Sunday, February 28, 2010

Reflections on a "Leafy Branch"

During Lent, I am doing a sermon series entitled "Seven Days and Counting." The intention of the series is to focus on a life giving week at the end of Jesus' ministry. Without the week, we would have no resurrection. Without the death, there would be no resurrection. Simple, right?

Today, I focused on the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. I did it today in order to place emphasis on all the days of the week, especially on his death later in Lent. I really wanted to focus on one thing, and that was our praise of Christ. I think we did that in worship.

However, I made a mistake. I bought palms. I did it intentionally knowing that the whole act of Palm Sunday was being played out in our music and worship. However, I realized today that had I not brought in the palms, it would have played out. Message given, message received.

The problem is that our human capacity to understand the day is so wrapped up in this simple leafy branch that we seem to place more emphasis on the palms than the day or the message. We place more emphasis on the branch than we do on the reason that we are waving it in the first place. I had more questions about why we were handing our palms (which I fully expected) and why we wouldn't be doing it on the sixth Sunday of Lent.

I think we've actually made an idol out of this palm! The palm has become more important than our relationship with Christ and our ability to praise and worship him, allowing him to enter our lives.

I wish I had thought about that a little more. If so, I wouldn't have even brought the palms into the worship service. The message could have been simple. "As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise god joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen." Luke 19:37

Next year, I might be doing Entry on Palm Sunday, but I might also be rethinking palms.

1 comment:

Brett Probert said...

Keep up the good work!!!

As a side note, perhaps you could petition some general board to commission Rethink Palms!

Keep preachin' the good word my brutha. We gotta get together and do coffee or som'n soon.