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There are a couple different ways to do faith in the church. One way is to start with thefaith and then convince you of the rightness of it. If I was using this model of faith when itcomes to Jesus I would tell you who Jesus is, what he is about, and what you are to believe abouthim. If you had questions I would ignore them. I would tell you that this is what you’resupposed to believe about Jesus. You either accept it or reject it. You reject it at your own peril.We don’t do faith that way at Chain of Lakes Church. We start with people’s questionsand then we examine how the Scriptures, tradition, and our own experiences have helped usdevelop responses and answers to them. Through our questions we poke and prod and ponder— and through our poking and prodding and pondering we develop a robust and mature outlook onGod. Our questions aren’t a sign of disrespect. Instead they are a sign of interest. We want tounderstand. A way to understand is to keep asking questions until we are satisfied. We knowthat some questions don’t ultimately have definitive answers, but this doesn’t bother us. Wecome to the realization that there is a deep sense of mystery when it comes to God. Because of our questions our beliefs about God are like a house built on a rock. They can withstand a lot of scrutiny.If you want to know who I am, I am a person who loves to listen to people’s questionsabout faith. If you have particular questions about God, you would make my week by setting upan appointment with me and asking your questions.I particularly enjoy listening to the questions from people who are outside of the church.I love to go to Cub Food or Wal Mart with our video team and ask people their their questions.Isn’t it interesting to listen to that video and listen to people’s questions?For the past three weeks, I’ve asked people from Chain of Lakes your questions aboutHoly Week, the last week of Jesus’ life on earth. We received over 30 questions. I’ve put these

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questions in this brochure that I encourage you to get out of the bulletin. I’m going to share aresponse to almost all of these questions. We’ve given you plenty of space in this devotion towrite down what you want to remember. It wouldn’t surprise me if God speaks to you throughthis sermon and you want to write something down. If this sermon prompts more questions, please send me an E-mail. In this brochure you’ll also find a devotion that has daily readings.This week I’ve written a devotion that shares the significant events of Jesus’ last week on earth.Holy Week is the most important week of the year in terms of faith. I encourage you to use thisdevotion. You’ll also find a place that lists the prayer requests of our community.With this introduction—I’d like to invite you to pray with me.This sermon has a lot of teaching material. I’m always concerned that a teaching sermonwill come across as boring. I’m not trying to give an academic lecture. The format of question/response does lead to sharing a lot of materialHow I’m going to do this is I’ve grouped all of these questions, and I’m going to answer them by group.

SLIDEWhat does Palm Sunday and why is it important

Palm Sunday is the day that the church remembers Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Jesusrode into Jerusalem on a donkey. As he did this a very large crowd put their cloaks in front of Jesus and cut down branches from the tree. John’s gospel said that the branches were palm branches. As Jesus rode on the colt the crowd shouted out, “Hosannah! Blessed is the one whocomes in the name of the Lord! Hosannah.”We can find the word Hosanna in Psalm 118:25. In English the Psalm reads:SLIDESave us, we beseech you, Of Lord! Psalm 118:25

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If we transliterate the Hebrew word that is translated as “Save us,” we’ll discover the wordHosanna. Another way to say “save us” is Hosanna. In our procession today when we said“Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna,” we were saying “saveus.” When the crowds were welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem they were saying “save us.”What the crowds were saying is “Save us Jesus. Blessed is the one who comes in thename of the Lord. Save us”There was a tradition of people welcoming kings by waving branches. In the OldTestament the king Jehu was welcomed with palm branches into Jerusalem. David’s sonSolomon was welcomed as a king as people waved Palm branches.If we push into this question even more we can ask the question, “Who were the crowdsexpecting Jesus to save them from?” Many expected that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem tosave the Jews from the Romans. They thought that Jesus was a Jewish king who would re-establish Israel as a nation. The nation of Israel was destroyed 722 years before Jesus was born;the nation of Judah was destroyed 587 years before Jesus was born. Ever since then they longedto be a nation. Just a couple hundred years before Jesus there had been revolts against theRomans called the maccabean revolts. Some people thought that Jesus would be the long-awaited messiah who would establish a political kingdom.Ever since the 4

century the church has remembered the procession of Jesus intoJerusalem. Often what would happen is people would gather in a village. They would participate in a blessing of the palms and hear a reading from the gospels. Then people would process to the church building. Often the priest or even bishop would lead the procession. Whenthe group reached the church building would knock on the door of the church.