Discipling Life

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 ...

In Matthew 27:15-23 , we see a strange and unsettling custom. To celebrate the festival, the governor would release one prisoner chosen by the crowd. Pilate gives them a choice that seems obvious on the surface. On one hand, there is Jesus Barabbas , a “notorious prisoner.” On the other, there is Jesus, the one called the Messiah , who had spent his days healing the sick and preaching about the kingdom of God. Now, let me make a note about the names. Barabbas (or Bar Abbas ) means son of the father. So, on the one hand you have Jesus, son of the father, and on the other hand you have Jesus, Son of the Father.  So, which ‘hand’ do you choose? Which Jesus do you choose? It is a heartbreaking moment. The crowd, stirred up by leaders who felt threatened by love and mercy, chose the way of violence over the way of peace. They shouted for Barabbas to be set free and for Jesus to be crucified.  This act represents a rejection of Jesus’s peaceful message in favor of a figure w...