Pastor's Corner: WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?

  JESUS, THE PASSOVER KING:  Palm Sunday 2025 John 12:12-16 Introduction: It is Palm Sunday, a day when we traditionally remember the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem the Sunday before His crucifixion. I have decided to look at a passage we have read before on this day, jumping ahead in the Gospel of John (the only Gospel that actually specifically mentions “palms” at the Triumphal Entry!) to John 12. In view of our four months studying the Fourth Gospel (we started December 1st of last year) I wanted to see how John’s witness to this event might speak to us even more deeply with the additional context we’ve so far considered.        We’ve seen already in John that Jesus is Lord, He knows our need, He tabernacled for a while among us in this fallen world (Jn 1:14), and ultimately, He bore our sorrows and carried our grief (Isa 53:3,4). The four Gospel accounts testify to the truth about who Jesus is, and about why He came. The God who is has spoken!...

 TRUST GOD John 4:43-54 Introduction: Most of us have probably prayed for a miracle at some time. Some of you, perhaps, and can relate immediately to this nobleman, this servant of a king who came to Jesus looking for help for his deathly ill son. It may be that you have seen a child desperately sick.  Perhaps an injury, perhaps a sickness, maybe even the doctors offering little hope, and you yourself helpless to take the pain away, to help the one you love. You would switch places in a heartbeat if you could, you would give anything.       I’ve witnessed such grief in my family. We were there through the weeks my nephew, 5 going on 6, my sister’s son, was treated for leukemia, diagnosed at the end of October, chemotherapy, a series of crises, pancreatitis, an emergency surgery, and death all within about seven weeks. Devastating. I saw the pain my parents experienced when my brother lay dying in a coma, hooked up to a respirator, after crashing his motorcy...