Gloria Dei Lutheran Church | Urbandale, Iowa

In a Moment Like This

Pastor Meyer’s Sermon

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Kodak moments. We all know the phrase. We don’t even have to have owned a Kodak camera or even plan on owning a Kodak camera to know what that phrase means. It’s so much a part of our urban dictionary.

You see two kids, young kids, playing at the playground and they’re playing so well together and you say, “Oh, look at those two. They look so cute playing together. That’s a Kodak moment.” Or maybe you’re talking to some friends of yours about a trip that you all went on and you say, “Remember when he fell in the lake? That was funny. That was a Kodak moment.”

See, when we talk about those moments, when we’re in the moment, we don’t want to just remember it. We want to remember it for not a short time. We don’t want to remember it for a little while, no. When we’re in the moment, we want to remember it forever.

Well, the Jewish people were in a moment that they thought they would remember forever on that first Palm Sunday. All the elements were in place to help them to remember. Jesus is coming out of the town of Bethany. Bethany is located about three miles east of Jerusalem and 300 feet above in a place called the Mount of Olives. And as the people were witnessing Jesus coming out of that city, there were throngs of people around Him, a group of people which had just started out as a small band of disciples which had grown into what Luke said “a multitude of people.”

And as they’re coming, Jesus is not walking on the path, on that dirt road that leads to Jerusalem, no, He’s on a donkey. And they would remember that the Old Testament prophet who has said, “See, your king comes to you humbled and riding on a donkey.” Yes, that would have been an element right there to help them to remember. But as they continue on down that road to Jerusalem, they come to a point where they can see Jerusalem in the valley below in all its glory and they start to cry out. They start to sing and they start to chant. “Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He who comes in the name of Lord,” they cry out. And they begin to treat Jesus as king, king coming to His city. And they take palm branches and they wave them around as they are singing and they even put them on the dirt road in front of the donkey. They take their cloaks off and lay them on the dirt road so the donkey does not have to walk in the dirt. Yes, those are elements that we would remember, that they would want to remember about the Son of God, the King coming to Jerusalem.

There’s another element that we also don’t talk about that was present. You see how we talk about the cloaks, we talk about the palm branches, we talk about the Hosanna and the blessed and Jesus on a donkey but we don’t talk about Jesus’ reactions when He sees Jerusalem. Luke clues us in to that reaction. He writes, “As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it. As there were cheers going up, cries of ‘Hosanna’ and ‘Blessed to Jesus,’ there were tears running down His face.” That’s an element to remember because it’s only the second time that Jesus cried.

But why was Jesus crying? Because even though all of these elements were there so when the people said, “In this moment, I want to remember this forever,” Jesus knows that not even four days later, those cheers will turn into jeers of “Crucify Him, crucify Him.” He knows that despite the fact that they so much want to remember that moment, they would soon forget.

We find ourselves doing the same thing, don’t we? When we have those moments when we’ve seen God work in our lives, when we feel so close to Him, something comes up and we soon forget, even though we so much want to remember the moment. Maybe it’s the time when we’re so bogged down by work. You’re worrying about your finances. You’re worrying about the kids. You’re worrying about your responsibilities at work and you’re trying to figure out how is this all going to work out. And you just feel so loaded down with worry but you decide then to trust in God, to allow yourself to take the worry and hand it to God. And when you do that, you start to see that the worry’s not really there, the burden seems a little lighter. When I wake up in the morning, that’s not the first thing I think about. When I go to sleep at night, I can sleep easier because my mind isn’t going around in circles trying to figure out what to do because I trusted in God and He’s taken my worry and when you see that, that’s a moment you want to remember forever.

But then something unexpected happens. And you can feel yourself taking that worry back from God and putting it back on your shoulders. But even though that moment, that experience you want to remember, you soon forget.

Or maybe it’s a relationship difficulty you might have in your life, whether it’s with your spouse or whether it’s with a friend or a relative and it seems like no matter what you do, it just doesn’t seem to get better. In fact, it seems like you’re taking a step backward in the relationship and you’re frustrated and you’re concerned. You don’t know what to do and you decide, “I’m going to hand it over to God in prayer.” And so you begin praying that the relationship would somehow be reconciled, that you would get to a point where you two can feel comfortable together and you know after the days and weeks of prayer, you start to see, “Yeah, things are getting better. Yeah, I can see that we’re starting to get along better. We’re starting to feel more connected. We’re starting to enjoy each other’s company again.” And that is a moment, a moment we have where we feel God really answering our prayer and we want to remember that moment forever.

But then we have another relationship challenge in our lives and we find ourselves falling back into the way we’ve always done it, trying to take care of it ourselves. And even though that “God moment,” that experience was something we so much wanted to remember forever, we see that we soon forget.

My friends, we have one who remembers us forever. The Old Testament tells us that just as a mother cannot forget her children, so God remembers us. And as we think about Palm Sunday, as we think about Jesus going towards Jerusalem, we realize that it’s through Jesus’ ministry that God remembers us. In fact, there is a promise in Hebrews 8 that talks about Jesus’ ministry, “But the ministry of Jesus is founded on a better promise, for I will forgive their wickedness and I will remember their sins no more.” As Jesus is going to Jerusalem, it is through the ministry He does that God remembers us but He does more than that. He remembers to forget. He remembers to forget our sins. Those times where we’ve fallen short, those times where we’ve forgotten Him, because of Jesus’ ministry, God remembers to forget our sins and He forgives us for them.

So let’s be in the moment during this whole week as we travel along with Jesus. As we come here on Maundy Thursday, be in the moment to sense the tension that’s going on in the betrayal. To be in the moment on Good Friday as we feel the sorrow as we follow Jesus to the cross. Be in the moment next week as we celebrate the joy because it’s because of Jesus’ ministry that God chooses to remember to forget. Amen.