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On Palm Sunday, we remember and celebrate the day Jesus entered into Jerusalem as Saviour and King. A large crowd gathered and laid palm branches across the road, giving Jesus royal treatment. The hundreds of people shouted…

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!"

While this is a triumphal entry, Palm Sunday begins Holy Week and it is Jesus’s first step toward His death.

✽ Call to worship

Our devotions begin with two verses from a Psalm.
To prepare for worship, we echo the psalmist and ask God for three things in particular to help us. Click the black audio bar to listen.

PSALM 25 verses 4 & 5

Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Saviour,
and my hope is in you all day long.

✽ First Hymn

This 1870 hymn by Caroline Maria Noel appears in at least 206 hymn books. It was first published with very different music from the setting we shall sing or listen to here. Michael Brierley was training for the ministry when he wrote ‘Camberwell’ in 1960 - a rousing processional march befitting the majesty of the text which is taken from Philippians 2. The hymn owes its popularity to its vigour and its stirring interlude between verses.

✽ A TIME OF PRAYER

We come before God in prayer, bringing Him our best praise, seeking His undeserved forgiveness and offering our thanks for His many blessings and boundless grace.

In a moment of quietness at the end of these spoken prayers, our preacher invites us to say the Lord’s Prayer. We offer below both the familiar traditional version and a setting from a New Zealand prayer book.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.

Eternal Spirit, Earth-Maker,
Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
source of all that is and that shall be,
Father of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven,
The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe.
The way of your justice be followed by all the peoples of the earth!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power
that is love, now and forever. Amen.

✽ BIBLE READING

Philippians chapter 2, verses 2 - 11

The text of this bible passage is shown beneath the black audio bar below for you to follow if you wish.

2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. 6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form,
8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honour and gave him the name above all other names, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

✽ SECOND Hymn

This song, entitled “The Servant King”, was Graham Kendrick’s most popular song until the advent of “Shine Jesus Shine” and is still one of the most popular to be used in contemporary worship. Written to reflect the theme for the 1984 Spring Harvest Bible teaching event, it explores the vision of Christ as the servant who would wash the disciples' feet but who was also the Creator of the universe.

✽ PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION

We pray together again now as our preacher places a special focus on asking God for a united world, for restoration and hope wherever there is brokenness, for the intervention of His love where there is political divide and for the Holy Spirit to ignite revival in His people everywhere.

You may like to pause at this point to offer private and personal prayers for the needs of people close to you, for those known to you in your local community or beyond and for the situations in which many find themselves just now, especially those who need the healing hand of God. Some of the following may prompt and guide your thinking as you pray.

✽ THIRD Hymn

In Hawaii in 1976, Robert Cull was talking to young people at a Christian school, evidently trying to motivate them with the same message about Jesus that had touched his own life not too many years before. But the children were unresponsive, and he was at a loss. That’s when he prayed, and “Open Our Eyes, Lord” emerged. Only the God who had reached deep inside his own being could connect with the group to whom he spoke. Nothing intricate was needed, just eyes and ears that He could open.

✽ ADDRESS

As we worship on Palm Sunday, picturing Jesus entering Jerusalem, our preacher wonders in his message whether we simply stand with the waving and cheering crowd to observe Him moving through the streets or whether we can involve ourselves much more in His “Passion”.

✽ FINAL Hymn

The text of this familiar and traditional Palm Sunday hymn is actually an English translation by John Mason Neale of a Latin hymn “Gloria, laus et honor", which was written in 820… 1,200 years ago!. It celebrates the occasion of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem as told in Matthew chapter 21, verses 1 to 11.
In 1967, the hymn was covered by British singer Sir Cliff Richard on his ‘Good News’ album

✽ BENEDICTION

Our preacher closes these Palm Sunday devotions with a blessing.

Thank you for joining us in this online service.

In unity with the Church worldwide, Long Lane Independent Methodist continues to pray for the healing of the nations and their communities. If you have concerns for the physical, spiritual or mental health of family and friends, name them in prayer to God. During this difficult and sometimes desperate period of enforced separation or self isolation, you can still contact Long Lane Independent Methodist Church here.

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