​Have you ever seen a movie that is a story in itself, but also tells a story behind its story?
Many years ago, as a teenager, I went to see the movie Dr Zhivago - actually I went back 5 more times to see it again and again.
Each time, I saw more, and different, stories unfolding within the main plot. 
I think that the overriding message I received from all those visits to the movie theatre was:
No matter how bad things seem and how much self-pity we may have for our own predicament, there’s always someone worse off than ourselves, who needs our help.
 
This story we read today from Matthew 21:1-11 should be familiar to most of us, and we also find it, with some minor differences, in the other 3 Gospels. 
Basically, it tells of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem, at the time of the Passover.
It was a requirement for all Jewish men to make a pilgrimage to this festival, at least once in their life.
But we know that Jesus has a higher motive than this for his visit.
 
The place is buzzing, and with more and more people having heard about Jesus, there’s an excited expectation in the air.
Is he the Messiah, the one who’s come to free Israel from the Roman oppressors?
They’re expecting a warrior king - but that’s not the message that Jesus brings them.
 
Today, we’re going to look into some of the story behind that story.
We’ll look at what some of the earlier prophets said about the coming of the Messiah – the Anointed One.
To the Jews, the Messiah would be the one who would come at the “end of days” and fulfil the following scriptural requirements.
He would restore the line of King David, gather the exiles, restore the religious courts of justice, end wickedness, sin and heresy, reward the righteous, rebuild Jerusalem and restore the temple services.
 
In Isaiah 11:2-5 we read that this Messiah would also be well-versed in Jewish law and its commandments.
He would be a charismatic leader, inspiring others to follow his example.
He would be a great military leader, who would win battles for Israel.
Jeremiah 33:15 tells us that he would be a great judge, who would make righteous decisions.
But above all, he would be a human being, not a god, demi-god, or other supernatural being.
 
To many of the Jews, especially the religious leaders, Jesus didn’t fit these criteria. 
But, in fact, he WAS the one they were waiting for and it’s a pity that they didn’t realise it at the time.
 
However, if they had, it might have mucked up God’s masterplan – that the Son of Man had to die and be resurrected to new life to pay for the sins of the world.
 
In verse 5 of today’s reading, we hear that Jesus came to them, gentle and riding on a donkey.
This is lifted from Zechariah 9:9 
“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”
We see that the early scriptures were pointing to the events that are unfolding before us in today’s story.
 
The Jews were looking for a warrior king, but Zechariah 9 tells us that this king would be a king of peace.
The crowds treated Jesus like a king when he arrived in Jerusalem.
In verses 8 & 9 of today’s reading we hear that:
“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!”
(Hosanna is a Hebrew expression meaning “save us, help, we pray”, but can also mean “we praise you”)
 
Back in the Old Testament, in Psalm 118:26, we read:
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
 
And in 2 Kings 9:3 we read:
Then take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, ‘This is what the LORD says: I anoint you king over Israel.’”
 (do you remember Mary doing this to Jesus in Bethany?)
 
And in verses 8-9 of Matthew 21, we hear:
“A very large crow] spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!”
 
So, the actions of the people in Jerusalem, when Jesus entered, was symbolic of the welcome that they would afford a king, similar to what they had done for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
 
This narrative portrays Jesus as a king - and also defines the significance of his kingship.
But because his kingship was so different from worldly models of authority, Jesus subverts the worldly understanding of kingship in suggesting a reign of a different order.
 
Yes, he was announcing that he was indeed a king, but not the warrior-king they were looking for.
The crowds honoured Jesus by casting their cloaks before him and, as mentioned in John’s gospel, waved palm branches.
These were appropriate actions for the triumphal entries of kings into Jerusalem.
 
But what an apparent disappointment it must have been to them to have their new king tried by their religious leaders and crucified by their oppressors – all within one week.
 
Little did they realise that this crucifixion and subsequent resurrection would be the pinnacle of the plan for God’s Son on earth.
 
The religious leaders thought that they were in charge and driving the events of the Passion week, but we must remember that Jesus was not the helpless victim in this story.
He was, in reality, in charge of the situation and he was all too aware of the outcome - of his own demise. He had said, “No man takes my life from me.... I lay it down of my own accord.”
 
And so, we await the passion of Jesus as it unfolds before us in the week to come – Holy Week.
It must surely have been an extremely testing and trying time for Jesus – the culmination of his ministry on earth and the basis for the faith of those of us who are called Christians – that is, the disciples of the Christ. 
 
You certainly don’t want to miss the next thrilling episodes, so I hope you’ll all get to church at 9:30am on Good Friday and again, at the same time, on Easter Sunday.                
 
Pastor Rick

​Some of us have had dreams, hopes and plans that have been lost, as if buried in a grave - gone forever. 
I’m speaking of those times in life when we can no longer do what we used to be able to do. 
Perhaps because of a chronic illness, or financial problems, the loss of employment, or maybe a handicap that makes each day difficult and suddenly, we feel empty. 
 
Just as those first moments must have felt for Mary and Martha as they stood beside their brother's grave. 
They had sent word to Jesus about the illness of their brother Lazarus and then their world changed forever when he died. 
We remember that when the world was turning against Jesus, it had been Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair and it was Mary and Martha who provided Jesus with shelter at Bethany. 


We sometimes feel the same as the sisters, when things are turning against us.
Despite having prayed, thought we were going the extra mile for others and knowing that we’ve been “good” people, nothing seems to be going our way.
There are times in our lives, when what appears to be an ending can in fact be a beginning. 
Where we only see death, we can also see the power of life.   
Where we see failure, God opens a new door.   
Where we feel abandoned, God draws near to us, and we find hope and assurance. 
 
What we’re celebrating on this road to Easter, is that even as we travel through the reality of loss and reversals, defeats and disappointments, there’s a power in the world that’s stronger than death. 
Today’s Gospel reading deals with: “Who will have the last word?”
At first, today's reading focuses on a sunset, but it quickly turns into a sunrise. 


But before we can get to the joy, John reminds us of the sorrow and grief in the lives of Mary and Martha. 
Even before Jesus arrived at Martha's home, she met him on the way, immediately confronting him with her belief that if he had been there, Lazarus wouldn’t have died. 
How easy it would have been for Jesus to have become defensive. 
He could have talked of his need to seek shelter to be safe, but instead, he dealt with her sorrow as he assured Martha her brother would live again. 
Jesus reminded her that he was the hope, when he said: "I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." 
These words of hope are spoken today at many memorial and funeral services. 
 
So, Lent is a time of preparation for Easter, and we can never know the full impact of the resurrection unless we’re honest about the times in which we’ve felt no hope, or felt we were alone - similar to how Mary and Martha must have felt, when Jesus wasn’t there for them in their time of need.


Yet, following this feeling of abandonment, came the overwhelming joy when Lazarus came out of the grave.  When we’re honest with our hurts and fears, we know that God is still with us. 
When we’ve dealt with the loss of someone we love and have had times of despair and sorrow, we can  open our hearts and minds to the wonderful news that Easter brings us.
The power of the Easter faith is that whatever happens to us in our world, God is greater - and we can trust and believe in him.   We’ll always have reason to hope. 
 
The road to Easter runs through a cemetery.  It’s not a road that detours past the realities of life, but one that empowers us to deal head on with the realities of living.
It was a huge risk for Jesus to go back to be with Mary and Martha as some were seeking to stone him. 
His reply to this threat was to speak of “walking in the light”, so that no one would stumble. 
He wouldn’t allow the fear of others, the sorrow of death, or anything else, to darken his way, to keep him from going where he was needed. 


As he approached the grave of his friend, Lazarus, Jesus was deeply disturbed, but he took the first step of the miracle, when he asked for the stone to be removed. 
Martha, the ever practical one, questioned the move and she reminded Jesus that her brother had been dead for four days and there would be a very unpleasant odour. 
But Jesus knew that if we’re going to behold the Glory of God, then, at times, we have to go beyond the boundaries of the norm. 
He challenged whether Martha truly believed in him, and so the stone was removed. 
Then comes that moment when Jesus calls to Lazarus to come out. 
The road to Easter had reached a very important turn - and Lazarus came out. 
When others saw that this man, who had been dead and buried, was now alive, they would have been drawn to the one who had such power to call him from the grave. 
In this scene, we see the power that God has to give life.
 
From the last verse of today's reading, it’s said that many of the Jews who had come out to be with Mary, saw what Jesus had done and believed.
To find joy and hope at Easter, we must endure the cemeteries of our defeats and disappointments. 
The Bible is full of stories about transforming situations that had become desperate and hopeless, but are radically changed with new opportunities, filled with promise and new life. 
There was Abram and Sarai, to whom God's promise seemed so impossible when being revealed, so impossible that Sarai laughed;
there was Moses, running from being wanted for murder, being called to lead his people through the sea;
there was David who faced a giant;
there was Elijah, after his greatest success seeing no reason to live, finding God in the still small voice;
there was Ezekiel's vision of the scattered bones of a defeated army coming back to life. 
In the New Testament, there’s Nicodemus shaking his head at being born anew and the Samaritan woman at the well, pushed aside by her village, finding in Jesus a new life;
And the blind man of last week's lesson being rejected by his own parents only to find new life in Jesus.
 
On the road to Easter, we move toward the eventual joy of Easter and the hope of the life everlasting, when we experience the power of Christ in our lives. 
This happens for us when the stones of bitterness, disappointment, and sorrow are rolled away and we experience the call to come forth and live, to live life at its fullest.
 
This is when we hear Jesus say, "I am the resurrection and the life, those who believe in me even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die."
Not only at the Holy time of Easter, but also in our world, in a cemetery filled with sorrow. 
Then, and only then, do these words come alive for us. 
That’s what I like about today's lesson; it comes when we least expect it. 
Jesus knew of God's power to deal with and defeat death.
 
In our lives, can the stones be rolled away and can we come forth to live? 
I believe that the answer is “yes” because the world will not have the last word - we certainly will not have the last word - only God will have the last word, and this will be the day of new beginnings.      
          
Pastor Rick

We could look at this week’s passage from the Gospel of John only from the perspective of the blind man. 
We could ponder what it means to be blind, the difficulty of getting through the day, what it means to be cut off from family and friends, etc., facing not only the struggle to cope, but also with the guilt that overwhelms us when people try to convince us that we must have sinned, thus causing our blindness.
Or the anger, when we’re told that it was something our parents did wrong – they must have sinned, too! 
We could follow the blind man on his journey - from being a sinner in the eyes of the world, to becoming a believer in Jesus - the Messiah. 
 
But another perspective we could take, is that of the religious leaders, the guardians of tradition, the pillars of the community, who supposedly stood between God and the people, and we might ask,
"Aren’t these people actually more handicapped by blindness than the man who was healed?"
For this is a story of two kinds of blindness. 
One is physical – which is admittedly a tragedy - but one that can be dealt with through courage, determination, and education – calling for our support through research, compassion, and consideration. 
The other is spiritual - which can be overcome through the extravagant grace of God in our Lord Jesus.
If we’re honest, for most of us, this is the one we must deal with in our Christian lives.
 
Lent was, and remains to this day, a time in which all Christians are called to reorient themselves from the distractions of sin, apathy and mundaneness and return to the life-giving will of God.
John calls the faithful to do the same thing and it stands as a powerful and provocative witness to the fact that in Jesus Christ, God has revealed himself to the world.

John’s gospel begins by him calling Jesus, simply, but profoundly, “the Word.”
In his first chapter, John employs powerful theological phrases in reference to Jesus, calling him the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”
John describes Jesus, not simply as a miracle worker or faith healer, but rather as a worker of signs, each pointing beyond itself to a larger truth.

Here in Chapter 9, Jesus works a sign by healing a man who had been blind from birth.
As word of what Jesus did begins to spread, the Pharisees puff out their chests, saying,
“If Jesus really was from God, he would have known that the law prohibits such actions on the Sabbath.”
But by questioning the legality of what Jesus did, the Pharisees totally miss the point.
They focus on the action itself, and not the larger truth that the action reveals.
The blind man receiving sight isn’t the point of the story, but rather it focuses us on the blind man’s relationship with Jesus – and that teaches us more about our own relationship with the Lord.
 
The disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”
They assumed, as most people did in those days, that suffering was the result of sinfulness.
We may also find ourselves thinking, not of physical blindness, but of other scourges that plague us.
We watch helplessly as the news reports yet another terrorist attack, or the effects of war.
We also weep as we hear of lives cut short by bullying, from both individuals and dictatorships.
We feel inexplicable anger at the grim prognosis of a young mother stricken with cancer.
“What have they done to deserve this?” we wonder. “Is God punishing us?”
Suddenly, we realize that the disciples’ question is familiar, because it’s one we, ourselves, ask of God.
And yet the answer Jesus gives to the disciples – to us – is: “Neither this man, nor his parents sinned.”
 
Jesus reminds us that the axiom is true, indeed: Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
But Jesus goes beyond platitudes: “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
Jesus shows the disciples, and us, that even in the midst of things we can’t understand, God is at work.
And to prove it, Jesus works a sign - he gives the man sight, yes, but he also gives him something greater. We see that the man couldn’t quite put into words what had happened to him.
He didn’t know exactly why it had happened, but he knew the Saviour’s voice!
So, when Jesus says to him, “Go, wash,” he does just that.
He hears the Saviour’s voice, he follows it, and at long last, he sees Jesus, crying out, “Lord, I believe!” as he falls down and worships at the feet of Jesus.
 
At the end of the story, some of the Pharisees do begin to see the point Jesus is making.
They question whether they can see at all, when they ask Jesus "Surely we’re not blind, are we?"
And the response from Jesus is sharp and precise:
"If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains."
 
We should be careful, then, whenever we say, "We see."
We should never underestimate the marvellous presence of God, for God will burst the boundaries and walls of our personal agendas with a new light – Jesus - the Light of the World, who shines into our lives.
Jesus does so by focusing not on the reasons for illness, but by focusing on human need.
There are people around us whose needs are so familiar to us, that we now ignore them.
They were born blind, we say, and that is that.
Jesus, however, refuses to walk past them, just as Jesus refuses to walk past each one of us.
Jesus wants to touch each one of us with sight, whether we’re blind or sighted, Pharisee or disciple, we’re all an opportunity for Jesus to reveal light in utter and elegant simplicity.
Let Jesus touch our eyes today; and we will see the Light of the World.
 
Who among us has not experienced spiritual blindness in one form or another?
When we put ourselves before others, when we hold grudges and refuse to forgive others, when we do what’s easy instead of what’s right, we’re blind.
 
Blindness affects us not only as individuals, but as communities as well.
Economic, social and political systems often turn a blind eye to the poor, the outcast and the marginalised in every corner of the world.
 
Who among us has not experienced suffering at one point or another?
Depression, anxiety, abuse, neglect, broken relationships, illness, lost jobs, fear – the list goes on.
Our communities are plagued with natural disasters, terrorism and national tragedies – no-one’s immune.
 
Of course, there are those who’ll attempt to lull us into believing that faith not only brings an end to suffering and blindness, but also makes our hurts and pains disappear - the truth is that this simply isn’t so.
Even after the blind man received his sight, he was still faced with the rejection of his friends and family.
Suffering is painful and grief is awful – even horrifying, but it’s an inescapable part of our humanity.
 
The powerful and life-giving truth of the gospel is that our suffering and grief will not have the last word. As our souls and bodies desperately cry out for relief, we hear the faint yet clear voice of the risen Christ calling us; reminding us that, through his time on the cross, death and its trappings were swallowed up.
 
The final word rests, not with suffering and blindness, but with life and peace.
Then we hear the most sublime words imaginable, we hear Jesus tell us to “Go, wash.”
And, as the cool and refreshing waters of God’s forgiveness wash over us, our eyes and our hearts are opened to behold the living Christ, standing as the chains of death and hell lay broken at his feet and our voices can cry out at last, “Lord! I believe!”

​Pastor Rick