Bible Wonders - Palm Sunday The Powerful Play Goes On And You May Contribute A Verse

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises, but the stars never fall?

Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough? Enough. to kind of do a combination of where God has brought me over the last weekend and with what happened at the boot camp slash that I got a chance to preach on Palm Sunday and he put this together for me in such a package that I thought it would be fun to share it. Maybe throughout Holy Week here we'll just stick with Holy Week subjects. So today I was just going to take a 40,000 foot view of Palm Sunday because Palm Sunday, if you look at it, is a big part of the powerful play that goes on. And so as we got to do this advanced boot camp, we got to teach things that we really had never taught before. And one of mine was the lover stage of the masculine journey. And as a young man turns to a certain age, he becomes both a warrior and a poet at the same time, that he goes from this cowboy ranger kind of phase of a very young man to a teenager that begins to awaken to the lover and awaken to the warrior, and then trying to figure out what battles you should fight and all those kind of things. But don't you think it's fascinating, and I do, that springtime is a time of love and war. And isn't that always what is attacked as the fruitfulness, right? And you think about when King David said, you know what it said when King David was tempted by Bathsheba at a time in the spring when when kings go out for war. And clearly when you think about it, the greatest battle ever fought happened this time of year. And it started, the battle really was a foot starting on Palm Sunday, and that battle continues every spring since. And really when you think about it, that battle started at the Exodus, was certainly in the exact same time a year as that was the time of the Passover.

And so perhaps, you know, when we look at other ones, maybe Isaac, you know, taking his trip up to Mount Moriah, maybe that was in the spring as well, I haven't studied that, but that would be an interesting to note. But there's no doubt that in each case, here was this tremendous time of war that happened exactly at this time of love. And what a great love story we live in that's set in the midst of a great battle. And I love in the Song of Solomon, you know, it says, the time of the singing birds has come, the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. And it is in those verses there in the second chapter where he talks about my love in the clefts of the rock, let me see thy voice.

I mean, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, those kind of things. Again, love is connected with battle in so many different ways. And so as we talk about a few of these ideas here in the Palm Sunday, I thought it would be good to share from the lover stage of the masculine journey as we taught about that, that every man, obviously when he was that age, was hopefully his father would sit him down and begin to teach him that God is going to pursue him as a lover and to emulate God's heart and learning that to love is to give, right, like Jesus gave his life, but also to love is to learn. If you think about that date that you went on, you were savoring, right, as your wife sat across from you at that first meeting that you guys began to get to know each other and get to be intimate to where you heard each other's story and you were a learner because lovers are learners. That's why when you came home your mom always had a thousand questions for you because she was loving you, right, and lovers are learners and that's why the Bible is so precious. But why it's so important that as we get this stage of the masculine journey we begin to savor words and language, okay? And so there's this wonderful clip from A Dead Poet Society as young men are learning about poetry and beauty and art that Robin Williams taught on this subject so much better than I could so I'm going to just play that clip and then we'll come back and talk about how we can savor some of the words and language on Palm Sunday because Palm Sunday is an explanation of the powerful play does go on. I see that look in Mr. Pitt's eye like 19th century literature has nothing to do with going to business school or medical school, right? Maybe. Mr. Hopkins you may agree with him thinking yes we should simply study our Mr. Pritchard and learn our rhyme and meter and go quietly about the business of achieving other ambitions. I have a little secret for you huddle up huddle up. We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race and the human race is filled with passion and medicine law business engineering these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life but poetry beauty romance love these are what we stay alive for to quote from Whitman oh me oh life of the questions of these recurring of the endless trains of the faithless of cities filled with the foolish what good amid these oh me oh life answer that you are here that life exists and identity that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse what will your verse be so the powerful play does go on and it shows you know in the larger story that is so evident on palm sunday and and i wanted to take that 20 000 foot view of of the events we're going to dig into them deeper as we go through this week but essentially um and i'll put it in the show notes so we're going to be talking about genesis 49 and specifically verse 10 that's eyes i mean um that's Jacob's blessing of Judah which is very much has what you'll see has everything to do with palm sunday but it also has to do with the powerful play going on by all means in Leviticus 23 40 definitely has everything to do with palm sunday and the powerful play going on and of course matthew 21 is the triumphal entry and clearly we're going to be looking at that as we go through this in revelation 7 9 which is obviously where we know you know that things are coming to fruition and so when you go back and you look at genesis 49 which is really the only one we're going to talk about today i'm just giving you the overview to saying oh guess what if we're going all the way to revelation from genesis you can see the whole story has to do with palm sunday it really does because it's good just to give you the overall idea is palm sunday is a representative more of the feast of tabernacles than it is of easter or passover okay and and of course it's all part of the same story but again when we finally tabernacle with the lord in revelation right you're going to see that these palm branches show up again so and everything to do with it so when you look at genesis 49 10 and you look at the blessing that that that uh that jacob would give to judah here's what it says the scepter shall not depart from judah nor the lawgiver from between his feet until shiloh come and unto him shall the gathering of the people be binding his foal under the vine and his asses cold under the choice vine he was washed he washed his garments in wine his clothes in the blood of grapes his eyes shall be red with wine and his teeth white with milk so you see the donkey story why they had to stop in bethphage and which we're going to get into all that and then we're going to get into all these donkeys but all this has to do with that in genesis and oh by the way when it comes to donkeys it starts way earlier than then jacob's blessing it actually starts when abraham takes isaac on a donkey right up to mount mariah and later you're going to see a donkey as moses puts his wife and children on a donkey in exodus in other words similar themes that that go on throughout the scripture that all point to the idea that right the powerful play goes on and so as we savor words and language as we become lovers of god we want to understand the story we want to understand his heart more and in doing so right we get this vision of oh my goodness we get to contribute a verse the powerful play is going to come go on and he is going to return and what great hope there is in all that thanks so much for listening i do i do