

fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, go throw

yourself into the sea and it'll be done.

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Jesus arose and as we'll look through the story we'll find

that Jesus arose above others expectations and with a faith

that moves mountains, you can also rise above others

expectations. So what do they expect from

Jesus? They expected him to save them

because he is acting like a king.

And as he came in, everything he did was purposeful.

First of all, if I leaned over and I asked you, Bethany, to go

and get somebody else, and I'm going to ask you to just go over

to the Parcade and get somebody's Lexus and somebody

else's Mini Cooper, she's going to want a little more

information. And that's what Jesus did.

He had set things up and he was exerting the ride of the king,

the ride of the leader we called us.

My aunt and uncle had lived in their same house for over 45

years. And then the government decided

that it was in the trajectory of the airport expansion.

And guess what? The government could come in and

say we need your land. We don't actually care about

your family memories and the Reno's you did and da, da da.

And that Jesus right now is exerting kingship.

It seems he had made arrangements and it all went all

right. But do you realize that

disciples had reasons to be like?

Also, Jesus is setting up a nod to the prophet Zechariah.

I've listed out from Zechariah 9.

I encourage you to read it later, but just because we're

not catching the illusion does not mean the people there did

not know it. They knew that he was acting out

with this entrance, with this fall.

It talks about coming in as rejoice.

They would rejoice, they would be righteous, victorious.

And here's the piece. Slowly, and riding on a donkey's

fall, Jesus is making sure to activate their expectation that

He is a king. And I want you to see who this

king came for, because this matters.

He came for the peace of the nations.

So they forgot that part. See, they got excited that this

king was going to come and overthrow their oppressor, but

their imaginations could not contain the fact that this king

was for all nations, that this king was to free all prisoners,

and that those that felt imprisoned by their own hope

were going to be restored. But Jesus is asking them to

activate all that prior knowledge and to recognize He is

king. So do not, do not mistake that

Jesus's entrance was anything but a royal declaration.

Now the whole city was stirred. You remember that little 4B4

ADCE event I told you where a whole company of Roman soldiers

were stoned? See, when the whole city gets

stirred at Passover, Rome goes on high alert because they don't

want another revolt. Who is in the crowd?

There are people that were genuinely interested in the work

of Jesus and what he had done. But you know what else?

There were people who just wanted Rome gone.

And then have you ever been to a parade and it has nothing to do

with you, but you just went? One of our kids for a while was

a would dance in Vancouver's Saint Patrick's Day parade.

Now, y'all, there are just not many Irish people in this city

and how we sustained about 10 years of a Saint Patrick's Day

parade, I'm not sure. I'm married to one of the

Irishmen, but they're just not many.

And so you would go and you would look around and you would

see who was in the parade and you're thinking, I don't think

there's much Irish heritage in this crowd, but people wanted to

be there for a good time. And so in Jesus reception as he

comes in declaring himself as king, there are people who are

desperate for help. There are people that genuinely

are followers of Jesus and there's a whole lot of let's see

what this is all about or if they fight, I'll jump in to do

whatever it takes to get rid of these Romans.

And so is a mixed crowd. And what is the cry?

The cry is in verse 9 here. Hosanna to the son of David,

bless. It is he who comes in the name

of the Lord Hosanna in the highest heavens.

Now y'all when I was a child, have you all ever had like you

had the fronds and you had it was like a party on Palm Sunday.

But the word Hosanna is not a party word.

It is save us now and the tradition I grew up in.

It is a help me Jesus y'all true story.

If I would say under my breath, help me Jesus about something

small like the copier at work is making me very frustrated.

And people would think, oh, and that's a funny way to curse.

And I'm like, well, no, I have no way to fix this copier and

I'm actually asking for some help.

But these people were calling out for save us now from the

ones that are taking our daughters from the ones that are

tempting our sons. Save us now from taxes that are

eating up all we have and we can't take care of our families.

Save us now from the rape, pillage and plundering of an

oppressive nation. And So what in your life has you

gone? God save me now because there is

a wait. And this is the cry.

This isn't just it was a party atmosphere, but it was a deep

cry to the God of Jacob saying do not forget us and please save

us. Now Jesus goes from there and

enters the temple. Now again, my childhood

understanding of Jesus cleansing of the temple has never quite

left me because you know what I see as a kid, it's like Jesus

got to have a fit. Craig and I one time went to one

service and had this beautiful table and the pastor flipped it

and he brought out all of a sudden it was quite dramatic.

But I want you to think about what Jesus is doing.

Do you remember the Zechariah verses is that He will proclaim

peace to the nations in a week of weeks plus one more week.

So in 57 days, Pentecost is coming at Passover, which is in

this next week of the story. And then Pentecost, which was 50

days after, Jewish people from all around the world would take

a once in a lifetime trip to Jerusalem to be there for the

high and holy feasts. And they had money that wasn't

local currency. And so it started out as let's

help you out. We'll change your money over so

you can buy the sacrifices that are purified so that you can

make your sacrifices to God. In some ways it was to help, but

it became the place where the nations could come to pray was

all about business and trade. So Jesus is cleansing his

temple, is actually making a space for those that were coming

into Jerusalem, the city of peace, where there is no peace.

And he is making a place where they can meet his Father.

And he calls out and he references a verse in Isaiah and

I want to read all of it to you, Isaiah chapter 56, and then

Isaiah 56 · chapter mention

it'll be verses 6 and seven. It's worth you reading the whole

chapter later. It's beautiful, but he is

referencing this and foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord,

to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord and to be His

servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it,

and who will hold fast to My covenant.

These I will bring to My holy mountain and give them joy in My

House of prayer. Their burnt offerings and

sacrifices will be accepted on My altar, for my house will be

called a House of prayer for all nations.

Jesus, as he enters in his high and most famed and fanish

moment, makes it clear that He has come for all of us, that He

has come for all nations, and that He has come so that all of

us can be in conversation with the Heavenly Father.

He has come so that they would meet Him.

And so a den of robbers is not going to be distracting.

Jesus is making sure that all those that come have a place to

pray. Now who does he help?

Think about this, if you are back to Matthew 21, if you are

sitting around trying to become an influencer, his brothers told

him he should come now and he didn't.

What are you going to do? You're going to find other, you

know, they do this. They find other influencers to

come on their post and their podcast so that then they get

both each other's and then they share newsletter lists.

So if you like me, you're going to like my three friends too.

It's not bad marketing, but who did Jesus go and help?

He helps the blind and the lame, y'all.

That's not the way to gain friends and influence people if

you want to become powerful. But Jesus knew who he was.

Jesus knew that he had power, and Jesus knew he was the Son of

the high King of Heaven. And so he knew who he was and

what he was about, and he did not forget that he was called to

go to those who are on the margins.

And guess what? Who notices?

The religious authorities, right?

Is that who's celebrating this healing?

It's the children. If you want to notice where the

healthy response is to God, notice children's responses and

if children are delighted and you're not, ask yourself why.

And if you feel bothered by and we all do it sometimes when

someone's asking you for something like the Lyme and lame

and the blinds were asking for Jesus, say, all right, Jesus,

where's your heart? I know I need good boundaries,

but I don't want to lose a soft heart for where you had a soft

heart. And then notice what makes you

indignant. Are the things that make you

indignant the things that make God indignant?

Or do you have friends that help you justify your indignantness?

I don't think that's a word because everybody else feels

that way. Well, you're only human, OK,

take that phrase out of you. You are human, filled with the

spirit of the Almighty God. And so the spirit of Almighty

God gives us emotional and spiritual reserves to see things

differently. And when we don't we say help us

Jesus. This week I was traveling for a

conference and work and I had, well, let's just say more

layovers than you can shake a stick at in the States.

And every layover got worse and it ended me having an extra

spin. The night party that I didn't

expect to have in one city. And as I was going through, I

came accidentally like y'all, it was some kind of crazy, like we

had to stand shoulder to shoulder in threes and dogs

coming. I had never.

I've travelled a lot, I've never had this kind and all of a

sudden I'm face to face. With someone in his shirt, said

Ice. And my mouth literally curled up

in disgust. Y'all I don't feel disgust to

other humans. I have like really strong

senses. Humans are made in the image of

God. No one is beyond.

And I just was like like like disgust.

And now it is a week later and I have prayed for this man every

day because if I know it's OK that I don't like all of what

his work is doing. I, I, I don't think that I think

that is from God, but the disdain and disgust for another

human that is not from God, that also is not going to bring

change. And so that disgust response in

me is the disgust response that the chief priests were having

for Jesus. And so I'm still repenting

because I'm like, part of me feels justified.

And so where are we indignant? And what does that tell us about

the heart of God? So in Jesus going to the temple,

he did all kinds of things. And then I want us to look

really quickly at this tree. This is fig leaves, figless fig

leaves. Quick metaphor.

The temple was to be a place where the presence of God was

experienced. And if you go back to Ezekiel,

it was going to flow to the whole world, the presence of God

from that temple. And Jesus really quickly gave

his followers an image of that. If the presence of God is not

flowing, it's going to wither up and die, and it is already.

And then he calls them into a deep faith.

He calls them into knowing and seeing more.

And y'all, they are about to have a week.

You think sometimes you've had a week.

The disciples were about to have a week and Jesus is saying that

you need faith for this next week that can move mountains and

they did not have it. Now in the midst of all this,

we're going to look very quickly at Jesus response to Jerusalem,

this city of peace where there is no peace.

And when he came over this city, Luke tells us that as he

approached Jerusalem and he saw the city, he wept over it.

And he said, if you even you had only known on this day what

would bring you peace. And so when we don't usually do

this in the middle of a message, we're going to have a few

moments of prayer if we can show the next picture where we sit

with Jesus. And what I want you to do is to

invite Jesus into the places in your heart where you feel no

peace and where you need Jesus both to weep over you, over your

places of work and residence, over UBC, over Vancouver.

But we're going to sit with Jesus and say, Lord, help me

know, and help us know what will bring us peace.

I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms,

in the arms of my dear. Save your world, there are

10,000 charms. Come ye weary, heavy laden, lost

and ruined by the fall. If you tarry till your better,

you will never come at all. I will arise and go to Jesus.

He will embrace me in His In the homes of my dear Savior, there

are 10,000. If you even you had only known

on this day what would bring you peace.

Jerusalem did not know. And Jesus foretells many sad and

horrible things that were going to happen and did happen about

40 years later. And then he ends up saying,

because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.

Jesus came as a king and we can arise with him.

We can arise when he says the Lord needs it.

One time we had a huge pipe failure and a friend of ours

arose when the Lord told him somebody else needs it.

He had been saving for ATV and he arose in how the Lord told

him to reallocate his resources and he paid for our new pipe.

I know another family who knew. A few years ago, Canada had an

emergency response to the Taliban's resurgence in

Afghanistan. And there was a young woman who

was trying desperately in her 20s, to save up the $20,000 she

had to have in the bank to bring her mom, her sisters and her

dad. And so the Lord reallocated that

family's finances because the Lord needed it and needed that

family to be in safety so that those girls could finish school.

The Lord's going to sometimes say to you, the Lord needs it

and it may be your time, and it may be your specialties and it

may be your resources and your money.

Are you ready for the Lord to take your donkey and coal,

whatever they may be? Jesus had to arise above the

expectations of others to do what the Lord wanted.

Guess what? Those of you that are students,

you have been successful students because you figured out

how to meet expectations. You read the room.

The longer I'm in education, the more I realize intelligence has.

Sometimes even work ethic isn't all it's can you read the person

who is marking you and made expectations?

But that variability, that variability may keep you from

being able to meet the Lord's expectations because you bear

the weight of what those you love, respect, who poured into

you want from you. And everyone has expectations.

The most like Jesus of any human.

Craig and I've ever known is our spiritual formation professor.

And can I just tell you that when we said yes Lord we will go

to Canada, he was disappointed y'all.

And Deb I was like can we hear from Jesus and he not hear it?

Like I I was sure we might be hearing wrong because what he

spoke into our lives had only been from the Lord and was only

truth. And yet we knew.

And 30 more plus years later we are still serving Jesus where I

could believe he called us. Our professor along the way has

joined us and come alongside of us and has done retreat weekends

in all kinds of ways. But when we had to say yes to

Jesus, we did not have his good job.

We didn't have, we had some parents joy about us choosing to

serve the Lord here, but we didn't have all parents.

We weren't meeting expectations for what we were supposed to do.

And so following Jesus means you're going to let some people

down and look at Jesus on this day he enters and these crowds

are screaming save us now. And he knew more intimately than

we do the pain that they bore under Roman oppression.

He really did want their lives better.

But he knew that the imagination and God on what salvation looks

like was bigger and very different and very brutal.

And so will we arise with Jesus above other people's

expectations to do and be who the Lord wants us to be?

Now this one's tricky, but the next is, would we allow the Lord

to unclutter us? Now see, we don't, we don't have

a church building. We have a lecture hall.

But you know what? We are the church and so when

there is cluttering in our relationships, whether it be

conflict or just too busyness, when our own hearts which are

the temple of God and amongst us, never mind spaces and

places, then we are allowing a den of robbers to come and steal

and kill and destroy where the Lord would have us have abundant

life in these relationships. Travelling to meet my future

brother in law's family and the Czech Republic.

We went into lots of beautiful buildings that had no sense of

Christian shared life and community life.

And then we went into one and y'all, it was a construction

site and it was it had been pretty at one point, but it was

a a mess. And I left crying and my mom's

like what? That's the one that got you

excited? And I said, did you see the

bulletin board, Mama? They've got a food bank and

they've got a prayer group and they've got all these different

things. And there they were having real

body life. So what do you need?

Jesus cleared out the clutter so the nations could come.

In your own heart and amongst your relationships with brothers

and sisters in Christ, where do you need to declutter?

What is robbing the free movement of prayer for the

nations and with the nations? Where does the Lord need to show

up and show more power through you?

Where is the healing needed like the lame and the blind were

healed? Or where do we need to arise and

allow the empty vessels like the empty fig tree to be cleaned

away? Habits and practices and spaces

that are no longer life giving. And then where do we need to

arise in our faith? All the preparation didn't have

them. He has a whole city ready to

violently rebel. But not many were ready for the

kind of revolution Jesus was bringing the next week on the

cross. And so arise with Jesus beyond

your own expectations, the expectations of others.

Arise beyond those. Arise with Jesus beyond the den

of robbers in your life. What is stealing and killing?

Your joy and your peace. And how can you lean into that

so that you no longer have a cluttered heart?

And then arise with Jesus beyond the lack of faith lifting.

True story. Some of you know, in the last

year I've become a grandmother. And so I got really motivated.

I was going to do weightlifting because I was like, I've got to

carry this baby for a long time and I need to make sure I can do

that. And so I've been weightlifting

now y'all do you know those adjustable weights?

And it's like, how much can you carry?

So the kids got those for Craig a couple of years, and now he's

at the top end of those. Yeah, I'm at the same place, but

I'm still doing it so that I can carry this baby for a long time.

And here's what I found. Thought Lord, that's what

happens with our faith. Maybe I'm only starting at a

four kilogram weight lifting and Craig's at 2930 kilogram and

then the kettle bells are bigger.

I don't have it all, but it's not that Craig can carry more

weight or I am. It's that we're both doing

something to stay healthy. And in your faith, what have you

done? Where have you stepped out in

faith and it required something from you that you didn't have?

Where has your generosity of time, your generosity of

relationship, your generosity of money required you to act in

faith? Or better, where has your

generosity of the spirit of Jesus in you to someone else

required an act of faith from you?

So start some faith lifting. No shame if you're with me at

the 4.5 kilogram and you're going to just stay there.

But faith lift because the day will come when something will

happen like Jesus. Disciples were about to walk

into where their lives were on the line for Jesus, and he had

been calling them into more and more faith.

And this Jerusalem, the city of peace that knew no peace, was

about to have a massacre of the one who is the Prince of Peace

so that he could exert the mighty power of God and so arise

with Jesus as he triumphantly enters the city of peace and

say, I want to learn from you, Lord, how to both meet and go

past expectations. Let's pray Jesus, we do

celebrate you and we do join on and say, Hosanna, save us now.

And Lord, we want to see our lives, our relationships, and it

may mean that we weep, but we want to see you Jesus.

And so we ask all of this in your precious name, and that

your spirit would build our faith in our ability to act in

faith in Jesus name. Amen.