The Obedience of Faith: The Passion of Our Lord

Let us pray. God of grace, we ask that you quiet the noise within us today. Steal our wandering thoughts, our anxious hearts, and our busy minds, allowing this moment to belong wholly to you. May the words spoken be your words and may the hearts that hear them be softened by your Spirit. Let the message of this Palm and Passion Sunday shape us into a people formed more fully by the mind of Christ. Amen.

Date: March 29, 2026 (Palm/Passion Sunday) Speaker: Alan Swartz Scripture Focus: Philippians 2:5-11, Matthew 27:11-54 | Audio Recording

We begin this way because we recognize that spiritual stillness is a prerequisite for hearing the divine word. We must quiet the noise because, without this deliberate pause, the message of the cross is easily lost in the static of our daily anxieties. By entering into this quiet, we move beyond the mere historical mechanics of how Jesus died. We stop looking at the Roman nails and the political maneuvering and begin to ask why he died—and what he expects us to do about it. The purpose behind the passion is a profound transformation, moving us from observation to participation.

The Core of Holy Week: Restoring Relationships

If you think about it for a moment, the events of Holy Week are fundamentally about relationships. Scripture reveals that God made us for relationship and deeply desires a connection with us. However, we live in a reality of dual separation: we are broken away from God, and as a direct result, we are broken away from our neighbor. The heart of this season is the truth that Jesus came to reconcile us, first, to the Father, and second, to our neighbor.

This vertical reconciliation with the father is the non-negotiable first step. We cannot hope to fix our horizontal issues with the world until we are first made right with our Creator. The “Greatest Commandment”—loving God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves—is the ideal, yet sin has shattered those bonds. Because of this, Jesus is the only bridge capable of spanning the divide. He didn’t come for simple social reform; he came to restore the very foundations of our existence, making it possible for us to love again because we have first been loved by him.

The Pattern of Christ: Emptying and Humility

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul points us to the specific model of this restoration. He quotes what scholars believe was an early Christian hymn, a creed that details the voluntary emptying of Christ, often called kenosis. Paul’s instruction is clear: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” We have to ask: how do we imitate him?

The text tells us that Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not exploit that equality. Instead, he emptied himself. He took the form of a slave. He humbled himself and became obedient, even to the point of death on a cross. This wasn’t a sign of weakness; it was a strategic abasement for the sake of the Kingdom. Jesus didn’t just “roll over.” He and Paul were assertive against the forces of evil, but they chose to accept hardship and humiliation when it meant they could transform someone with the love of God. This humility was a choice—a demonstration that God’s love does not force the world into submission but invites it through sacrificial service.

Faith Defined through Obedience

This is where the rubber meets the road: faith requires obedience. You ever fall in love with someone? Think about it. You have those intense feelings, but what do you do about them? Do you just hide them away? No, you act. You do something to demonstrate and show that love. This is exactly the point Jesus makes. If we say we have faith, there must be fruit that shows it. To say you believe without acting isn’t belief at all; it’s more like wishful thinking.

We often try to separate our emotional “feelings” of love from the sacrificial acts the gospel requires, but the two are inseparable. As the letter of James asks, if you see a brother or sister who is naked or hungry and you just say, “Go in peace, keep warm,” but you don’t supply their needs, what good is that? Obedience is the evidence of genuine faith. It is our “yes” to God, moving us from abstract theology into the active mission of the church.

The Mission: Reaching the Least, the Last, and the Lost

What does that mission look like? Jesus defined it clearly in his “Nazareth Manifesto” from Luke 4. He stood in the synagogue and announced that he was anointed to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind. He came to set the oppressed free. This mission is further clarified in Matthew 25, where the king identifies himself with the hungry, the stranger, and the prisoner.

Reaching the “least, the last, and the lost” is not an optional charity project; it is the core metric of our obedience to Christ. Who are the people we are most likely to discount or ignore in our community? Those are the very people God is calling us to reach. Our obedience is measured by how we employ our gifts, how we plan our work, and how we fund our ministries to serve those whom society has ostracized. It takes a great deal of faith to be obedient to this call.

The Bondage of Wealth: A Lesson from Mark 10

We see the individual struggle of this obedience in the story of the man with many possessions in Mark 10. He ran to Jesus, wanting to know how to inherit eternal life. He had kept the commandments since his youth, and then the text gives us a beautiful, unique detail: “Jesus looking at him loved him.” This is the only time in Mark’s gospel where it is explicitly stated that Jesus loved an individual.

Yet, because he loved him, Jesus gave him a staggering demand: “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor... and come, follow me.” Jesus saw that this man was in bondage. He didn’t own his possessions; they owned him. While Jesus promises an “abundant life,” he does not promise a “life of abundance” in material terms. Often, our “possessions”—whether wealth, mental biases, or habits—act as chains. Peter pointed out that the disciples had left everything, specifically mentioning leaving his home, his lands, and his wife. Jesus responded with a promise: those who leave everything for the gospel receive a hundredfold now in this time—new brothers, sisters, mothers, and homes. This is the new family of God, found through the hospitality of others, which is greater than any natural family we leave behind.

The Choice: Barabbas or the Prince of Peace

As we look at the Passion narrative, Pilate presents the world with a stark choice between two men. On one side stands a man named Jesus Barabbas. Do you know what that name means? Bar Abbas literally means “Son of the Father.” So, you have Jesus Barabbas, a “son of the father” who is an insurrectionist, a man of violence who seeks to take the kingdom by force. On the other side is Jesus who is called the Christ, the true Son of the Father, the Prince of Peace who wins through humility.

Which “Jesus” do we want to follow? There are many today who claim the name of Christ but choose the way of Barabbas—they want a faith that forces beliefs and exploits power. But the true Christ is the one who empties himself. This choice marks the difference between the “blamelessness” of the Law and the “righteousness” of the Gospel. To be blameless is merely to avoid breaking rules; to be righteous is to follow Jesus and actively do his will, even when it leads to a cross.

Perfection through the Cross

Jesus sets a standard in the Sermon on the Mount that should stop us in our tracks. He says our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, and we must be “perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” When we hear that, we want to shout out with Peter, “Who then can be saved?” The answer is that with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Our perfection does not come from our legalistic efforts; it flows from the cross. Because Christ was obedient unto death, God has highly exalted him. When we hear the sound of the pounding nails echoing through the centuries, we realize that the cross is the source of our righteousness. God calls us not to a life of material abundance, but to be “cheerful participants” in his divine plan. The obedience of faith is our daily “yes” to his call—to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him into the mission of reaching the lost.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray: Lord, we thank you for the healing found in the restoration of our relationship with you. Grant us the strength to be your obedient disciples, to reach the least and the lost, and to live lives defined by your abundant grace. May we follow where you lead, carrying our cross daily in the service of your Kingdom. Amen.