Palm Sunday - Confirmation Sunday

They say that life is full of choices. Each day presents you with a new set of choices: what to do, what not to do, things that you have opportunity to get involved in, things that probably would be best for you to avoid. Our lives are really made up of those choices. Every thing you do, from the moment you wake up in the morning and decide what to have for breakfast and what shirt to put on with what pants you have decided to wear, to what radio station you want to listen to while you’re driving in the car, to what time you go to bed, ever day is made up of choices.

Of course some of those choices are bigger than others. Choosing whether to have Wheaties or Corn Flakes for breakfast is not the same as choosing a career or choosing a spouse. Selecting a pack of Tic Tacs at the check out counter is not as big a decision as what kind of car you want to drive or which house you want to buy. Some choices stay with you longer.

Well, for these young people who are sitting up here today, it would seem that they are preparing to make a choice. When they were younger, their parents brought them to church, presented them for Holy Baptism, words of faith, the confession of the Apostles Creed was made by the congregation on their behalf, the pastor took them, poured water over their heads and spoke the words of Christ’s command, they were named with the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Since then they have been taught, they have learned Christian Doctrine from Luther’s Small Catechism. And now today, is their confirmation day. Their instruction has lead them up to this point. Today is the day for them, as it were, to make a choice – will they confess with their own mouths the words that were confessed for them? Will they pledge themselves to be faithful to that confession even unto death? Or will they set that confession aside in their own self interest, in the interest of the freedom to make other choices. It would seem that they had a choice…

It would seem that Jesus also had a choice. It was Palm Sunday. Jesus had been on a path that was taking him right into the city of Jerusalem. Right into the city of his father David, it was the city of the Temple, the city of Sacrifice, But it was also the city that was under the influence of the Chief Priests the scribes and the Pharisees. It was the city that was under the influence of those who had sworn to find a way to condemn Jesus to die. Jesus knew what would happen if he went to Jerusalem. He knew the plans that had been laid. Jesus knew what would happen if he climbed up on that donkey on Palm Sunday. He knew that the procession into the heart of the city of David would be the beginning of the end. He knew that he would tested and verbally assaulted during his week teaching in the temple. He knew that he would be arrested and forced to endure a mock trial. He knew that he would be falsely condemned. He knew that he would be beaten and abused. He knew that he would be sentenced to die on a cross. Yet Jesus climbed up on that donkey. There was no one forcing him, there was no one telling him he had to, Jesus chose the way of suffering. Jesus chose the cross. He chose the cross for you.

The irony of today is that this day will look to all the world like you are here making a choice. You are here because of the choices that you have made. Confirmation Sunday is after all the day that each of you with your own voice speaks words of commitment to Jesus. “Do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways” I Do renounce them. “Do you believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?” Yes. “Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?” Yes with the help of God. No one is going to twist you arm. No one is going to make you say those things. You will say them on your own, according to you own free will.

a) But maybe you are not so free. When Simon Peter made that same confession of faith, Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16: 17) And likewise Paul writes that “No eye has seen no ear has hard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him, but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit.” (2 Cor 2:9-10)

b) The reason that you are here this morning to confess your faith is definitely the result of a choice – but it has not been your choice. The reason that you are here today is because of the fact that God chose you. Why God chose you is not a question we can answer. Why it is you standing here today ready to confess your faith and not someone else we can’t say for certain. Yet God according to his mercy decided that he would call you to faith.

i) That call to faith came a long time ago. It did not come today. The process that brought you here to this day began years ago.

ii) Your confirmation instruction began two years ago, three years for some of you. You began learning to understand God’s Word as it is explained in Dr Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. You began to receive instruction in Christian Docterine to prepare you for today. But even then, your faith did not even begin when your confirmation instruction began.

iii) Your faith began when God called you to faith. Every single one of us has a birthday – the day that we first saw the light of day. Our infant eyes first opened and blinked in the light. For the first time we could look into the eyes of our mother and father. We could see them for the very first time. That was a day that was planned by God from the beginning of the world.

But each of you has a day that is even more important, a day that also was planned by God from the beginning of the world. That was the day that you were called to faith. That was the day that God gave to you eyes to see him. On the day that you were baptized, your parents brought you to the baptismal font where God’s Word of promise was spoken to you and you were renamed with the name of the one true God. You were baptized into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

For the first time on that day your spiritual eyes were opened and you were able to look into the eyes of your savior. You saw Jesus for the first time and came to know him as your Lord. Just as an infant grows in knowledge and strength and maturity, spiritually you have grown. You have been fed a regular diet of God’s Word that has strengthened you and energized you, that has caused you to grow in faith and maturity. It has brought you to this day that you stand ready and prepared to make a choice as it were

That faith has grown up in you, as you have been taught to confess the creed, as you have been taught the Ten Commandments, as you have been taught the Lord’s Prayer. In the commandments you see and you understand your sin. In the creed you have been taught the Christian faith so that as you speak those words the faith of the bible is your faith. You have been taught to pray the prayer that God himself has given to us. Having received this instruction you are ready and prepared to stake your life on the truth of that faith. The faith of the scriptures is in your heart. God the Holy Spirit is in your heart. You are prepared to make the choice to deny the Devil who would tempt you to sin and to renounce the faith and to trust in your own righteousness for your salvation. You are prepared to choose to face the world and suffer death rather than fall away from this faith. You are prepared to face even the sin that lives in your own heart, to deny yourself and your own sinful passions and desires all to obey Jesus. Those choices are significant choices, life changing choices, even potentially dangerous choices.

But you do not make those choices alone. Before you were even born, before God called you to faith, before God placed into you the gift of the Holy Spirit, God the Father sent His only Son, born of a woman – his mother Mary. Jesus lived his life faced with many of those very same choices. Do I obey the commandments? Do I honor my Father and mother? Do I devote myself to Worshipping the Father and do I read the Bible or do I entertain myself with all of life’s many other distractions. Jesus was faced with those same choices and every single time he made the choice to obey the will of his father in heaven.

When Jesus reached the appropriate age he went to John to be baptized. The heaven’s opened up and the Father said this is my beloved son, with him I am well pleased. Jesus according to his will chose the baptism of John. This choice was not an easy choice for Jesus. This choice was not a comfortable choice for Jesus. This choice led him out of the care of his mother and father, his brothers and sisters, The choice led him into a life of poverty. The son of Man had no place to lay his head. This choice led him to a life of scorn and rejection. The crowds doubted him, the chief priests and teachers of the law hated him and wanted to get rid of him. Knowing full well that the journey to Jerusalem would cost him his life Jesus said that “The Son of Man must go to Jerusalem where he will suffer many things at the hands of the chief priests and teachers of the law, be killed and on the third day rise.” The trip to Jerusalem was certain death. Jesus knew it, yet that was the path that he chose.

Never once did Jesus turn aside from that choice. Certainly there were many times that he could have. Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah points ahead to that choice. “I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” Jesus had the choice – he did not have to endure the suffering but he did it anyway.

St Paul writes in our epistle lesson, “Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

As we read the Gospel from Matthew 27, Jesus is revealed to be in complete control of his entire passion. When he was in the Upper room with his disciples he had full knowledge that he would be betrayed and handed over to the Jewish authorities, yet instead of slipping out the back way and running off to preserve his own skin, Jesus made the choice to remain. When the guards cam to arrest him, Jesus commanded Peter to put away his sword and allowed himself to be led off like a criminal. When he was on trial there was no charge brought against him that would stick so Jesus gave them a charge that their unbelieving hearts could agree on – he claimed to be God. In their unbelief they rejected that claim and falsely accused him of blasphemy. Jesus chose the way of the cross. Jesus chose to die. He chose to suffer. Jesus chose this way of suffering for you and for me. He chose this path of death so that we could have life.

The reality of the situation is that if God simply left the choice up to you, you would not be here. If God left the choice up to you and to me we would run out of here and never come back. But God chose us. He chose us for faith. He chose us for baptism. He dragged us kicking and screaming in the water of Baptism to be drowned, to have our sin-filled will drowned but then to be resurrected, to be renewed, and to be recreated. And now, for these 7 young people God’s choice has led them to the opportunity to confess and affirm that faith in their own lives, to confess and affirm God’s choice in them.

God knows us. He knows the choices that we make, When we are left to ourselves we make the wrong choices. In spite of your faithful confession that Jesus is Lord that you will make today, there will be many times that you by your own words and by your actions will deny that confession. You will live your life like you are the Lord, like you are God, you will live your life like there is no law that matters but your own, your own choices, your own freedom to make those choices. You will condemn yourself with your choices.

But you will not die. The Jesus who chose death has chosen you. He will not lose you. He will not let you fall away. He will keep you in the faith. He will preserve you in your faith. He will redeem all of the poor choices that you will make. He will buy you back from certain death and hell as he has already done with his precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.

Today you will stand here and with your own lips you will confess Jesus is Lord in heaven and on earth. This is a faithful confession and it is one that we should not take lightly. But take comfort, not that you have chosen him but that he has chosen you.