Baptism Sunday: Welcoming Jesus on Palm Sunday

Well, good to have you guys. Welcome. And also to the many people online.

So this is interesting, like only like half of you go to church.

So we're so happy to have all the many guests, like seeing family, being baptized.

Thank you for coming. Happy to have you celebrate. And the other half of the

church is on vacation. So hello, everyone, wherever you are,

either ending your spring break or beginning it, depending on what school district you're in.

But it's a great day today. We are doing two things today.

I mean, this is the, In case you didn't know just to orient you this is the

sunday before easter and traditionally the sunday before easter is palm sunday, right?

So if we think about the church calendar and the way that christians have have

kind of like worshiped and set up their calendar There there's an observance of palm sunday.

Oh, but you know before begin I kids make noise and we love them.

So it's fine. We moms don't worry about it. It's fine I I have this microphone.

I am going to be louder than your child.

So it's totally fine This is going to be short, shorter, shorter.

It's only three pages, you know, so I can't go that long. But yeah,

it's like if you're here and you're a mom or dad and you're worried about your

kids making noise, don't be. No one else is. It's fine. It's really fine.

So just wanted to say that. So here we are, Palm Sunday.

The reason that Palm Sunday exists is because the week before Jesus was crucified

and resurrected, we celebrate that on Easter Sunday, which is going to be coming up here pretty soon.

This is somebody try to fix that. I don't know. Sorry.

Okay. You know, one of those things,

the computer's just shutting down randomly in the middle of things.

There's a bunch of, I don't know what's going on. You know what?

Let's pray. Let's just pray. Let's pray all this stuff away.

This is generally the best way to do it. So Lord, thank you for having us here

this morning. It's good. It's great. It's a beautiful day.

Lord, can we have a retractable roof, please, installed in the sanctuary so

that we could just enjoy everything here and go, But yeah, just be present,

Lord. We're just celebrating.

This is a pure celebration, pure joy here this morning.

So thank you for this. In Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, so Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter.

Easter is like this time we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And that's coming up. And if you don't have anywhere to be on Easter,

please come here. We'd love to have you celebrate here.

If you think we're having a party today, Easter's like the biggest party of

the year because we are celebrating the massively good news that Jesus died and then rose again.

And if you don't understand why that's good news, like I'd love to tell you about it next week.

On the week before Jesus was crucified, on the Monday, Tuesday beforehand,

he came into the city of Jerusalem and he was met by a crowd.

And we read about that, this account of Palm Sunday, the original Palm Sunday in John 12.

So here it is. The next day, when a large crowd had come together to the festival,

heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and they went

out to meet him. They kept shouting, Hosanna!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.

See, the crowd had gathered in Jerusalem because they were going to celebrate

the festival of Passover.

So everyone all over Israel had flooded into Jerusalem to the temple,

the place where this celebration was going to happen.

This annual remembrance that happened every single year of God setting his people

free from slavery in Egypt.

But strangely enough, as Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowd gathered palm branches.

Now, that doesn't seem strange to us because we don't have palm branches and

we don't know why you would use them, but it was not really appropriate for the Passover festival.

That was not done on Passover, but it was a thing that was done,

the gathering of palms, the waving of palms, a parade of palms was something

that was done regularly during the Hanukkah festival, a different festival in Judaism.

Hanukkah, it was a relatively new festival in Jesus's day because it memorialized

the rebellion that Judas Maccabeus led against the Greek empire that preceded the Roman empire.

And he led a rebellion and established an independent Jewish state.

And so Hanukkah is this celebration of his life and his rebellion that he led

that led to some independence.

N.T. Wright, a biblical commentator, as I like to call him, the Taylor Swift

of theologians, says this, Hanukkah was when Judas Maccabeus and his family became kings of Israel.

Jesus and his followers were, so to speak, bringing together Hanukkah and Passover.

They were saying both that Jesus was the true king, come to claim his throne,

and that this was the moment when God would set Israel free once and for all.

See, Jesus is greeted with palms as he enters Jerusalem because the one that

they've been waiting for, that the crowd has been waiting for,

that these Jewish people have been waiting for, they think it's him.

And so they cry out, Hosanna, which means save us.

Because they truly believe that Jesus has been sent by God to be their king,

that God had sent him along to set them free, to free them from the slavery

and oppression of Rome, to save God's people so that they could be,

once again, just like taken care of by God and worship freely and be free people.

And so we celebrate Palm Sunday, right? And we're just recognizing that this

is the welcoming of this King.

We're also today, you'll notice because the large bathtub we have over here,

we are also celebrating baptisms.

Several of our young people, five of our young people have just decided that

they want to follow Jesus.

And so we're doing what followers of Jesus are commanded to do in the scriptures,

which is to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We're going to be doing that in a little bit together, and that's a huge celebration.

But see, these young people are looking to Jesus today, and they're doing exactly

what the crowd said in this time.

They're saying, save us, save me, Lord.

Like, I understand that you are the King, you are good, you are worth welcoming into my life.

And they're publicly declaring that they are going to be living a life of welcoming the King.

See, Jesus is going to be Lord of their lives. They're saying to God and all

of you that they want to be people who are his.

And what God's people did in Jesus' day and what Christians still do in our

day is that they are people who welcome their king.

And we're just thinking about Palm Sunday and thinking about baptism and just

like, I want to highlight a few things that is present in the text and it's still present today.

God's people welcome their king.

It's funny, if you look back in the Bible, you read the Old Testament,

God's people are told to do many things. There's lots of commandments.

There's kind of like, especially in the Old Testament, lots of ways to worship.

But the overall, I think, overarching theme is that God's people are called

to be living lives of expectancy.

They're supposed to expect something from God.

The whole Old Testament is a book about waiting on God to show up,

to save, to deliver, to establish his people.

And God's people are awaiting people and anticipating people and expectant people.

They are looking for their king, their Messiah, and Christians believe that

that Messiah, the king, the one who's sent to save, is Jesus,

and he's Lord of the Jews, and he's Lord of anyone who would call upon his name.

And so we are people called to welcome him.

To be a Christian is to recognize that all of your hopes for yourself,

your fulfillment, your peace, your joy, your purpose, your eternal life,

and your life here on earth, your righteousness,

your standing before God, it's all tied up in the coming person of Jesus.

That he is the deliverer, the savior, and the giver of every good thing in life.

And so Christians just, they're not coming before God and saying,

we're such good people, like wonderful.

Like, so we can be right with God because of all the great things we've done.

Christians are people who say, we're not good people. We're actually lost people.

We just need to look for a savior.

And so they live a life of welcome to their king who gives them all things and

supplies all things to them.

The life of faith is just a life lived in a posture of welcome,

to look to Jesus day after day, to just live a life that just says,

come Lord Jesus, like I want what you have for my life.

I want your presence. I want you in all things.

We see on Palm Sunday though, that it doesn't just stop there.

There's more things that God's people do. And if we keep reading along in the

text, John tells us about the crowd and what they're doing that day.

And I think they're in some ways demonstrating some really positive things.

Picking up in 12, verse 17. It says, Meanwhile, the crowd, which had been with

him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead,

continually testified.

This is also why the crowd met him, because they heard that he had done a sign.

Now some Greeks were among those who went up to worship the festival.

And so they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,

and requested to him, Sir, we want to see Jesus.

So these people who are welcoming their king, they're not only just welcoming

their king, they're doing something else. They're proclaiming their king.

God's people proclaim their king. They talk about their king.

I think I had that slide up there for that. The crowd had grown and they were

looking for Jesus, right?

The Jewish people and the Greeks, they were looking for Jesus.

Why? Well, because not a couple of days beforehand, people had seen Jesus do

this crazy miracle, raising Lazarus from the dead.

He had been dead for several days, and he was evidently and without a doubt

dead, and Jesus called him back to life.

And those people are just going around in Jerusalem, and they're just telling

anyone who would listen that this thing happened, and it was a total miracle.

To the point where even non-Jewish people, Greek-speaking people, are curious.

They come up, they don't really have a context for expecting the king, right?

But they hear, and they think it's amazing, and they come up to the disciples

and they say, We want to see this Jesus because we've heard about the things that he does.

And he sounds amazing. He sounds remarkable.

I mean, what the crowd show us is that people who follow Jesus, God's people,

are called to be people who are just declaring and proclaiming what he's done. They praise their king.

It's what God's people do. They talk about Jesus.

I'm not talking about standing outside of the Mariner's game and yelling at

people with a bullhorn necessarily, right?

But I'm just talking about if you've seen Jesus do amazing things in your life

and you're a Christian, then you talk about it.

It's the natural overflow of somebody who's been expecting and waiting and seeing

God do things in their life. And you might not have a full resolution and maybe

you haven't seen miracles, but you've seen God.

If you're a Christian, you've seen God. He's shown up in your life.

And part of being God's people is just talking about it.

Talking about what he's doing. Maybe even wondering out loud about what God is doing.

Speaking of the things that they've seen. Of the kindness and love of God. Of his mercy.

That's what God's people have done then. It's what they're called to do even now.

And so, I mean, that's like my charge also to you young people.

Of you being baptized, okay?

Like, yeah, you're called to be people who welcome your king.

You're also called to be people who talk about your king.

So you're going to go home, you're going to go to school next week or whatever,

and you're going to have some stories to tell. You made a choice today.

You're following Jesus.

You have expectation that he's going to do things in your life.

Like part of being a Christian is just talking about that, not just separating

that part of your life out into one little tiny thing.

It's actually like centering that and understanding that like your life with

Jesus is like central to your whole life.

And so I wanted to encourage you guys, be people of praise. But as we go along

a little bit further here,

yes, we see even as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem and everyone is crying out

to him, there are some people who are like wanting to be there.

They're wanting to expect, they're wanting to praise, but they just can't be

there. We read about them a little bit further along in verse 42.

It says this, Nevertheless, many did believe in him, even among the rulers.

But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, so that they would not

be banned from the synagogue.

For they loved human praise more than the praise from God.

Took a turn, right? Throughout Jesus's ministry, he really alienated.

If you know the gospels, you know this. If you know the story of Jesus's ministry,

he alienated a group of religious people called the Pharisees.

They were just the most careful, most observed, and the people who felt like

they understood what God wanted from life.

But Jesus, they just wouldn't accept Jesus. They wouldn't accept that he was

this king that they thought they were waiting for. They wouldn't except that he was the king.

And they moved really in the background to try to sideline Jesus,

to trip him up, to catch him out in some kind of error.

And they'd ultimately, in just a few days from where this text is set,

they would lead a plot to kill him.

But they also used their influence, which was significant in Israelite society,

to turn people against Jesus.

And we see here many of the rulers, and the rulers just means actually the people,

the elders of the synagogues, the local synagogues, local gatherings,

places where the religious leaders would come together.

They had elected leaders, and those leaders were kind of—many of them would

believe in Jesus, but they were afraid to publicly talk about their faith in Jesus.

They were worried about being banned from their synagogues. They were worried

about a coup in their congregations led by the Pharisees. So there's some politics going on here.

But John gives a pretty sobering assessment of them.

And he says this thing, which is like, man, makes you want to scratch your head.

He says, they loved human praise more than the praise from God.

I mean, that's a thing to say. It's quite a thing to say, but I want us to think

about this for a little bit and understand why it's being said.

Young people come into baptism. Christians, if you call yourself a Christian,

here's something that you need to know.

It matters what you love. It matters what you love.

God's people are called To praise their king They're called to welcome their

king They're also called to love their king It is so central that God's people

Be people who love their king That's part of being his people,

But it's a challenge, okay? Because how do you just love something?

Like, I don't know about you. Like, maybe you're sitting here and you think,

in fact, I know everyone is probably sitting here thinking, I don't know how

to just decide to love things, but we maybe think that other people somehow

have this ability. And I just rest for everybody at ease.

No one knows how to, there's no love switch in your heart. You don't have it.

And so that becomes difficult because when you hear things like this,

that God's people are called to love their king, or we read these stories about

these people who, yeah, they believe, but they didn't really love Jesus as much.

Like, what do you do with that?

It's a difficult thing to sit in. How do you simply love someone or something?

It's a major challenge for people as they consider Jesus.

What are we supposed to do? I think there's a theologian that I like named James K.

Smith, and actually he shed some light on this question.

But he doesn't do it. He doesn't basically say, oh, will you just give you some

technique? He actually just tells us, he reveals to us, he explains to us kind

of that actually the answer is in Jesus himself.

He says this, Jesus is a teacher who just doesn't inform our intellect,

but he forms our very loves.

He isn't content to simply deposit new ideas in your mind.

He's after nothing less than your wants, your loves, your longings.

His teaching doesn't just touch the calm, cool, collected spaces of reflection and contemplation.

He's a teacher who invades the heated, passionate regions of the heart.

He is the word who penetrates, even dividing soul and spirit,

and he judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart, quoting Hebrews 4.

To follow Jesus is to become a student of the rabbi who teaches us how to love.

I think this is important for us to know, because again, if you're sitting here

and you're coming to faith or you're someone who's already followed Jesus,

or maybe you're thinking about it, you know, and you're thinking,

okay, well, the obstacle seems to be that I need a love that I don't have.

And has anyone, you've ever been in a position where people expect something

from you, but you don't have no means to acquire it. What a frustrating reality.

But here's the thing. When we understand that Jesus is a teacher who teaches

us how to love him, who works with us from the stage of beginners into maturity,

well, then all of a sudden the way is clear.

No, I don't have the love that I need for Jesus, but I can start with what little

interest I have, what little love I have, what little hope that I have.

And I can walk down the path with him as student and teacher,

and he is able to develop this love.

We participate in that cycle of engagement with Jesus, this beginning with welcoming

him, this turning to praise him, and this development of love with him.

But the problem is that these particular people, they wanted to love him,

but they didn't want to learn from him.

They didn't want to step out on this path that begins with discipleship,

that begins with a public decision, a declaration that, oh no,

I am going to be somebody who follows after him.

That's the beginning of the path so that the love might follow.

But they were afraid. They were stuck. They were unable to move forward because

they couldn't see the path in front of them.

They wouldn't go to school with Jesus.

They welcomed him, but they wanted it to be in the private place to just confine

Jesus to the interior life, which I will say this, that is a fine start.

But the issue is it can't end there. And so, there's a lot of young people in this room.

Here's the thing, when I was in middle school and high school, I loved a lot of things.

And day to day, hour to hour, it changed. But I began with a desire to love God more.

And God can work with that.

And it's a war. It's a battle. It's a daily struggle. And I would love other things.

And then I would just come back through this process that we call repentance.

And I would say, God, I don't know why I love these things.

They don't satisfy me. and slowly but surely Jesus would teach me what it looks

like to press through this battle in my heart and he would slowly shape my love for him over time,

decades, right?

And how frustrating. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just be prepared in the

moment to be an expert in the ways of loving God?

And sometimes God just does remarkable, miraculous things in people.

Like you'll meet people who have just like testimonies where they were on one

day, Like they were just drug addicts. They were, you know, just down and out.

They were at the end of their rope. And then all of a sudden Jesus just met

them. And it's just like this miraculous encounter. And how wonderful.

That is not my story. And it might not be a lot of your stories.

Maybe you're on a slow road and that's okay. If you're a young person,

you say, well, I don't know if I have that kind of love.

Well, that's great. But you come to Jesus with the love that you have and he

can work with you in the midst of those things.

This is it. The road is long. It's a process.

So I'm not saying, so it's important here because we can read scripture sometimes

and we can say, well, there's all these things that I don't have.

I mean, that's like a beginner piano student saying, well, I don't know how to play Chopin yet.

Well, yeah, that's like what you do at the end. Once you become an expert,

like you can do these things, but you begin with the basics.

And so you're beginning with the basics. Young people, you're here,

you're beginning with basics.

You're beginning and saying, just like, I want to be somebody who follows after Jesus.

No, I don't have all the love I need for him to meet every occasion and every

difficulty, and that's okay. That's okay.

I remember, worship team can come up here. I told you it would be short.

Sometimes I lie, but this time I didn't.

I remember the first Palm Sunday message that I ever heard and understood.

I don't remember the first one I ever heard because I'm sure it just went right

over my head. But I heard it and understood it.

And the pastor pointed out something that's really true in the text.

So there is a serious irony going on here.

Because on this Monday, Jesus is welcomed in with a parade. all these people

saying, oh, finally, you're here, Jesus.

You're the king. We worship you. Waving their palm fronds, right?

And yet, only a few days later, the crowd is gathered in Jerusalem there to

watch Jesus be crucified.

Like, what happens? What happens on that day that fell apart the next day?

And I remember hearing that message, and it sort of disturbed It scared me because

the pastor rightly emphasized how fickle our love is, how fickle my own love is, right?

And that, especially when I was young, made me very afraid because he wasn't wrong.

It's amazing. I'm talking about this. We have this internal struggle.

We love God, but we also love other things. So how do we deal with this stuff?

I've known in my life that some days I will love Jesus so much and I'll say,

make these big, bold declarations of faith and that sometimes the next day or

a week later, I don't know where that person is anymore.

I feel oftentimes that I don't love him as I ought.

And this is what we've been talking about. But I want everyone to know something,

especially those who are being baptized this morning.

Your life in Jesus Christ, yes, it moves forward on the basis of welcoming him,

on the basis of praise, on the

basis of developing love. But it is not secured by any of those things.

Your life in Jesus Christ, the life that you're saying you're entering into

right now, is secured by his love for you. And that will never change.

You might change tomorrow. Maybe when you go back to school,

you're going to be afraid to talk about what you did this weekend.

And like, you don't know how to do that thing. But let me say,

you might change, but Jesus never will.

And one day as you hang in there with him and you let him teach you,

you will know what it is to praise him with great joy.

And it might take time, but God's love for you is what secures you.

God's people are loved by their king.

That is the gospel message. Not that you better get to loving God.

It's that he loved you first.

And so tomorrow or next Sunday as we celebrate Easter, we're celebrating the

resurrection, the death and resurrection.

Him dying on a cross for people who did not care about him at all so that they

might have a life with him,

have forgiveness of sins, have the power of the Holy Spirit working in them,

be put on this path of discipleship and growing in love, there is such good

news on the other side of Easter, on the resurrection.

And it's the good news that Jesus has done it, not that you have done it.

And so you begin this story, you begin this time of baptism,

and you're saying, I'm going to follow Jesus.

And that is your response. But understand this, it did not begin with you. It began with him.

And so when you forget about all these declarations and all your intentions.

You don't have to find an emotional response. You just have to think about what he's done for you.

And that will put you right back on the path again.

He has done it.

There's a worship song that I like by a band named Mission House,

and it says, and if I take the ship and wreck it, if all my love grows cold,

You'll find my heart and resurrect it Raise me up body and soul,

The confession of Christians is not that we're good people.

We are definitely not. It's that we have known the love and kindness and mercy of God.

Never make it about anything else. If you focus on that and you focus on responding

to that love, the Christian life will move forward.

And the love that you want to demonstrate, it will develop over time.

So I want to pray for everyone here. And I want to pray for those who are being

baptized. Sky, could you get the top off?

If you're being baptized, go ahead and, you know, do what you need to do to get ready.

I'm going to take my shoes off very embarrassingly in a moment.

Don't look, please. My wife would be mortified. People saw my feet,

you know, all the things.

But let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much.

Thank you that we celebrate what you've done, Lord. Just like we don't cleanse ourselves, Lord.

We enter into cleansing water today. Lord, we understand that we are entering

into a life with you and it's about what you have done, Jesus. So thank you, Jesus.

Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your grace. Lord,

we celebrate your goodness and your kindness.

And Lord, we bless these young people who are coming and starting something

today, starting a life with you, Lord. Lord, give them confidence.

Give them hope. Give them assurance.

Fill them with your spirit, Lord.

Lord, let them know that the sure foundation of their faith is what you've done

in your kindness to them.

We pray all that in Jesus' name.

Amen. So here's what we're going to do. I think Tucker's going to start because

he said he wanted to go first, okay? So Tucker Luke's going to come up.

You know, like if you guys want pictures of your family, you want to be around

there, just go ahead and get there. Try to make it so that other people can see.

But you know, it's a small room and it's the big tub and, you know,

there's all this stuff. It's going to be a little awkward. It's going to be fine.

We're going to be worshiping in the background. I'm not going to bring the microphone

in because I like to be alive.

So we're not going to necessarily hear things. But again, if your family,

your friends, you want to be up close, come get up close.

That's fine. It's just kind of casual. We're going to worship.

We're going to do this. It's going to be great.

And then after that, we'll just spend some time worshiping and you can go to

your brunches, which is important.

The post-baptism brunch. All right, let's do this. Come on up.