Sunday Worship 13 April 2025 – Palm Sunday
Today’s service is led by the Revd Dr Susan Durber
Introduction
Hello, I’m Susan Durber, and I greet you on Palm Sunday from my home in West Wales. I serve as one of the eight Presidents of the World Council of Churches and so I also bring you greetings from the 352 member churches from all over the world. This year the calendars of the churches are aligned so that we are celebrating Holy Week and Easter together: Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Reformed. May we all know the joy of the gospel together!
Call to Worship
Like the crowds so long ago we will praise God joyfully, saying
Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
If these disciples were silent the stones would shout aloud.
Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hymn All Glory, Laud and Honour
Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans (c. 820) J. M. Neale (1854) Public Domain. 500 Mass Voice Choir recorded live at St Andrew’s Kirk, Chennai, India & used with their kind permission.
All glory, laud, and honour, to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring!
You are the King of Israel, great David’s royal Son,
who in the Lord’s name coming, our king and blessèd One.
All glory, laud, and honour, to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring!
The company of angels is praising Thee on high,
while we and all creation together make reply.
All glory, laud, and honour, to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring!
The people of the Hebrews with palms before Thee went;
our praise & prayer & anthems before Thee we present.
All glory, laud, and honour, to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring!
To Thee before Thy Passion they sang their hymns of praise;
to Thee, now high exalted, our melody we raise.
All glory, laud, and honour, to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring!
Thou didst accept their praises; accept the prayers we bring,
who in all good delightest, Thou good and gracious King:
All glory, laud, and honour, to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring!
Prayers of Praise and Confession
Lord Jesus, on this day the people went out with palms to meet you,
and we meet you now with our prayers and our praise.
Blessed are you, for you come to us in God’s name!
Blessed are you, for you inspire the deepest joy within us!
Blessed are you, for the whole company of angels
and all creation sings your praise!
With the children who praised you on Palm Sunday,
with all who cried Hosanna, with the crowds who welcomed you
and with those who danced beside you, we offer today our joyful praise!
We offer too our prayer of confession.
We live in world suspicious of joy, where violence too often breaks out
and in which truth can be stifled by lies.
We confess that our communities do not always welcome strangers,
provide safety for children, or peace for all the people.
We are sorry for our own sins
and for the sinfulness of the world in which we share.
We ask your forgiveness,
we hope for the grace to forgive those who sin against us,
and for the courage to forgive ourselves so that we can begin again.
Christ, who entered the city in peace and in joy,
bring your peace to us that forgiven and free,
we may cry Hosanna with a pure heart.
In your name we pray, Amen.
Jesus came to welcome and to forgive, to bring new life and the joy of the Kingdom. Let us receive these holy gifts with gladness! Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
A Prayer Before the Readings
God, open us to the Holy Spirit, that we may hear your Word,
open our hearts to receive it and learn to live it in our daily lives,
today and always, Amen.
Reading Philippians 2: 5-11
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.
Therefore, God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Reading St Luke 19:28-40
After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.” ’ So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’
Hymn Make Way, Make Way!
Graham Kendrick © 1986 Thankyou Music OneLicence A-734713 Frodsham Methodist Church Cloud Choir. Accompanied by Andrew Ellams & produced by Andrew Emison
Make way, make way for Christ the King in splendour arrives.
Fling wide the gates and welcome Him into your lives
Make way! (Make way!) Make way! (Make way!)
For the King of kings. (For the King of kings.)
Make way! (Make way!) Make way! (Make way!)
And let His kingdom in.
He comes the broken hearts to heal the prisoners to free.
The deaf shall hear, the lame shall dance, the blind shall see.
Make way! (Make way!) Make way! (Make way!)
For the King of kings. (For the King of kings.)
Make way! (Make way!) Make way! (Make way!)
And let His kingdom in.
And those who mourn with heavy hearts who weep and sigh,
with laughter, joy and royal crown He’ll beautify.
Make way! (Make way!) Make way! (Make way!)
For the King of kings. (For the King of kings.)
Make way! (Make way!) Make way! (Make way!)
And let His kingdom in.
We call you now to worship Him as Lord of all;
to have no gods before Him – their thrones must fall!
Make way! (Make way!) Make way! (Make way!)
For the King of kings. (For the King of kings.)
Make way! (Make way!) Make way! (Make way!)
And let His kingdom in.
Sermon
There was one time, some years ago, when I bunked off the afternoon part of a Synod meeting to go to the circus with my daughter.
As the men from Latin America toppled on the high wire, we gasped in horror. We ducked as the clowns looked to be throwing water at us. We admired the costumes and peered through the dry ice at the woman who swung from a silver moon held by vast billowing white curtains… There was colour and life and skill. There was movement, pzazz and music. The circus people came up to us and touched us and laughed at us and got us to laugh at them. They were gaudy and over the top and out of this world and it was great… I was transported … just as my father must have been when he joined a circus aged 15. It did me good, for a moment, to stop being serious and enjoy myself.
People take Palm Sunday very seriously. The scholars, generally very serious people, debate what kind of procession this was. Solemn guides in present-day Jerusalem point out the very gate – the one now bricked up that you can see from the Mount of Olives – and they tell you that this is the one through which it was always foretold that the Messiah would come. Weary pilgrims peer through the heat haze and imagine the man on the donkey and the crowds of children waving palms. Or some of the scholars tell us that this was a political demonstration. Here was Jesus declaring his hand, showing the powers of Rome that he was out to challenge them and that he had support among the people. They talk of Jesus as a kind of Che Guevara – and we imagine the disciples as earnest apparatchiks, framing slogans, making strategy and setting objectives – the Peoples Popular Front of Judea. Or people talk of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as more religious than that, part of his devotion to God, his taking part in the Passover celebrations. They imagine him travelling slowly and reflectively, in silence, reverently and with dignity.
But I wonder whether perhaps the Palm Sunday procession was not so much like a political protest (which would be very serious) or a religious pilgrimage with quiet voices and solemn faces (serious in a different way), but more like a carnival, a circus parade – a colourful procession of the beautiful and the grotesque, with children waving and people dancing and singing and laughing and tumbling in the streets. A circus, full of laughter and colour and life, is not trivial, but expresses some things that sober councils and dignified piety and earnest politics sometimes miss. Circuses include those who are not conventional, those who can’t get into other kinds of events. Circuses show you what you never thought human beings could do. Circuses take in all sorts of bad, beautiful and battered people… and they parody the powerful and they get the weak up and dancing. A carnival parade, from ancient times and modern days, has always been about the kind of joy that refuses to lie down, even when times are bad and when people are worse…
Carnivals are a popular kind of movement, run not by the ruling powers, but by the people. Anyone can ride with the circus, even and especially those who are usually excluded from more proper events. Those with bodies which are imperfect. Those who are poor. The unusual, the despised and the often rejected as well as the too, too colourful – the camp and the over the top. And this is where Jesus belongs. So how about thinking of Palm Sunday as the carnival procession of Jesus – whether you think of Notting Hill or Rio de Janeiro – Jesus the tumbling clown who yet has a tear painted on his face as he weeps over Jerusalem – Jesus the clown whose feet in their overlarge shoes already bear the print of nails and whose hands, so skilled at juggling, already begin to bleed. And the palm branches are the dazzling streamers or the batons of the joyful majorettes who welcome Jesus into the city – and who just don’t care what the serious and sophisticated people think…
There is a wonderful kind of defiant joy about a circus parade or a carnival – as people dance proudly down the street strutting their stuff. Jesus’ followers were a right parade when you think of it; fast women, those with twisted bodies, the poor and the dirty, collaborators, tiny little Zacchaeus – a strange crew of the down and out in Jerusalem. Jesus and his followers must have known at some level that they were on the losing side. And Jesus had spoken often enough about how being with him was going to be about losing your life before you gained it. But even so, even so, they decided to parade into the city with their heads up, shouting Hosanna anyway because, losers and oddballs they might be, they knew that God was truly with them.
Jesus belongs with the ones who come into their own on carnival day. As well as the clown with the tear, he is the one whose trousers do not fit and whose features are not even. He sits not with the powerful, but tumbles onto the colourful streets with the children who shout Hosanna – and who forget that you’re not supposed to make a noise. Remember that Jesus told the story of the banquet that the invited ones wouldn’t come to – and so all the drop outs and undesirables get to go instead, in a gorgeous celebration of human life.
Who knows what the long-term future is for the ways of faith we’ve long treasured? But we don’t have to be on the up to be rejoicing, because the joy that Christians share does not depend on conventional success or winning. It’s more like the circus style rejoicing that, however weird things look, or however much we may be on the outside of things, God is with us. We can be all that we are and proudly, and shout Hosanna! and Praise the Lord! while we’ve breath in our bodies and a song to sing.
Palm Sunday helps us to celebrate the joy that refuses to be beaten down, the joy that seems to belong to the most broken, the joy that belongs to Jesus. It’s a kind of protest joy – that says – ‘I know things look bad for us and all sorts of people’ but we are going to refuse to be victims.. we’re going to defy the odds and rejoice anyway.. come what may.
I’ve known lots of people in my life who really know how to rejoice, even when, if you were really being serious, you wouldn’t think of it. I used to visit a woman who lived in a tower block on the 10th floor – the lift smelling of pee and the damp lifting the wallpaper off the concrete walls. ‘Come on in’, she would say to me, ‘and look at my wonderful view!’ We smiled together as we lifted our eyes to the hills. I once knew a little girl of six who had to be fed by a tube and who needed every possible help at school, but who loved nothing more than to dance for joy. I have known Christian women from Zambia who knew how to laugh and feast even when there was so much poverty and death, and when there were only peanuts with which to make a feast. I have known a saintly woman who was caring for her very sick husband but who could only say, ‘We have so many reasons to be thankful’. I once sat with a woman who had not much time to live and we watched the Vicar of Dibley together and laughed until our sides ached..
And I remember the story of a Jewish woman called Etty who lived in Amsterdam, who, even in a camp waiting to go to Auschwitz, could notice the redness of the flowers by the fence and who refused to let suffering consume her. She worked hard to help others who were suffering, but she also had a particular way of fighting suffering. She refused to let it win. She protested against it with her determination to go on believing that ‘life is beautiful’. For her, suffering was always being assailed by contrary powers, by beauty and joy. She believed that writers, artists, and lovers were there to guard the sacred from being locked away by suffering. While some have argued that you can’t write poetry in Auschwitz, Etty Hillesum would say that you must write poetry in such places – because it is creative resistance, it is a refusal to let the dark extinguish the light. Life is beautiful..
The Palm Sunday parade was perhaps a kind of creative resistance.. a last hurrah before Holy Week –a determination that joy should be the note we sing .. whatever comes. Palm Sunday may be the beginning of the week of suffering, a week in which the sun will be made dark and the earth will crack, a week of passion and pain. And this is how life is. We know this. But we don’t have to let it win. We will celebrate and protest and be joyful, no matter what. We will tumble in the streets and celebrate with singing and invite anyone to join us, and rejoice.
I wonder how well you know Paul’s letter to the Philippians. He wrote it from a Roman prison and he probably thought his time was up. But the letter is so full of joy. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice’ he says – from a stinking, cold, damp cell in the corner of an Empire that he knew was not God’s Kingdom. Joy was his protest and his statement of faith.
Joy is what is real. Hosanna is the song we shall sing. So, sing it now and live it now, even as the darkness deepens and the hammers fall upon the nails. Do not let the darkness win, but defy it with joy – like the bright colours of the circus in the grey light of winter, like the sounds of women laughing in the cold streets, like crosses from El Salvador in bright primary colours, like the cries of children shouting Hosanna to greet the preacher from Nazareth, who would save us all. Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Amen.
Hymn Lord of the Dance
Sydney Carter © 1963, Stainer & Bell, Ltd, (admin. by Hope Publishing Co.) OneLicence A-734713 Sung by members of Peninsula United Church, South Surrey & White Rock, Canada
I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
and I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
and I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth,
at Bethlehem I had my birth.
“Dance, then, wherever you may be; I am the Lord of the Dance,” said he.
“I’ll lead you all wherever you may be, I will lead you all in the Dance,” said he.
I danced for the scribe and the Pharisee,
but they would not dance and they wouldn’t follow me;
I danced for the fishermen, for James and for John;
they came with me and the dance went on.
“Dance, then, wherever you may be; I am the Lord of the Dance,” said he.
“I’ll lead you all wherever you may be, I will lead you all in the Dance,” said he.
I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame,
the holy people, they said it was a shame;
they whipped and they stripped and they hung me high,
and they left me there on a cross to die.
“Dance, then, wherever you may be; I am the Lord of the Dance,” said he.
“I’ll lead you all wherever you may be, I will lead you all in the Dance,” said he.
I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black;
it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back;
they buried my body and they thought I’d gone,
but I am the dance and I still go on.
“Dance, then, wherever you may be; I am the Lord of the Dance,” said he.
“I’ll lead you all wherever you may be, I will lead you all in the Dance,” said he.
They cut me down and I leapt up high,
I am the life that’ll never, never die,
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;
“I am the Lord of the Dance,” said he.
“Dance, then, wherever you may be; I am the Lord of the Dance,” said he.
“I’ll lead you all wherever you may be, I will lead you all in the Dance,” said he.
Affirmation of Faith
This is the gate of the Lord; those who are righteous may enter.
I will give thanks to you, for you answered me,
and have become my salvation.
The same stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.
On this day the Lord has acted; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Hosanna Lord, hosanna! Lord, send us now success.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord;
We bless you from the house of the Lord.
God is the Lord; he has shined upon us;
form a procession with branches up to the horns of the altar.
You are my God, and I will thank you; You are my God and I will exalt you.
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; His mercy endures for ever.
Offering
Let us now receive the offerings of us all and offer our lives to God.
O God, who offers us the gift of joy,
we offer to you our lives and all we have,
that we may be bearers of joy to each other
and to your beloved world,
in the name of your Son,
who was received with joy, as he entered the city on this day.
Prayer over the Crosses
O God, may these crosses be signs of good news for us this week,
and bring blessing to our homes and our lives.
Let them reveal to us the joy of Palm Sunday,
remind us of the mystery of the cross,
and lead us on to the celebration of Easter,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Hymn My Song is Love Unknown
Samuel Crossman (1664) Public Domain sung by the choir of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney, Australia and used with their kind permission.
My song is love unknown–
my Saviour’s love to me;
love to the loveless shown,
that they might lovely be.
Oh, who am I, that for my sake
my Lord should take frail flesh and die?
He came from His blest throne
salvation to bestow;
but folk made strange,
and none the longed for Christ would know.
But oh, my Friend, my Friend indeed,
who at my need His life did spend!
Sometimes they strew His way,
and His sweet praises sing;
resounding all the day
hosannas to their King.
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
and for His death they thirst & cry.
They rise, and needs will have
my dear Lord made away.
A murderer they save;
the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet cheerful He to suff’ring goes,
that He His foes from thence might free.
In life, no house, no home
my Lord on earth might have;
in death, no friendly tomb
but what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav’n was His home;
but mine the tomb
wherein He lay.
Here might I stay and sing –
no story so divine!
Never was love, dear King,
never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession
O God, we thank you for the joy,
deeper than any sorrow,
which you bring to us and with which you bless us.
Help us to find this joy and to live it
as a blessing for the world.
May there be times for all of us when we can let go of the things
that bind us to sorrow and fear,
so that we can praise you and let our hearts may dance.
Let us be bearers of true joy to the world.
We pray for those who are sad or suffering.
We pray for those for whom depression or anxiety
brings a denial of joy, that they may find healing and release.
We pray for those made sad by loss and death,
that they may grieve honestly and freely
and find even in grief true comfort and hope.
We pray for those saddened by disappointment,
by betrayal, or by the failure of something important to them.
May they find healing and hope again.
We pray for all who are ill, and who for those who love them,
for those who have heard fearful news from the doctor
or who worry about their own state of mind.
Bring them peace and the certain comfort of love.
We pray for places scourged by violence and war,
for lands where there is poverty and hunger,
for the powerless, and for nations where hubris and wealth
bring blindness to the needs of others.
O Christ, who entered the city in peace and was greeted with joy,
bring your peace and your joy to our world
and to your Church, this day and every day.
Silence…
O God,
hear our prayers, spoken and offered in silence.
Show us where we may begin to answer them ourselves
or persuade others to answer them.
And where we can do little, help us to trust in your unfailing love.
In Christ’s name, Amen.
Hymn Ride On, Ride On in Majesty
Henry Hart Milman (1827) Public Domain Sung by the choir of St Michael and All Angels, Bassett and used with their kind permission.
Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Hark all the tribes hosanna cry;
O Saviour meek, pursue Thy road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.
Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die:
O Christ, Thy triumphs now begin
o’er captive death and conquered sin.
Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The wingéd squadrons of the sky
look down with sad and wond’ring eyes
to see th’approaching sacrifice.
Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The last and fiercest strife is nigh.
The Father on His sapphire throne
awaits His own anointed Son.
Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die,
bow Thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, Thy pow’r and reign.
Dismissal and Blessing
May the Christ who came to the city
and who provoked a carnival of hosannas
come to your heart, your life,
this church and our world,
to bring joy and hope.
And the blessing of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
be with you this Palm Sunday and always. Amen.