A way to live a mission in your church and its outreach:
As a church member, work peacefully with others, do not try to over-power them.
Based on Mark 11:1-11
A way to live a mission in your church and its outreach based on Mark 11:1-11, a reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the sixth Sunday in Lent, 3/25/18.
As Jesus nears Jerusalem, he sends two of his disciples ahead and instructs them to go to a village they are approaching. They will find a colt that no one has ridden tied to a tree (a ceremonial practice is to use for sacred purposes what had never been used for secular purposes). They are to take it and, if asked why, they are instructed to say, “The Lord needs it and will send it back.” They find the colt, untie it, and when challenged, they answer as Jesus had instructed them and they are allowed to take it. The disciples make a saddle out of their cloaks and Jesus sits on it. [Mark and his readers recall Zechariah’s prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 in which the Messiah comes riding into Jerusalem on a colt, the foal of a donkey; not on a war horse for he is a king of peace, not war.]
People on the way throw their own cloaks and branches from the field before Jesus as he rides along (a way to honor important people). The crowd ahead of him shouts, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” [Hosanna means “Hail!” David is the great king of 1000 BC whom they see returning in Jesus.]
A theme: Jesus comes as a peacemaker, not as a king of war and conquest.
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