"One Day..." | Rev. Dr. Donovan Drake | 03.29.26

"One Day..." | Rev. Dr. Donovan Drake | 03.29.26

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

From the Gospel of Matthew, hear the word of God. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest heaven. When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, Who is this? And the crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, and he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers. The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. Jesus said to them, Yes. Have you never read, out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise for yourself? He left them, went out to the city to Bethany, and spent the night there. This is the word of the Lord. He spent the night there. One day. Twenty-four hours, sunrise to sunset. What does a day mean to you? The value of a day seems to go up in price when you know your days are numbered. I know a woman who tells her husband what to do. He falls and then he crawls underneath the table. He gets on his back, puts his cell phone light on, and then unlocks the clip to the table. She pulls the table apart and she adds a leaf. No, she adds another leaf. She adds another leaf. The family is getting bigger. When the family arrives and is seated, and the grandbabies have already started eating, the woman stands and says to the faces around the table, I want you just to stop for a minute. I want you just to look at one another. I want you to give thanks to God. I want you, we mom, mom, we know, we know, we know. We're a gift. We're a gift from God. We know. Mom knows the value of a day. How do you do it? How do you know the value of this gift? One day. Twenty four hours. Sunrise to sunset. Some of you think that this is the day that Tennessee plays Michigan. My job is to tell you to set your sights higher. More importantly, Duke plays Yukon today. There was a day. It was a day when we knew it to be Palm Sunday. I've lived through 63 Palm Sundays. There are memories. I was talking to a woman just before church, and she says, I love this day. She said, I still kept uh the palm from my palm throughout my whole childhood into my days going to college, and finally my mom said, Can I throw those away? Do you remember receiving the palm branches in the Northex? I recall boys being boys using the branches to tickle each other's ears and swatting each other. I remember it got out of hand and they had to separate Guy and me. But that was last year. You may have a memory of receiving those palm branches as a child. Coming down this very aisle. That may be your memory. Some of you have the memory of seeing your children come down the very same aisle that you came down. Some of you even have the chance of seeing your grandchildren coming down this very aisle. What does this day mean to you? The psalm for Palm Sunday seems always to be Psalm 118. A psalm that contains these words This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Those words never landed on me until Catherine Wilson, who at 28 years old, got cancer. And she would say the words of Psalm 118 on her good days and on our bad days, on her days of hell when she was just skin and bones, she would say these words This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Because she would fight for every day. Because as the mom says, I want you to look at each other and thank God for each other. And know that it's a gift, Mom, we know. One day, 24 hours, sunrise to sunset. What does a day mean to you? You know, just this past Friday, I just thought it was another Friday, and then my watch reminded me that it was the anniversary of the covenant shooting. Amazing how a day can shift. The crowd shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. Hosanna means save us. I beg you, save us. People who shout, save us, I would argue, know the value of a day. They know there needs to be something that can come and save the day. And that something can be big, or that something can be small. I remember being with Beth on an airplane on the tarmac, waiting to take off for home, waiting, because in Atlanta that day there was a huge, huge thunderstorm, but it was over. And we were just sitting on the tarmac, and from the angle of my window, I could just see down, down the line of the runways, all just just wing upon wing upon wing upon wing upon wing upon wing. Just as far as I could see. It was gonna take all day just to take off. I want to go home. Salvation is as simple as just wanting to be home. A voice came from above. This is your pilot, and it turns out this is your lucky day. Our flight is carrying a heart that needs to go to Vanderbilt Hospital for a transplant, and we have gotten moved to the front of the line. And everyone on the plane shouted, Woo-hoo! Thank the Lord. Salvation comes as cheaply as being moved to the front of the line. Salvation comes as costly as a heart given from one stranger to another stranger. I don't know when that day was that I was on the tarmac. My watch doesn't tell me that. But I bet the one who has the heart knows the day. This is the day. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. One day, one day I read a story of a widow who placed a stethoscope on the heart of a stranger and heard the heart that she loved. Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. Look, your king is coming to you humble and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the full of a donkey. The image Matthew borrows is from the prophet Zechariah. Zechariah means God remembers. God remembers what? Promises? Salvation? People? Zechariah was running around during the days when the second temple was being built. One day, one day, when the king was coming humbly and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of the donkey, the king, instead of going to the palace, went to the temple. Now is the king the same as a messiah. The son of David. Now there's a country that would blend the church and the state. When the state and the church are one, you wrap the messiah in a flag. One story I heard when I came to this church was KC took the flag out of the church. I often feel the pressure from people to put it back in. You know, I've always thought that our faith should inform our politics. Not the other way around. There were people from one country who took the cross. And by the time they got done twisting the words of Jesus, the cross had turned into a swastika. You can do that. One day, the king was coming humbly and mounted on a donkey and on a foal, the colt of a donkey. Salvation can be that you're just tired of Rome being in charge. You're tired of suffering injustice, paying taxes to an occupying force. You're tired of the superpower. Oh, the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Lord, save us. We beg you, just save us. Grant us success. I wonder if it was disappointing that day to see the king turn and head not to the palace, but to the temple. Who is this? Where is he going? Hosanna, Hosanna, save us. We beg you, save us. Where is the king of righteous righteousness and victory going? Where is he going? The image, as I said, that Matthew has is borrowed from Zechariah. Zechariah means Lord remembers. And Zechariah spoke for a time in his writings about the purification of the temple. The purification of the temple. Cleansing the temple. One day, that's what Jesus did. But in Matthew's gospel, Jesus is a little bit more subdued. There's no cracking of the whip, no violence. Not from this one who preached a sermon on the mount. Not from this one who said, turn the other cheek and walk the second mile. Not from this one who said, if you're coming to the altar and you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift and go first and be reconciled to your brother and sister, and then come and offer your gift. But he was angry. And his anger stemmed from the temple becoming a den for robbers. What that means is become a safe place for thieves. It's a place where you could come after you got done stealing from the poor and the widow who only had two cents to her name. And they'd walk around in the temple with their white robes and their nice hair. They're assigned parking places, the gold chains. Like flowers that fester. The temple stuck to high heavens. God keeps saying this over and over again. I don't want your smelly offerings. I've told you what I want. I want you to do justice. I want you to love kindness. And I want you to walk humbly, humbly, humbly, humbly. That's how he came. Humbly. When the dust settled in the temple, a blind woman and a lame man came staggering into the temple. He healed them. Some children came in and they started to sing, Hosanna. Hosanna in the highest heaven, Hosanna. And to that sound, a blind man heard it. He came up the steps of the temple, finding his way to Jesus. Oh, a lame woman came and he healed them. And after that, a blind man came and a lame woman and he touched, just put his arm on their arm and his hand upon their shoulders, and he healed them. A blind man, a lame woman, a lame woman, a blind man, a lame woman. Hosanna, Hosanna to the highest, the kids sang. A lame woman, a blind man, a lame woman, a blind man, a lame woman, a blind man. They were all lined up, waiting to take off, healed and saved. One day the children came running into the temple. They sang, Hosanna, Hosanna to the Son of David, Hosanna, sing Hosanna, sing Hosanna, the blind, the lame, the blind, the lame, the blind, the lame, the blind, the lame, sing Hosanna. And one day the old guard looked at it all and said with anger in this voice, Do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus just smiled and said, Out of the mouths of babes. It was just one day. It was just one day that the Lord had made. How long do you think that line was to get into the temple? And there a voice came from above. It's your lucky day. Someone gave their heart. And you've been moved to the front of the line. They gave their heart. They gave their life. Will you remember this day? Will you remember this day? And then will you do the same? Let the same mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus. Give your life. Give your heart. Say to the stranger, You've been moved up to the front of the line. One day.