Sunday April 10 Palm Sunday
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Psalm 24
While entering through the doors of the temple the poet sings a hymn of praise to God who brought order out of the dangerous primordial ocean. Appropriate for a Sunday as we enter into our worship.
Psalm 29
Astonishment at the overwhelming presence of God in nature who rules the untameable ocean and even makes mountains cavort like calves and oak trees “writhe” in a gale! We worship such a God, who makes such strength and peace available to us.
Zechariah 12: 9-11, 13: 1, 7-9 What’s Zechariah about?
Zechariah is writing as the people return to the devastated city of Jerusalem after 70 years in exile. Five hundred years later Jewish followers of Jesus used some of this imagery and details such as being “pierced” to interpret Jesus’ execution.
Early Christians were drawing a parallel between Jesus’ execution and the suffering of Jerusalem five hundred years earlier as it was devastated by the conquest of the Babylonians. We read such passages this week as a way of entering into Jesus’ experience of his betrayal and execution.
Zechariah suggests that the suffering of their time in slavery in Babylon refined the people and made them pure as a way of affirming for the people that God never left them, even while they were in exile.
Luke 19: 41-48 What’s Luke about?
Jesus laments the fact that Jerusalem will reject the kingdom and wishes that it had welcomed God’s kingdom. Luke, writing after the destruction of Jerusalem, understands that Jesus anticipated some of the details of that disaster—people were deliberately crushed by the Roman army under the enormous stones from which the temple was constructed.
Jesus’ call to justice toward the poor was very popular with the common people, but threatened the livelihoods of the wealthy and because of that and his opposition to Roman exploitation, the leaders focus their plot to execute him.
Today’s collect:
Almighty and everliving God,
in tender love for all our human race
you sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take our flesh
and suffer death upon a cruel cross.
May we follow the example of his great humility,
and share in the glory of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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