Happy Palm Sunday

    Greetings in the name of our Lord and King, and Blessed is His name! Hosanna!  Happy Palm Sunday, I hope you got to sing some joyful praises to the Lord this morning.  Not only did we get to sing some awesome hymns, we got to hear the Sunday School kids sing and from the mouth of children came some beautiful hosannas.
    I apologize that it has been quite a while since I posted anything on here.  Lent has been busy, but also has been super amazing.  I am very thankful to be in team ministry, and have a ton of respect out there for sole pastors who are currently writing two sermons every week.  I am not taking any credit myself, but the Spirit has really inspired me with some good sermons lately.  I got to preach a really fun one last Wednesday.  It was fun because I got to bring some of my Iowa, farm boy roots to the pulpit.  I will include my sermon all about corn in this post.
    I am excited for holy week and to get to celebrate Easter for the first time here at Peace in Christ.  What a joy to not only preach the greatest news this earth has ever heard, but to celebrate that good news with so many wonderful people.
    There isn't much new news with the house.  We got through inspections and they fixed the two things I asked them to fix.  The appraisal was suppose to happen Friday so we will see how that comes out.  Then the last thing will be the septic inspection after the ground fully thaws out.  We don't close until May 5th, but I am excited to sign those papers, be handed a set of keys, and walk into the very first home I will own.  God has made this whole thing such a blessing for both parties.  I cannot thank Him enough for handing this gift to me and providing me with a wonderful home that I hope to call home for a long time.
     Other than that everything else is pretty awesome in my life.  I hope all is well with you as well.

Here is my sermon from March 16th.

Our Text for this evening comes from John 12 we hear verses 20 to 26.

“20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

This is our text. Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

      Our text this evening, actually takes place after Palm Sunday. Jesus has made His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and He and his disciples are in the midst of the busy city as everyone is getting ready for the celebration of Passover. And as they are in this busy city, a couple Greeks come up to Philip and say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Now this isn’t really that strange or unbelievable, because by now Jesus has quite the reputation. People have heard about his miracles, they have heard he raised Lazarus from the dead, and they heard He was welcomed into Jerusalem as a king just a few days ago. There is a lot of excitement in the air, and a good majority of it has to do with this Jesus person. So these foreigners who are only visiting Jerusalem for the holiday, do not want to miss their chance to meet this person they have heard so much about.
      Now, as you listen to how Jesus responds to Philip and Andrew as they bring these Greeks’ request to Him, you might feel disheartened. Jesus doesn’t even seem to acknowledge the request. Instead He seems to be completely changing the subject all together. Picture it, you are Philip and Andrew, you walk up to Jesus, “Lord, there are some Greek men asking to see you.” You stare at Him and wait for His response, and then all of a sudden, Jesus starts talking about wheat dying and growing. Soooooo, are you going to go see the Greeks or not??!! I can imagine Philip and Andrew’s confusion as they listen to Jesus’ response.
       However, as person who grew up in the heart of farmland, I think Jesus’s answer makes complete sense. In a very clever way, Jesus’ response of wheat does answer the Greek’s request. I am going to change the wheat Jesus speaks about to corn because that’s what I grew up with in Iowa. If someone who had never seen corn before, asked me to show them corn, I could dig out the bin of corn kernels I have in my old tractor box, and show them a handful of yellow kernels, that have been harvested and just individual kernels without the cob, husk, or stalk. However, if someone asked me to show them corn, I would rather drive them down to farm country in the fall. I would pull up to a brown, ripe, ready for harvest corn field. I would then “show” them CORN! I would explain to them how clear back in the spring, the farmer planted seed corn into the ground. Then how that seed corn began to germinate under the soil. Then a week or two later it sprouted into a tiny, fragile green stem and two leaves. As the summer went on, that tiny green plant grew taller and bigger. As it gets bigger, it will produce more leaves, the stock will get thicker, and it will get hardier as it is able to now withstand the wind, heat, rain, and dry spells. When it gets to be about six feet tall, it will produce tassels. Those tassels will produce pollen so that the next windy day, that pollen will fall off the tassels and land on the silk of the blooming ears. Then once the ears are pollinated, they begin to grow. The cob begins to grow, producing kernels all the way around the cob, all of it growing nicely in the green husks for protection. The ear will keep getting bigger and bigger until its full of hundreds and hundreds kernels. Then that ear begins to hang upside down, and that beautiful green and yellow corn field begins to dry out, turn pale, and eventually turn brown as it is now ready for harvest. Now the farmer gets to go in and harvest, with a combine these days, and cut that stock off, rip those ears off the stock, pull the husks back, and strip all those hundreds and hundreds of kernels off the cob. The kernels are collected in the bin, and everything else is thrown back out into the field. You see, this to me is CORN. The whole process, this miracle of how one seed corn being planted in the ground, turns into hundreds and hundreds of kernels ready to be harvested from that one seed. This is corn and to me it is beautiful. Most people who drive through the Midwest, think corn fields are boring. But to me, I love them, they are beautiful and amazing. I love living up here in Duluth, and the trees and the lakes are awesome, but I do miss my corn fields. Even after 27 years, I am still amazed at how the whole process works and works the same every year. This is the full awesomeness of corn that I would want to show you.
     And I believe this is exactly what Jesus is saying about Himself as he answers Philip and Andrew. Sure, Jesus could take five minutes to go meet those Greeks, shake their hands, call them by name, and they could see they had seen Jesus. But this would be like showing someone a handful of kernels and saying you showed them corn.
     Instead, Jesus’ answer to his disciples lets them know, He wants those Greeks to see His full power and full glory. The full glory of Jesus is the whole story, His whole narrative. His full glory includes a virgin who gave birth in a stall and laid that baby in a manger full of hay, surrounded by animals and shepherds and included angels singing on high. It includes everything He did that showed He had the authority of God, everything He said that showed He taught with authority. Every time He resisted the temptations of the devil so show He was perfect. The full glory of Jesus includes a donkey ride into a city shouting Hosanna. It includes an upper room with a table set for a special meal with twelve of his friends. It includes a garden where he would spend hours on his knees in the dirt as those twelve men slept. It includes palaces and courtrooms where he would be accused, questioned, beaten, mocked, and sentenced. The full glory of Jesus includes the blood, sweat, tears, the whips, ropes, nails, and a cross on that dark Friday. It includes a death like no other, a burial, and a stone rolled shut. However, it also includes an early morning sunrise that revealed the stone had been rolled away, it revealed that the tomb was empty except for a few folded linen clothes. It includes women carrying spices, and angels announcing the good news that Jesus is risen. It includes Him appearing to his disciples, eating with them, offering them peace, and promising to be with them until the end of the ages.
     Those Greeks wanted to see Jesus, and they would have been happy to simply see Jesus standing there in front of their eyes. But Jesus knows, His hour has come for His full glory to be seen. He wants to show the Greeks, His disciples, and everyone in Jerusalem His full glory, who He truly was, why He really came to live on this earth. It was to die, so that through that one death, he could offer life to so many. He came, His full glory was that in His one death, He has produced life for all those who believe in Him.
     You ask me to show you corn, I could show you the yellow kernels, but I would rather take you to Iowa for six months and show you the full beauty and miracle of corn. How that one seed became hundreds and hundreds of kernels. The Greeks asked to see Jesus, but Jesus wanted to show them His full glory. He wanted them to see what would happen in the next few days, see His full glory of how His one death on that cross, truly leads to life for so many including you and me. See how his answer about wheat/corn kind of makes sense.
     Now I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but this verse of the Greeks asking Philip is kind of a special verse here at Peace in Christ. I don’t know if you are aware or not, but this very verse is what Pastor Ludwig and myself see every time we get into this pulpit. Right here, is our reminder of why you are all here. Your very presence in the pews is you telling us the same thing these Greeks told Philip. As you sit there, looking to us as we walk into this pulpit, we know you are not here to see us, you are here because you too want to see Jesus. And we could put up a picture of Jesus on the screen, and read a few passages about Jesus from the Bible and say there, you got to see Jesus. Or, we can try to show you Jesus. We can try through the power of the Spirit, to show you the power, the full glory of Jesus. It is our goal every time we get in this pulpit to not just show you kernels, not to just show you Jesus but to show you show you His full glory. So we don’t point to a picture of Jesus, instead we point to the cross. Because this is truly where the full glory of Jesus is. This is where His one death produced life for all believers.
     You ask to see Jesus, don’t look to just see a bearded man, instead look in a manger, look to the cross, look to the empty tomb, look to the faith He has placed in your heart, look at the brothers and sisters he has placed beside you that make up the body of Christ, look at the His church still living and active two thousand years after Christ. You want to see Jesus, His answer is, look at the His full glory of how His one death truly is eternal life for so many including you and me and all believers. This is where we see Jesus. In His name, Amen.