Sermon (March 29/Palm Sunday) “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” by Rev. Robert McDowell

March 29, 2026 (Palm Sunday)

Beulah UMC & Oak Grove UMC 

    There’s a story about a young boy who had the annoying habit of speaking in rhyme. One day, his father who was a preacher grew exasperated and said, “Son, I am going to spank the poetry out of you!”

     The young boy responded, “Oh father, do some pity take and no more poetry shall I make.”

     Well, thank goodness the father couldn’t spank the poetry out of the boy because that boy was Isaac Watts, who would later write the hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” which has been our season of Lent focus for these past several weeks.

     Watts who was born in England, wrote this magnificent hymn in 1707. Thanks to his incredible gift of poetry, he is probably the most well known of all the hymn writers.

     During this Season of Lent, we have been using this hymn to help us survey the different spiritual areas of our lives. These have included surveying our temptations, our faith, our spiritual thirst, our hearts, and last Sunday we focused on surveying our griefs.

     Today, we have finally arrived at the title of this hymn and on this Palm Sunday, we survey the wondrous cross. What does it mean to survey the wondrous cross?

     We often refer to this day on the church calendar as Palm Sunday with an emphasis on the crowd who waved palm branches at Jesus as he rode a donkey into the city of Jerusalem. But really, the full title of this Sunday is “Palm/Passion Sunday” because this day marks the beginning of Holy Week, the last days of Jesus before he shared in a Last Supper with his disciples on Thursday, and was crucified on Friday, and then laid in a tomb on Saturday.

     This is why our service begins with a parade where we wave palm branches in celebration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but around mid-way through this service, it transitions into a more somber and reflective mood. This last part of the worship service helps us to prepare for the difficult events that will be occurring later this week when we observe Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday when Jesus was placed in a tomb.

     Several years ago, in a church I was serving, we, along with several other churches in our community participated in a Good Friday service. It was the custom for the host pastor to offer a welcome before the service began.

     I will never forget the one year that a host pastor greeted everyone before the Good Friday service was to begin. The organist had just finished a very somber, but beautiful prelude to help set the tone for the service.

     The host pastor goes to the microphone and with a big smile on his face exclaims, “Welcome y’all! How are you all doing tonight?”

     I wanted to say back to him, “Well, not very good since we’re all here to remember that Jesus died on a cross!”

     All I could think about was that I sure hope he doesn’t begin his funeral services that way. “How are y’all doing?” What do you mean, how are y’all doing?

     Holy Week services are meant to help us enter into that very dark and sad time when Jesus was arrested, crucified on a cross and then laid in a tomb. This week is meant to be a time for us to survey the wondrous cross and what Jesus’ death on the cross means to us.

 

     A while back, I was listening to a podcast that featured a noted New Testament scholar and he was asked the question, “What part of the Bible would you recommend for someone to read if they are curious about the Christian faith?”

     It was an interesting question because in my mind, I could think of a number of different scripture passages that I might suggest to someone. But this scholar’s choice of scripture stood out for me. He recommended that the person read any of the crucifixion narratives that can be found in all four of the Gospels.

     He then said, I would have that person not only read the story of when Jesus was crucified on the cross but really let that story sink into his or her heart and mind of just how much God loves them. I remember thinking to myself, “Yes, that is so true. If only we would take time to survey the wondrous cross.”

     We don’t really need to try to convince somebody that God loves them. All we really need to do is to point them to this very powerful and profound story of Good Friday. And then to simply point out that Jesus was willing to take upon his shoulders all of the evil and pain that the world could throw at him, and through his suffering and death, reveal the incredible depth of God’s love for us.    

     When we survey the wondrous cross, we are not simply reading about a horrible tragedy. We are witnessing the generous love of God for the world personified in the person of Jesus who is the embodiment of God. Do you want to know who God is like? Look to Jesus who emptied himself to the point of dying on the cross for our sake.

     When you are feeling lonely and wondering if anybody cares, look to the cross and remember that this is how much God loves you. When you are in need of direction and guidance because you are facing a challenging situation in your life, look to the cross and remember that this is how much God loves you.

     When you are feeling weak, confused and afraid, look to the cross and remember that this is how much God loves you. When you are carrying the guilt of past regrets and shame, look to the cross and remember that this is how much God loves you and forgives you.

     When Jesus died on the cross on that Good Friday, God was saying, “I love you more than you can ever imagine, even to the point of absorbing all of the evil, pain, and suffering that the world can throw at you. I love you this much!”

     Or copy and paste the poetry of this hymn writer and carry these words from verse 3 with you at all times:

     “See, from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e’re such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown.” Thank you, Mr. Isaac Watts for putting into poetry what the cross of Jesus means for us. The cross is where love and sorrow met.

     Love and sorrow. That’s what we get with the cross. This is why we have a cross on our altar, to always remind us of the very heart and soul of our faith, God’s unconditional, overflowing, and abundant love for you and me made known to us through Jesus’ death on the cross.

      Riley Short is a United Methodist pastor who serves in Florida. He talks about always having a special love for the crucifix. When he was a child, he had a neighbor who was a very committed Roman Catholic. She shared what the cross meant to her and her words had a powerful impact on his life.

     She simply said to him, “Jesus died on the cross for you.” That’s all she said! “Jesus died on the cross for you.”

     Riley then shares how later, he had a seminary professor who taught a course entitled, “Doctrines of the Redemption” and even that course didn’t come close to explaining the cross the way his neighbor did for him when he was a little boy.

     “Jesus died for you.” Those were words that he has never forgotten to this day and it’s what has made a profound difference in his life even to this day. 

     He goes on to say that there is a world of people who want to hear that message and who need to hear that message. They are hurting, confused, and lost people who want to experience the love of Christ shown so dramatically on the cross. This is what happens when people survey the wondrous cross.

     When God created the world, he said at the end of each day’s creation, “It is good.” And notice that in John’s Gospel account of Jesus’ crucifixion, that his last words before he died were, “It is finished.”

     “It is good. It is finished.”

     When we survey the wondrous cross, we are surveying a God who not only created us but who also sent us Jesus who redeems and saves us from our sins. When we survey the wondrous cross, it leads us to sing, “love so amazing, so divine.”

     I shared this story with you before, but it bears repeating especially as we survey the wondrous cross.

     Several years ago, a man is getting ready to head off for the day.  He is anxious about many things and on top of that, he’s already late for work.  And as he stands in front of the mirror in his bedroom and puts on his necktie, he can’t help but notice, as he looks over at his closet, that his little three-year-old daughter has been taking the shoestrings out from several of his shoes. 

 

     All he can think about is how this will make him even more late for work.  As he continues to put on his tie, he then feels a tug on his pant leg.  Annoyed and still in a hurry, he says, “Sweetie, daddy doesn’t have time for this.  We’re going to be late getting you to day-care.”

     She tugs again at his pant leg and again he says, “Please, not now, honey.”  She taps him on the leg again, and this time, she points toward the middle of the bedroom floor and with her eyes beaming she says, “Look what I made, daddy!  It’s Jesus’ cross!” 

     And sure enough, there in the middle of the floor were two of the several shoestrings she had taken out of his shoes.  She had one over top of the other, forming the shape of Jesus’ cross.

     Thanks to a little girl who reminded her daddy of the importance of Jesus’ cross, somehow, all of those many distractions and worries didn’t seem as important anymore. In that unexpected holy moment, that shoestring cross reminded him of love so amazing, so divine.

     And you know what?  That day ended up being one of the best days of my life.

Sunday (March 29/Palm Sunday) Pastoral Prayer

March 29, 2026 (Maundy Thursday)

Beulah UMC & Oak Grove UMC

Thank you Lord for these two shoestrings that our preschool daughter made into a cross so many years ago. I can still see those shoestrings as if it happened yesterday. And I can still hear her excitement when she simply wanted me to know that she had made Jesus’ cross and I was the one who needed to see it that morning.

 As we begin Holy Week and prepare for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, remind us to pause and survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. Remind us to slow down and reflect on how far you were willing to go to show just how much you love us.

 

And remind us to also lift up to you in prayer those who are in need of your love this day, those in need of your healing love, your comforting love, your guiding love, and your forgiving love.

 

Just as in humility you rode on a donkey into Jerusalem on this Palm Sunday, we also seek to humble ourselves this week as we follow you to the cross and to the empty tomb.

 

Humble us as we watch you wash our feet. Humble us as we receive the bread and the cup on Maundy Thursday. Humble us as we watch you be denied and betrayed. Humble us as we watch you die on the cross for the sins of the world. Humble us as we watch you placed in a cold tomb.

 

Humble us as we continue to survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died and as we pray the words that Jesus taught us to pray together…

 

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 and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Sermon (March 22/Lent) “When I Survey My Grief” by Rev. Robert McDowell

March 22, 2026

Beulah UMC & Oak Grove UMC

   For this season of Lent through Easter Sunday, we are focusing on the theme, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” The inspiration for this 7-week sermon series comes from the hymn of the same name. This hymn was written by Isaac Watts in 1707.

     Charles Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism during the 1700s and who is also known as one of the greatest hymn writers, offered high praise for this hymn by saying that he would be willing to give up all of his own hymns if he could have written this hymn. Many hymn scholars will tell you that this just might be the greatest Christian hymn ever written.

     We began this series 5 weeks ago by focusing on surveying the temptations that come our way and how we might overcome those temptations. For the 2nd week, we surveyed our faith and how we can even allow our doubts to lead us in having a stronger faith. Two weeks ago, we surveyed our spiritual thirst and how Jesus is the living water that fills and renews us.

     Last Sunday, we surveyed our hearts by looking at the Old Testament story of when God selected the next King of Israel not based upon outward appearances but upon the openness of the person’s heart.

     The person that God ended up choosing to become the next King of Israel was David who became known as a person after God’s own heart. That story of how God chose David invites us to survey if our hearts are loving, gracious, generous, compassionate, willing to serve, and open to who God is calling us to be.

     For today, we are invited to survey our grief. What does it mean to survey our grief?

     Lent is a season on the church calendar where we have the opportunity to think about the mystery of life and death. It’s a season in which we confront the reality of death. This season even begins with what we call, “Ash Wednesday” where we have ashes smudged on our foreheads reminding us that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

 

     That’s such a strange thing for us to do each year, especially since we live in a culture that seeks to avoid talk of death at any cost.  We don’t like to talk about pain or loss and especially not death. We often forget that life is short until it confronts us with full force.

     During a visit to my hometown a couple of years ago, my brother and I went to the cemetery where our parents are buried. We then walked a little bit farther and my brother pointed out a tombstone of a teenager who had died in a car accident several years prior and he told me that he had officiated for that funeral. He said how he had built a relationship with this teenager through the church’s ministries and how difficult it was for him to end up officiating the funeral of this young person.

     Since we can’t avoid the reality of death and loss in our lives, it’s helpful to reflect on the importance of grieving. Our Gospel reading this morning from John, chapter 11 offers us this opportunity because it’s a story about death and loss and the deep grief of two sisters whose brother had died. But it’s also a story about Jesus’ grief because Jesus was very close to these two sisters and their brother as well.

     This story is known for having the shortest verse in the Bible, at least for the King James Version. John 11:35 has just two words, “Jesus wept.” And when people in the crowd saw that Jesus was weeping, they said, “See how he loved him! (meaning Lazarus)

     I think this shortest verse in the Bible reinforces the full humanity of Jesus. Jesus was fully God and fully human which is the wonderful mystery of the incarnation, God becoming one with us. And part of being fully human is to feel the pain of grief and loss.

     This story in John, chapter 11 is perplexing because for some reason, when Jesus is given word that his dear friend, Lazarus was ill, he decides to stay two days longer instead of leaving immediately to be with this family who were dear friends to him.

     I wonder if Jesus delayed two days because he needed that time to be in prayer for Lazarus as well as for himself since he would be going to Bethany which was near Jerusalem. That would be a dangerous place for Jesus to be since the religious authorities were seeking to kill him. So maybe that helps us a little with the mystery of why Jesus waited two days before going to Bethany.

     So, after those two days, Jesus and the disciples do go to Bethany and they meet Mary and Martha who are now grieving because their brother, Lazarus had died. Martha is the first of the two sisters to greet Jesus, and she says those famous words that many of us say in times of death and loss, “If only.”

     Martha tells Jesus, “If only you would have been here, my brother would not have died.” When Mary greets Jesus she uses those same words, “If only you had been here.”

     These “if only” statements are signs that we are grieving. We want to change the past so that we don’t have to go through the pain of grief.

     This scene of Martha, Mary, and Jesus offers us the opportunity to survey our own grief because we all face the reality of loss in our lives whether it be a death of a loved one, a loss of a friendship, or a surrender of something that was very dear to us. There are all kinds of losses in our lives, some bigger than others, but all important for us to recognize so that we can begin the healing process.

     A former church member made an appointment to see me four or five years ago to talk about the grief she has been experiencing over the death of her 50-year-old son to cancer. I think that even after all of these years since I’ve been her pastor, she still felt connected to me because of a chance meeting that we had three years earlier when I was visiting someone from my church who was in one of the area hospitals.

     I was walking through the large lobby of this hospital when I heard someone call my name and it was this former church member. She said, “I’m so glad to see you, Pastor Robert because my son is a patient here and I could sure use your prayers.” So there, in that hospital lobby, with a crowd of people walking around us, I prayed for her and for her son.

     About a year later, I heard that her son had died. And then that next fall, she contacted me to see if we could meet to talk about how she was handling her grief. At one point during our conversation, she mentioned that what has been helping her in her grieving process is a book on grief entitled, More Beautiful than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us. The author is Steve Leder, a Jewish Rabbi, he serves the largest Jewish congregation in Southern California which has 10,000 members.

     So, after our time together, I bought that book and started reading it and I’m glad I did because it gave me a lot more to think about regarding grief. In is book, Rabbi Leder makes the basic point that the suffering and grieving we experience in life can teach us important things about ourselves and about our faith.

     He shares how he always thought he did a great job in counseling the people in his congregation when they were going through a time of suffering but it wasn’t until he had a debilitating car accident leaving him temporarily paralyzed from the waist down that he was able to better appreciate the suffering of others.

     Not only was he dealing with a painful physical recovery, but he also faced depression and the temptation of taking too many pain pills.

     It was during that time of tremendous physical and emotional suffering, that he learned to reach out and find support from others, something that he never really had done in the past. He has a quote in this book that talks about the importance of reaching out to others when you are suffering and going through a time of grief.

     He writes, “The people who matter don’t mind, and the people who mind, don’t really matter.”

     Let me share that again. “The people who matter don’t mind, and the people who mind, don’t really matter.” In other words, there are people who are willing to help even though there might be some who might not. There is always someone who will help you when you need it.

     Our suffering, pain, and grief are opportunities for us to reach out to receive help. And that’s exactly what this former church member was doing when she came to see me. She was seeking spiritual help through her grieving process.

     And this leads me to this other insightful quote from Rabbi Leder’s book where he says, “No one who is in pain, despite what they might say at the time, does better by enduring their pain alone.”

     That’s also worth repeating: “No one who is in pain despite what they might say at the time, does better by enduring their pain alone.”

     We need each other to help us get through the tough times, whether it’s a friend, a doctor, a therapist, a pastor, a neighbor, a small group, a spouse, or whoever it might be. There’s always someone who is willing to help. You don’t have to go it alone.

     Rabbi Leder has other powerful thoughts in helping us to survey how we navigate through the pain, suffering, and grief that we experience in our lives. Here are a couple of other quotes from his book:

     He writes, “Success doesn’t teach us as much as suffering.” “Success doesn’t teach us as much as suffering.”

     It’s through our suffering that we learn about ourselves, about what’s important in our lives, and it also helps us to become more empathetic and compassionate toward others who are going through a time of grief or suffering in their lives.

 

     And this leads me to this thought from his book where he says, “Nothing is ever worth the suffering we are experiencing, but neither is our suffering worthless.” “Nothing is ever worth the suffering we are experiencing, but neither is our suffering worthless.”

     So, these are just some thoughts that I picked up from my time with this former church member and by reading this book by Rabbi Leder. She came to me for help that day and she ended up helping me just as much as I did for her.

     These are thoughts for us to survey especially during this season of Lent, a holy season in which we are invited to offer to God our suffering, our pain, and our grief.

     What I find most helpful about our Gospel reading for today is in being reminded that Jesus is like us in so many ways. That shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept” helps us to see that even the Savior of the world needed time to survey his sense of loss and pain at the death of his dear friend.

     He needed to spend those two extra days before going to Bethany to be in prayer in facing that difficult time.

     Have you noticed how before Jesus heals someone or brings them back to life, he doesn’t just snap his fingers and the miracle happens? Jesus first offers a prayer at Lazarus tomb in addition to the two whole days that he had already spent in prayer before he even arrived.

 

     It was only after Jesus surveyed his own sense of grief, pain, and sorrow, and pray for guidance, direction, and strength, that he was able to bring Lazarus back to life. No wonder that Jesus told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life,” because he truly is.

      As we survey our grief, remember that “Nothing is ever worth the suffering we are experiencing, but neither is our suffering worthless.” Remember to reach out to others for help. “The people who matter don’t mind, and the people who mind, don’t really matter.”

      And remember to reach out in faith to the one who weeps with us, who walks with us through our suffering and pain, and who is the resurrection and the life.