Luke 19:28-40; 23:21

Everybody loves a parade and a party. There’s Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving. The Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day, and many other local and national parades throughout the year. It’s festive to see the flowers, bands, and floats, but there is something very different about the parade on Palm Sunday.

It is said by the experts who know the First Century AD that a six-year-old girl could carry a sack of gold from Athens to Rome and not be robbed or injured in any way. That’s several hundred miles. That’s terrible because it means it was like North Korea is today. A very harsh military situation. The roads that the Romans built were not like the roads we have. They were not roads for trade and commerce. They were roads for moving soldiers around. It was soldiers everywhere. An Occupied Zone.

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John 19:34

A Sermon for the Season of Lent

This hymn, “Come to Calvary’s Holy Mountain,” presents us with an unusual picture.

Calvary’s holy mountain is obviously Golgotha, the place of the cross. It starts: “Come to Calvary’s holy mountain, Sinners, ruined by the fall.” Then it says: “Here a pure and healing fountain Flows to you, to me, to all, In a full perpetual tide, Opened when our savior died.”

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Psalm 90, 1 Corinthians 1:30

A Sermon for the Season of Lent

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) wrote this hymn about the brevity of life, based on Psalm 90. There it says in the fifth stanza: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears us all away; We fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the op’ing day.” All our works pass away.

Time is an ever-rolling stream, and you can’t step into the same stream twice. Everything changes. At the same time, we affirm the Lord is “our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.” As the Psalmist says: “Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1).

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John 1:14; Romans 3:24

A Sermon for the Season of Lent

“Amazing Grace” is today the best-known Gospel song around the world. As you may remember, it was sung at the re-opening of Notre Dame Cathedral back in December 2024. We talked about it then. Because it is the best-known Gospel song, it’s important that we remember why it’s a mixed blessing.

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“Rock of Ages”

A Sermon for the Season of Lent

This is a favorite hymn about “the rock,” written by Augustus Toplady in the 1700’s. What a name, Toplady. Obviously from England. Why is this such a favorite hymn? It has both a lovely tune and great imagery.

The rock is a well-known image in Scripture. Isaiah 28:16: “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation. He who believes will not be in haste.”

That verse is quoted in Romans 9:33, 1 Peter 2:6, and is also behind other things. When it says in 1 Cor 3:11: “There is no other foundation,” it is obviously referring to this imagery. We know from manuscripts which aren’t Biblical that they collected all kinds of lists of verses about the rock, the foundation.

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