Sermon Recap: Palm Sunday
Speaker: Pastor Carey Tanzola
Read: Matthew 27:55; Luke 19:41-44, 22:39-42, 23:34,55; John 12:8-19, 23-26, 15:18
The week leading to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, known as the Holy Week, is filled with uncertainties, unmet expectations and paradoxes. One would think that His disciples, of all people, would understand His mission, yet when He foretold of His pending death several times, they were uncertain of His meaning and failed to fully understand. He predicted it when Mary anointed His feet at a dinner party, when he entered Jerusalem and wept for the city, and again as nonbelievers requested to see Him and He spoke of the need for a kernel off wheat to die to produce many seeds. People laid palm branches along the roadside and shouted praises as He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey but they failed to grasp that that He was announcing Himself as the Messiah. Many of the same people would later shout for Him to be crucified.
Jesus had indeed come to establish His Kingdom, but it was an upside-down kingdom. They expected Him to save their nation, but He had come to save souls and to offer eternal life. They sought to preserve life, but He taught that life comes through death. He washed His disciples’ feet illustrating that greatness is in servanthood and not status. He advised that suffering would come but would lead to joy. He demonstrated how embracing surrender would lead to a resurrected life, and He extended the mantel of the perfect relationship of the Father and Son to those who would believe in Him and choose to serve Him.
GROUP QUESTIONS:
1. What resonated with you as you listened to this sermon and reviewed it?
2. Read John 12:9-11. Why do you think large crowds followed Jesus? Why do you think the chief priests made plans to kill Jesus and Lazarus?
3. A paradox is a contradicting statement, such as “to live, one must die.” Read John 12:23-26. What is the paradox in this Scripture?
4. Why do you think some of the people who laid palm branches in the road and shouted praises to Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem were some of the same people who later shouted for Him to be crucified?
5. It was said that God can do more with our surrender than He ever can with our control. What does this mean to you? In what ways have you experienced surrender in your life?
6. Share a time in your life when you expected God to work in a certain way and He did something different. How did you respond to your expectations not being met?
7. It was said that the mantel has been passed and the perfect relationship of The Father and Son is now extended to believers. What does this mean to you?
