Palm Sunday

Children’s Message

You Anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Today when someone visits your house and you’re happy to see them what do you. You greet them, maybe hug them, and make a nice dinner. Back during the time when David wrote this, you did some of the same things, but you also would have your servants wash their dirty feet (remember they would often be walking with their sandals through a dusty deserts) and then you would pour oil on their head. Now, I am happy that you’re all here. I have some oil here. Is there anyone here who would like me to anoint his or head with oil What do you think? Do you think this is the oil they used? No it wasn’t. They oil they used wasn’t petroleum that comes out of the ground. The oil was probably olive oil. It often had incense or perfume in it. It smelled nice. I have here in this little bottle. Would you like to smell? My guess that people probably got sweaty and stinky back then and this was a way of helping them smell nice…kind of like what deodorant or perfume does for us today. But mostly it was just a way blessing your guests and showing them that you were really happy they came.

The Bible writers, like David kind of pick up on that idea. And they use oil as a picture of how God blesses his people. Olive oil was precious in those days and had a lot uses. And oil mixed with incense could be very expensive. And so when these writers pictured a host pouring oil on his guests, they wanted to show how God pours out his blessing on us.

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 Sermon:

Now you might wonder what all this has to do with Palm Sunday and Jesus riding in triumph into Jerusalem as the crowds shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David”

To understand that we must look at the second half of the verse in the context of the first half.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Especially think about those words IN THE PRESENCE OF MY ENEMIES. in so many Psalms there’s a conflict going on. If you have your Bibles open, take a look for example at Psalm 42. Look at verses 5 and following,

⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and ⁶my God.

My^„T soul is downcast within me;

therefore I will remember you

from the land of the Jordan,

the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

⁷ Deep calls to deep

in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me.

⁸ By day the LORD directs his love,

at night his song is with me—

a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹ I say to God my Rock,

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning?

oppressed by the enemy?

Do you see the conflict? On one hand the Psalmist realizes God’s blessings. But on the other hand, there are these persistent enemies that keep causing him problems. Certainly, the Psalmist David when he thought of enemies must have thought about all those years that he was fleeing from King Saul or about some of his other enemies who threatened including his own sons Absalom and Adonijah. Later, as the God’s Old Testament people Israel sang this Psalm in worship they were thinking about their own enemies: those nations around them that attacked and oppressed them.

We also have enemies don’t we? On my shelf I have several books by the late Lewis Smedes, who was Christian Reformed minister who taught at Fuller Seminary in California. Among them is book is called Standing on the Promises. It’s a wonderful comforting book that explains the promises of God. But, this same man who wrote such comforting words in a later, in his spiritual autobiography, My God and I, admits that for much of his life he was under medication for depression. In spite of all the blessing and promises of God there was this enemy, depression that stalked him his entire life. Some of us here this morning might be suffering from that enemy or maybe from another mental or physical illness. Some of us here struggle with addictions. Maybe some of you kids struggle with bullies at school or maybe just with trying to be accepted by others. Some of us struggle with a painful past. Some with sin and guilt. Some with family members and relationships. Yes, we thank God for his blessings to us, but as we do we acknowledge that enemies surround us and our struggles with them sometimes make us unable to enjoy these blessings.

And that’s the context that will help us understand the shouting crowds on Palm Sunday. In many ways the people in crowd that welcomed Jesus knew the love and blessings of God. Yet, even as a blessed people, they faced a terrible enemy who oppressed them.. We’ve talked about that enemy before. Can any the children here help us out? Who was the enemy that oppressed the Jewish people during Jesus’ time? The Romans. They were a conquered people. They were under the Caesar in Rome and his cruel governor in Caesarea No matter how good their crops were or how much they made; they always had to pay taxes to him.

But now the people were excited. Many years before God through his prophet promised to send a Messiah, a king who came from David’s family who would conquer their enemies and set them free. In fact, one of those prophecies is quoted in the scripture we read from Matthew 21,

“Say to the Daughter of Zion,

‘See, your king comes to you,

gentle and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey

And now at long last their king had come. Here was a man who could open the eyes of the blinds, feed 5000 with a five loaves of bread and a couple of fish, and even bring the dead to life. Here was a man who could take care of all their enemies, including these Romans. And so as he rode into Jerusalem the people celebrated.

Of course, we know what these people did not. We know the rest of the story. We know how this king conquered. Not with an army—with swords and spears and soldiers, but by offering himself on the cross for the sins of his people. We know what the Jews back then did not: that their real enemy was not the Romans, but their own sin and rebellion. It was their sin that caused the Lord to send the Romans to conquer them. The prophets had also been clear on that fact, but they simply ignored that part of the message. And we also know that it is our sin that is responsible for the enemies that stalk us. No, it’s not necessarily a specific sin that causes a specific enemy—though sometimes that may be the case. But, all of our sins are responsible. It is because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God that these enemies attack us. That’s why there is mental and physical illness, that’s why there are bullies, that’s why there is injustice and poverty, that’s why there’s violence, that why there’s death in our world. The Bible tells us that our sin and rebellion caused these problem.

And we know that Jesus conquered the reason enemies exist by paying for our sins through his sacrifice on the cross. In the words of 1 John 2:2,

²He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for^„T the sins of the whole world.

We know all of those things. But, yet as we acknowledged, we still struggle with enemies. Sickness, death, bullies, injustice, all those enemies and more are still present. So what really has changed? That’s where Ephesians 4 comes in.

⁷But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ⁸This is why it^„T says:

“When he ascended on high,

he led captives in his train

Remember several years ago in 2003 when Baghdad was liberated by coalition forces—how the people in the streets celebrated being free from their awful dictator Sadam Hussein. No matter what you’re feelings were as towards our involvement there, those were exciting happy pictures that we saw on our TV’s. That’s the picture here of what Jesus did. He freed us who were captives to Satan and sin. Now concerning Iraq we also know the rest of the story. We know how all of this excitement was soon eclipsed by the continued warfare and violence of the last 4 years. According to a recent news report people in one neighborhood are so afraid to leave their homes that they choose by lot on person in neighborhood to do all the shopping for everyone else. Each day it’s a different person. That way only one person is risking his/her life and rest can stay home. But, that really makes their home a prison that they are afraid to leave. And some of the people there feel more enslaved than they did before.

Not so with those whom Jesus has freed. As Jesus himself said in John 8: 38,

⁶So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

But what does this mean? How are we set free from our enemies, when in some cases our enemies are still here? I think a good example of this can be seen in the way by comparing the way Christian Jews and non Christians Jews dealt with the Romans. Non Christian Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah continued to battle against Rome, until in 70 AD Jerusalem was destroyed and they were scattered. Christian Jews, who knew Christ had set them free, didn’t worry about Rome. Instead they determined to serve their Lord Jesus no matter what the Romans did to them. And what’s more they called on their Romans oppressors to serve him too. In Acts 28: 31, the very last verse in Acts we read, ¹Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ. And members of Caesars’ own house began to serve King Jesus. And the kingdom kept spreading until finally a Roman emperor by the name of Constantine also knelt before Jesus.

And that is still going today. Recently I heard this story in a sermon by Joe Stowell, former president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago,

As many of us already know, In the southern half of the nation of Sudan, Christians are being persecuted by Muslim extremist terrorists. People have literally being crucified in village squares in mockery of the Lord Jesus. They are being loaded onto flatbed trucks and driven into the desert without water or food, left to die. Christian parents have been killed and their children kidnapped and sold as slaves to be raised in Muslim families where they would no long hear the truth about Jesus. One time about 40 of these children were standing in the town square. The mullah of mosque came out with a bullhorn and ordered them to bow to Allah and repeat a prayer of conversion after him. All of the children except on one: a boy of eight or nine The mullah became angry and said to boy. You bow down. I told you to bow and pray. If you don’t I will kill you.

The boy said, “I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I cannot bow down.”

The mullah motioned to one of the terrorist guards who immediately shot him dead. But as the boy fell, eight others children stood up. Four more were murdered. And finally in anger the mullah screamed, “You’re not worthy of death. Sell them all into slavery.”

Those murdered knew that the worst that could happen to them was physical death. And then they would be with Jesus. The enemy no longer had power over them. The captives were freed. Even in slavery they are free. And who knows whether all this will bring more enemies kneeling before the King of Kings.

By now some may be thinking. Interesting story, but what about me. What about the enemy that still seems to hold me a slave. What message is there for me today as I face my enemies?

Beloved in the Lord that’s the reason for the second part of this verse

and gave gifts to men.

The greatest gift he gives is the gift of his Holy Spirit. Jesus has ascended to the Father, so that he could pour out his Spirit on us. His Spirit, the presence of God himself in our hearts, which has allowed some to be apostles—eyewitnesses who wrote the words of the New Testament. Some to be prophets who preach these words of God to us. Some to be evangelists who spread the good news of the kingdom. Some to be pastors who help guide us in the faith, some to be teachers who train us to serve our king. And the same Spirit who fills these leaders also fills each of us. For the king has promised,

“¹⁶And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ¹⁸I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Certainly, we know and believe that someday our king will return on the clouds of glory. And on that day our enemies will be destroyed forever. But, even today our enemies need not hold us captive. For Christ has set us free. Our King reigns on high. No problem, no illness, no bully, no power of hell itself can control our lives, if we believe this. Even if we struggle to believe, the good news is that he hasn’t abandoned us to work through our doubts and fears on our own.. For he has sent his Holy Spirit to us to convince us that no matter what happens this is true. No matter what enemy stalks us we can truly say, Free at last, Free at last. Praise God almighty. I'm free at last. And saying that we can know blessings that no enemy can take away. AMEN!