Triumphant entry john ortberg biography

Here’s a transcript of my sermon from last week (Palm Sunday). If you are a pastor please feel free to cut & paste everything. I got much of the historical stuff from commentaries, especially Ken Bailey’s work on Jesus, and from talks by John Ortberg & Rob Bell.

2014.04.15 – Lent 06
John 19:12-19 – Powerful / Not-Powerful

We’re going to start with a little game. And we’re going to call it: Powerful / Not-Powerful. How it’ll work is I’ll show you a picture of something & you have two choices with which you can respond. You can say powerful or not-powerful. Say it out loud immediately after you see the picture. Let’s try one:

• M1 Abrams tank – that’s powerful right?
• The sun – most powerful thing in our solar system.
• Yoda – powerful Jedi is he (I just noticed this weekend that my Yoda voice sounds more like Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas & Ferb… not powerful).
• Nerf Gun – not so powerful
• Do

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  Excursions in Ephesians: Discovering who we are in Christ

  Part One

  Here we are, smack dab in the middle of summer. With things opening up somewhat, people are

  starting to travel again or at least to take little excursions for the weekend.

  Well we’re about to embark on an excursion this morning, theologically speaking, and it’s one

  you don’t have to leave home for. This Sunday, and for the next six Sundays, we’re going to take

  An Excursion through Ephesians – Discovering who we are in Christ.

  Now, I want to be up front, studying Ephesians is not going to be a “beach book read.” It’s not

  light and fluffy and predictable. Our excursion is going to require that you exercise more brain

  power because we are dealing with precepts and theology as outlined bygd the apostle Paul, as

  opposed to entering the narrative world of stories that we often find in the Gospels. In the Gospel

  stories these same weeks, we will hear about John the Baptist and Herod and stories from both

  the

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  Photo Credit: Catholiclane.com – Garden Tomb, Jerusalem

  This is the morning of exhausted grief. Jesus, the Messiah, God’s Sent One; His Only Son lay dead in a tomb. Dead. How is this possible?

  The disciples, his family, those followers whose lives were transformed must have been numb with the stark reality that he was not with them…not on that Saturday. What would they do without him? What would happen to them? What? What? What?

  There is only one scriptural reference to this day and it related to the threat of Jesus’ power and influence, even in death:

  The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be wo

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