{"id":6154,"date":"2020-04-12T23:17:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T13:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6154"},"modified":"2020-04-16T14:13:23","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T04:13:23","slug":"from-palms-to-the-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/from-palms-to-the-cross\/","title":{"rendered":"From Palms to the Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

From Palms to the\nCross<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a sermon by Dr Adel Magdy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

After the\nLord entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we map every step He took in the\nhope that we see what He saw, we hear what He heard and we feel what He felt in\nthis final week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate aim is to reach His Cross, to stand at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday. We start with Palm Sunday where thousands of people surround Christ to get even a glimpse of Him. By the end of the week, there were only a handful that remained at the foot of the Cross. Even His disciples, His closest of friends, had deserted Him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the special few that made it all the way to the Cross, indescribable blessings were given from our compassionate Lord. If we consider what would\u2019ve happened to St Mary after the death of her only Son, with no husband, life would have become extremely difficult for her in those days. He gave her John the Beloved to care for her. As for John the Beloved, the gift of having the Mother of God in his own household was a huge blessing and shows how much the Lord trusted him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St Mary\nMagdalene received the honour of being the very first person that the gospels\nrecord the Lord appearing to after His resurrection. She was the first to see\nthe risen Christ. Even those that were not at the foot of the Cross\ndeliberately still received blessing. The Centurion, for example, had his eyes\nopened. It is even believed that this man became a martyr for the sake of the\nLord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is\npower in being on the foot of the Cross on Good Friday. For us, we begin a\njourney this week. The ultimate aim is to power through right until the foot of\nthe Cross. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a\nlot of tests and milestones along the way that we must pass to reach the foot\nof the Cross. The first milestone we encounter on the night of Palm Sunday. On\nMonday Eve, Christ asks the disciples a few questions \u2013 who do men say that I am<\/em>? He then follows up with a more personal\nquestion \u2013 who do you say that I am? <\/em>(Matthew\n16:15)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an unusual question. Why would the Lord care about what people were saying about Him? He knew that His disciples knew who He was. For us, we ask the Lord, \u201cwho do You say that I am?\u201d<\/em> Not what I think of God, but what does God think of me. It doesn\u2019t matter what the world thinks of me. It doesn\u2019t matter how I outwardly appear to the world. It doesn\u2019t matter if people look at me and think I am a great ambassador of the Lord. What matters is what the Lord thinks when He looks at my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord, who do you say that I am?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not a\ncomfortable question for any of us to ask. We\u2019re not sure what the Lord will\nsay of us. Will He say that we were like John the Beloved, loving Him and\nalways drawing near to Him, or if He will say, you\u2019re like Judas, someone that\nbetrayed for any price. We don\u2019t know that the answer will be. We fear so many\nhidden things in our life that if people knew, they wouldn\u2019t want to know us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As uncomfortable\nas this question is to ask, it\u2019s crucial for us if we want to make it to the\nfoot of the Cross on Good Friday. Even if we don\u2019t ask this question, we will\nhear the Lord\u2019s answer on Judgement day. The Lord will tell us what He thought,\nand we will either enter the joy of the Lord or we will be cast into eternal\ncondemnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In His\nmercy, we are given the opportunity to ask this question tonight while we have\na chance to fix it. On Judgement Day, there will be no further opportunities to\nchange, but now we have a chance. We have a chance to ask the Lord what we need\nto do to fix ourselves and draw near to Him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday of\nHoly Week is the cursing of the fig tree, this is where the thousands that\nsurrounded Jesus on Palm Sunday begin to drop off. The Lord is hungry and He sees\na fig tree from a distance, full of leaves. The Lord makes the effort to draw\nnear to the fig tree but when He arrives He sees that there is no fruit, just\nleaves. Apart from its appearance, there is no good in it. The Lord curses the\nfig tree, the very next day it withers away and dies. The church fathers teach\nus that this is a symbol of hypocrisy. There is nothing the Lord hates more\nthan hypocrisy. The Lord was only firm with the Pharisees and scribes because\nof their hypocrisy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We get on our knees in Holy Week and beg the Lord to show us what we are doing wrong and what we can do about it. We ask for His grace to change our life this year. We can make a change this Passion Week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A life changing sermon was given by Fr Matta El Meskeen that outlines the steps toward answered prayer.<\/a> Beg the Lord day and night to reveal your sins and weaknesses that keep you from Him. Pray for nothing else in one month, but day and night repeat this prayer \u2013 reveal the sins that are keeping me from coming to You, Lord<\/em>. We can only ask this question if we are prepared to act upon what the Lord teaches us, to learn to fix our hearts and to see through the Lord\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord, may You grant us clarity to see what separates us from You so that when Good Friday comes, we may see You in full clarity. May we increase our love for You, that it becomes easy to stop the sins we once loved that block us from You. My Saviour, may You help me reach the Cross so that I may sit at the foot of the Cross all day and see the depth of Your love for me and the depth of Your sacrifice. May I hear You say, \u201cEnter my Beloved child in whom I am well pleased.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\ude4f\ud83c\udffe Full Sermon<\/a> \ud83d\ude4f\ud83c\udffe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Palms to the Cross Adapted from a sermon by Dr Adel Magdy After the Lord entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we map every step He took in the hope that we see what He saw, we hear what He heard and we feel what He felt in this final week. The ultimate aim … Continue reading “From Palms to the Cross”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[120,110,112,252,236,35],"class_list":["post-6154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-good-friday","tag-holy-week","tag-honest","tag-palm-sunday","tag-passion-week","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6154"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6230,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions\/6230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}