
Biblical Texts: John 12:12-19 (Palm Sunday), Luke 23:1-56 (Passion), John 18:28-38 (unread, but referenced)
It was Palm Sunday also known as the Sunday of the Passion. It’s the first Sunday of Holy Week. The passion account is given its own days the week on Thursday and Friday, but the church has cycled through periods of greater focus on the Palms and periods of greater focus on the Passion. (They 1960’s/70’s were probably a high water mark on the Palms. Growing up I never remember hearing the Passion on a Sunday. But Good Friday in those days was almost as well attended as Easter.) I’ve found the juxtaposition of the Triumphal Entry and the Trials is fruitful in preaching and meditation. (And this Hymn – LSB 444 – is the perfect bridge.)
The day structured like that is about The Two Kingdoms. The City of God and the City of Man. The Kingdom of the Right ruled directly by Christ and the Kingdom of the Left ruled through mankind. And what we call politics is often just life in the overlapping of the Kingdoms. This sermon meditates on those two kingdoms. How Christ rules the Right directly. And the responsibilities of the Left and living in the overlap for Christians.
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