Podcasts about untie

When looking into tethered oral tissues, it is easy to focus entirely on visual structural appearance. However, judging a restriction by looks alone frequently misses the true clinical picture. Real progress happens when healthcare providers shift the diagnostic paradigm away from what a tie looks like and focus entirely on how it affects dynamic function over a patient's lifespan.In this episode, Hallie sits down with Dr. Richard Baxter, DMD, MS, FAAPD, a board-certified pediatric dentist, founder of the Alabama Tongue-Tie Center, and lead author of the bestselling book Tongue-Tied. Dr. Baxter shares his personal and professional insights into the complexities of identifying oral restrictions, moving past basic anatomical definitions to explore how a tiny string under the tongue can alter systemic, long-term health.About the Guest: Dr. Richard BaxterDr. Richard Baxter is a board-certified pediatric dentist, a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD), a Diplomate of the American Board of Laser Surgery, and the founder of the Alabama Tongue-Tie Center. As an internationally recognized speaker and creator of the Tongue-Tied Academy, he has dedicated his career to educating healthcare providers and parents on the structural and functional impacts of oral restrictions. Having experienced a tongue-tie himself and treated his three daughters as infants, his dedication to the field is deeply personal. He resides in Birmingham, Alabama, with his family.Key Topics & TakeawaysSymptoms Over Appearance: Why a visual exam never tells the full story and why diagnostic protocols must prioritize symptom functional profiles over pure aesthetics.Groundbreaking Research in Complex Profiles: Dr. Baxter shares fascinating insights from recent research surrounding oral restrictions and their structural correlations to cerebral palsy.Buccal and Lip Ties Exploded: Clarifying the distinct functional impacts of cheek and lip restrictions, and how they play a role in infant feeding dynamics.The Interdisciplinary Standard: Best practices for post-operative care, follow-up timelines, and maintaining clear, collaborative communication lines across the therapy team.Soundbites"Common does not mean normal." "Digestion starts in the mouth.""Untie the shoelaces for proper function."Timestamps00:00:00 – Intro Hook: The Shoelace Analogy breakdown.00:01:03 – Guest Welcome: Dr. Richard Baxter joins the show.00:02:43 – Clinical Debate: Treating oral restrictions based on symptoms vs. appearance.00:06:51 – Collaborative Care: How a therapist should present a concise, one-page case review to a doctor.00:09:13 – The Post-Op Rule: Why myofunctional therapy is essential (The knee surgery comparison).00:11:51 – Clinical Truths: Why "common" does not mean "normal" when tracking snoring or mouth-breathing.00:13:08 – Complex Case Study: Dr. Baxter's landmark research on tongue-tie releases in children with Cerebral Palsy.00:20:27 – Digestion & The Nervous System: How poor swallowing mechanics trigger chronic fight-or-flight states.00:26:49 – Emerging Research: Survey insights on identifying and treating Buccal (cheek) ties globally.00:32:24 – The Bed-Wetting Link: The surprising connection between airway stress, heart peptides, and nocturnal polyuria.00:48:28 – Reclaiming "No-Man's Land": Why releasing ties between 6 months and 4 years old is critical for core brain development.Links & ResourcesRead the Best Selling Book: Tongue-Tied by Dr. Richard BaxterExplore Clinical Resources: Visit TongueTie.comWatch and Learn: Tune into Dr. Baxter's YouTube ChannelWORTH A LISTEN: CONTINUE YOUR JOURNEYEpisode 200: Functional Impact: When A Tongue Tie Is ACTUALLY A Tongue TieEP 348: Tongue Ties, Sleep Apnea & More: The Patient-Centered Approach to Airway DentistrySTAY CONNECTED & GROW YOUR PRACTICEJoin the conversation: Get behind-the-scenes insights, clinical pearls, and real conversations over on Substack. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SET THE SCENE- MATTHEW 21 ( ALL 4 WRITERS SAY) 21 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to […]

In an increasingly complex, polarised, and fast‑moving world, the ability to have high‑quality conversations may be one of the most important leadership skills we have.In this episode of We Not Me, Dan Hammond and Pia Lee are joined by Dianna Anderson, founding member of the International Coaching Federation and a pioneer of coaching-based leadership. Together, they explore why conversations are the hidden engine of change — and how curiosity, presence, and shared language can help teams and societies move forward together.Dianna introduces her framework “Untying the Knot”, offering a practical way to understand what really blocks progress in conversations — and how to shift from argument and polarity to connection, trust, and hope.

Luke 19:30–31 (ESV) - “‘Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” you shall say this: “The Lord has need of it.”'” In this episode of Daily Devotions, Pastor David Sumrall highlights a powerful truth about stewardship and surrender. While we often bring our needs to God, there are moments when God speaks to us about what He desires to use from our lives. He reminds us that everything we have ultimately belongs to God, and we are simply stewards of what He has entrusted to us. Pastor Sumrall explains the significance of the colt that had never been used, showing how what is set apart for God must be reserved for sacred purposes. He also emphasizes God's heart as a giver, not a taker—when God asks for something, it is never to diminish us, but to use it for His purposes and return blessing in our lives. This Daily Devotion encourages believers to willingly release what God asks for, trusting that He is faithful to provide, multiply, and return it in ways that bring both blessing and eternal purpose. ---- Don't forget to like, subscribe to Cathedral of Praise TV https://www.youtube.com/c/cathedralofpraiseTV/?sub_confirmation=1,and hit the bell icon 

Today's guest is Ryan Dunlap, former hostage negotiator, executive leader and pastor. He's the creator of The Real Tact Model® and author of How to Untie a Balloon: A Negotiator's Guide to Avoid Popping Under Pressure, where he shares powerful tools for staying calm, connected and effective when the stakes are high.”If you want to learn how these strategies can help you to improve your relationship, you will not want to miss this!

At the Procession with Palms - GospelMatthew 21:1-11When Jesus and the disciples drew near Jerusalemand came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives,Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them,"Go into the village opposite you,and immediately you will find an ass tethered,and a colt with her.Untie them and bring them here to me.And if anyone should say anything to you, reply,'The master has need of them.'Then he will send them at once."This happened so that what had been spoken through the prophetmight be fulfilled:Say to daughter Zion,"Behold, your king comes to you,meek and riding on an ass,and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden."The disciples went and did as Jesus had ordered them.They brought the ass and the colt and laid their cloaks over them,and he sat upon them.The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road,while others cut branches from the treesand strewed them on the road.The crowds preceding him and those followingkept crying out and saying:"Hosanna to the Son of David;blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord;hosanna in the highest."And when he entered Jerusalemthe whole city was shaken and asked, "Who is this?"And the crowds replied,"This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee."At the Mass - Reading IIsaiah 50:4-7The Lord GOD has given me a well-trained tongue,that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear;and I have not rebelled, have not turned back.I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced;I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame. Reading IIPhilippians 2:6-11Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.GospelMatthew 26:14—27:66One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot,went to the chief priests and said,"What are you willing to give meif I hand him over to you?"They paid him thirty pieces of silver,and from that time on he looked for an opportunityto hand him over.On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,the disciples approached Jesus and said,"Where do you want us to preparefor you to eat the Passover?"He said,"Go into the city to a certain man and tell him,'The teacher says, "My appointed time draws near;in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples."'"The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered,and prepared the Passover.When it was evening,he reclined at table with the Twelve.And while they were eating, he said,"Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me."Deeply distressed at this,they began to say to him one after another,"Surely it is not I, Lord?"He said in reply,"He who has dipped his hand into the dish with meis the one who will betray me.The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him,but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.It would be better for that man if he had never been born."Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply,"Surely it is not I, Rabbi?"He answered, "You have said so."While they were eating,Jesus took bread, said the blessing,broke it, and giving it to his disciples said,"Take and eat; this is my body."Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying,"Drink from it, all of you,for this is my blood of the covenant,which will be shed on behalf of manyfor the forgiveness of sins.I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vineuntil the day when I drink it with you newin the kingdom of my Father."Then, after singing a hymn,they went out to the Mount of Olives.Then Jesus said to them,"This night all of you will have your faith in me shaken,for it is written:I will strike the shepherd,and the sheep of the flock will be dispersed;but after I have been raised up,I shall go before you to Galilee."Peter said to him in reply,"Though all may have their faith in you shaken,mine will never be."Jesus said to him,"Amen, I say to you,this very night before the cock crows,you will deny me three times."Peter said to him,"Even though I should have to die with you,I will not deny you."And all the disciples spoke likewise.Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane,and he said to his disciples,"Sit here while I go over there and pray."He took along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee,and began to feel sorrow and distress.Then he said to them,"My soul is sorrowful even to death.Remain here and keep watch with me."He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying,"My Father, if it is possible,let this cup pass from me;yet, not as I will, but as you will."When he returned to his disciples he found them asleep.He said to Peter,"So you could not keep watch with me for one hour?Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test.The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."Withdrawing a second time, he prayed again,"My Father, if it is not possible that this cup passwithout my drinking it, your will be done!"Then he returned once more and found them asleep,for they could not keep their eyes open.He left them and withdrew again and prayed a third time,saying the same thing again.Then he returned to his disciples and said to them,"Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?Behold, the hour is at handwhen the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners.Get up, let us go.Look, my betrayer is at hand."While he was still speaking,Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived,accompanied by a large crowd, with swords and clubs,who had come from the chief priests and the eldersof the people.His betrayer had arranged a sign with them, saying,"The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him."Immediately he went over to Jesus and said,"Hail, Rabbi!" and he kissed him.Jesus answered him,"Friend, do what you have come for."Then stepping forward they laid hands on Jesus and arrested him.And behold, one of those who accompanied Jesusput his hand to his sword, drew it,and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his ear.Then Jesus said to him,"Put your sword back into its sheath,for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.Do you think that I cannot call upon my Fatherand he will not provide me at this momentwith more than twelve legions of angels?But then how would the Scriptures be fulfilledwhich say that it must come to pass in this way?"At that hour Jesus said to the crowds,"Have you come out as against a robber,with swords and clubs to seize me?Day after day I sat teaching in the temple area,yet you did not arrest me.But all this has come to passthat the writings of the prophets may be fulfilled."Then all the disciples left him and fled.Those who had arrested Jesus led him awayto Caiaphas the high priest,where the scribes and the elders were assembled.Peter was following him at a distanceas far as the high priest's courtyard,and going inside he sat down with the servantsto see the outcome.The chief priests and the entire Sanhedrinkept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesusin order to put him to death,but they found none,though many false witnesses came forward.Finally two came forward who stated,"This man said, 'I can destroy the temple of Godand within three days rebuild it.'"The high priest rose and addressed him,"Have you no answer?What are these men testifying against you?"But Jesus was silent.Then the high priest said to him,"I order you to tell us under oath before the living Godwhether you are the Christ, the Son of God."Jesus said to him in reply,"You have said so.But I tell you:From now on you will see 'the Son of Manseated at the right hand of the Power'and 'coming on the clouds of heaven.'"Then the high priest tore his robes and said,"He has blasphemed!What further need have we of witnesses?You have now heard the blasphemy;what is your opinion?"They said in reply,"He deserves to die!"Then they spat in his face and struck him,while some slapped him, saying,"Prophesy for us, Christ: who is it that struck you?"Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard.One of the maids came over to him and said,"You too were with Jesus the Galilean."But he denied it in front of everyone, saying,"I do not know what you are talking about!"As he went out to the gate, another girl saw himand said to those who were there,"This man was with Jesus the Nazorean."Again he denied it with an oath,"I do not know the man!"A little later the bystanders came over and said to Peter,"Surely you too are one of them;even your speech gives you away."At that he began to curse and to swear,"I do not know the man."And immediately a cock crowed.Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken:"Before the cock crows you will deny me three times."He went out and began to weep bitterly.When it was morning,all the chief priests and the elders of the peopletook counsel against Jesus to put him to death.They bound him, led him away,and handed him over to Pilate, the governor.Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned,deeply regretted what he had done.He returned the thirty pieces of silverto the chief priests and elders, saying,"I have sinned in betraying innocent blood."They said,"What is that to us?Look to it yourself."Flinging the money into the temple,he departed and went off and hanged himself.The chief priests gathered up the money, but said,"It is not lawful to deposit this in the temple treasury,for it is the price of blood."After consultation, they used it to buy the potter's fieldas a burial place for foreigners.That is why that field even today is called the Field of Blood.Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiahthe prophet,And they took the thirty pieces of silver,the value of a man with a price on his head,a price set by some of the Israelites,and they paid it out for the potter's fieldjust as the Lord had commanded me.Now Jesus stood before the governor, and he questioned him,"Are you the king of the Jews?"Jesus said, "You say so."And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders,he made no answer.Then Pilate said to him,"Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you?"But he did not answer him one word,so that the governor was greatly amazed.Now on the occasion of the feastthe governor was accustomed to release to the crowdone prisoner whom they wished.And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.So when they had assembled, Pilate said to them,"Which one do you want me to release to you,Barabbas, or Jesus called Christ?"For he knew that it was out of envythat they had handed him over.While he was still seated on the bench,his wife sent him a message,"Have nothing to do with that righteous man.I suffered much in a dream today because of him."The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowdsto ask for Barabbas but to destroy Jesus.The governor said to them in reply,"Which of the two do you want me to release to you?"They answered, "Barabbas!"Pilate said to them,"Then what shall I do with Jesus called Christ?"They all said,"Let him be crucified!"But he said,"Why? What evil has he done?"They only shouted the louder,"Let him be crucified!"When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all,but that a riot was breaking out instead,he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd,saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood.Look to it yourselves."And the whole people said in reply,"His blood be upon us and upon our children."Then he released Barabbas to them,but after he had Jesus scourged,he handed him over to be crucified.Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus inside the praetoriumand gathered the whole cohort around him.They stripped off his clothesand threw a scarlet military cloak about him.Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head,and a reed in his right hand.And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying,"Hail, King of the Jews!"They spat upon him and took the reedand kept striking him on the head.And when they had mocked him,they stripped him of the cloak,dressed him in his own clothes,and led him off to crucify him.As they were going out, they met a Cyrenian named Simon;this man they pressed into serviceto carry his cross.And when they came to a place called Golgotha—which means Place of the Skull —,they gave Jesus wine to drink mixed with gall.But when he had tasted it, he refused to drink.After they had crucified him,they divided his garments by casting lots;then they sat down and kept watch over him there.And they placed over his head the written charge against him:This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.Two revolutionaries were crucified with him,one on his right and the other on his left.Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying,"You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,save yourself, if you are the Son of God,and come down from the cross!"Likewise the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him and said,"He saved others; he cannot save himself.So he is the king of Israel!Let him come down from the cross now,and we will believe in him.He trusted in God;let him deliver him now if he wants him.For he said, 'I am the Son of God.'"The revolutionaries who were crucified with himalso kept abusing him in the same way.From noon onward, darkness came over the whole landuntil three in the afternoon.And about three o'clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice,"Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?"which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"Some of the bystanders who heard it said,"This one is calling for Elijah."Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge;he soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed,gave it to him to drink.But the rest said,"Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him."But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice,and gave up his spirit.Here all kneel and pause for a short time.And behold, the veil of the sanctuarywas torn in two from top to bottom.The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened,and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection,they entered the holy city and appeared to many.The centurion and the men with him who were keeping watch over Jesusfeared greatly when they saw the earthquakeand all that was happening, and they said,"Truly, this was the Son of God!"There were many women there, looking on from a distance,who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him.Among them were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph,and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.When it was evening,there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph,who was himself a disciple of Jesus.He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus;then Pilate ordered it to be handed over.Taking the body, Joseph wrapped it in clean linenand laid it in his new tomb that he had hewn in the rock.Then he rolled a huge stone across the entrance to the tomband departed.But Mary Magdalene and the other Maryremained sitting there, facing the tomb.The next day, the one following the day of preparation,the chief priests and the Phariseesgathered before Pilate and said,"Sir, we remember that this impostor while still alive said,'After three days I will be raised up.'Give orders, then, that the grave be secured until the third day,lest his disciples come and steal him and say to the people,'He has been raised from the dead.'This last imposture would be worse than the first."Pilate said to them,"The guard is yours;go, secure it as best you can."So they went and secured the tombby fixing a seal to the stone and setting the guard. 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13aPsalm 23: 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6Ephesians 5:8-14John 9:1-41Fourth Sunday of LentLectionary: 31Reading I1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13aThe LORD said to Samuel:“Fill your horn with oil, and be on your way.I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have chosen my king from among his sons.”As Jesse and his sons came to the sacrifice, Samuel looked at Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD's anointed is here before him.”But the LORD said to Samuel: “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him.Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the LORD looks into the heart.”In the same way Jesse presented seven sons before Samuel, but Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen any one of these.”Then Samuel asked Jesse,“Are these all the sons you have?”Jesse replied,“There is still the youngest, who is tending the sheep.”Samuel said to Jesse,“Send for him; we will not begin the sacrificial banquet until he arrives here.”Jesse sent and had the young man brought to them.He was ruddy, a youth handsome to behold and making a splendid appearance.The LORD said,“There—anoint him, for this is the one!”Then Samuel, with the horn of oil in hand, anointed David in the presence of his brothers; and from that day on, the spirit of the LORD rushed upon David.Reading IIEphesians 5:8-14Brothers and sisters:You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.Therefore, it says: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”GospelJohn 9:1-41As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.His disciples asked him,“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”Jesus answered,“Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.Night is coming when no one can work.While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”When he had said this, he spat on the groundand made clay with the saliva,and smeared the clay on his eyes,and said to him, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” —which means Sent—.So he went and washed, and came back able to see.His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, “Isn't this the one who used to sit and beg?”Some said, “It is, “but others said, “No, he just looks like him.”He said, “I am.”So they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?”He replied,“The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyesand told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.'So I went there and washed and was able to see.”And they said to him, “Where is he?”He said, “I don't know.”They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees.Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath.So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see.He said to them,“He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.”So some of the Pharisees said,“This man is not from God,because he does not keep the sabbath.”But others said,“How can a sinful man do such signs?”And there was a division among them.So they said to the blind man again, “What do you have to say about him,since he opened your eyes?”He said, “He is a prophet.”Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight.They asked them,“Is this your son, who you say was born blind?How does he now see?”His parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.We do not know how he sees now,nor do we know who opened his eyes.Ask him, he is of age;he can speak for himself.”His parents said this because they were afraidof the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ,he would be expelled from the synagogue.For this reason his parents said,“He is of age; question him.”So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give God the praise!We know that this man is a sinner.”He replied,“If he is a sinner, I do not know.One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”So they said to him,“What did he do to you?How did he open your eyes?”He answered them,“I told you already and you did not listen.Why do you want to hear it again?Do you want to become his disciples, too?”They ridiculed him and said, “You are that man's disciple;we are disciples of Moses!We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from.”The man answered and said to them,“This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes.We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him.It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind.If this man were not from God,he would not be able to do anything.”They answered and said to him,“You were born totally in sin,and are you trying to teach us?”Then they threw him out.When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out,he found him and said, Do you believe in the Son of Man?”He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”Jesus said to him,“You have seen him,the one speaking with you is he.”He said,“I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.Then Jesus said,“I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.”Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?”Jesus said to them,“If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,' so your sin remains.

Send us Fan MailAs Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the towns of Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. “Go into that village over there,” he told them. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, ‘What are you doing?' just say, ‘The Lord needs it and will return it soon.'” The two disciples left and found the colt standing in the street, tied outside the front door. As they were untying it, some bystanders demanded, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They said what Jesus had told them to say, and they were permitted to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it, and he sat on it. Mark 11:4-7Many in the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others spread leafy branches they had cut in the fields. Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Mark 11:8-10Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious,lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9God chooses the unlikelyto do the unbelievableBut God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,1 Corinthians 1:27Lessons from the DonkeyJesus knows Me.Jesus sent two of them on ahead. “Go into that village over there,” he told them. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Mark 11:1-2Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7He doesn't cancel you,  He has compassion on you.2. Jesus wants me.The two disciples left and found the colt standing in the street, tied outside the front door. As they were untying it, some bystanders demanded, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They said what Jesus had told them to say, and they were permitted to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it, and he sat on it. Mark 11:4-7Jesus wants me free.It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Galatians 5:1Jesus wants me close.3.  Jesus wants me in community. Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today's message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved

Here we are, the week of Jesus' crucifixion. The week he very well knew was his last here on this earth. A week he knew would include more suffering than our human minds can comprehend. And guess what – he walked right into this week, facing it head on with intention, knowing what he was doing he was doing for me and you. Over and over again, Jesus shows us how to live in a way that makes it about others more than it is about ourselves. How can we take this example of Jesus in the final week of his life and live more like him? Let's see how Jesus did it! All 4 gospel accounts of this final week begin in the same way, “Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem”. Now if you were making a triumphant entry, what would that look like? Oh girl, what would you wear? You have to be triumphant in your appearance. Make a grand entrance. Que the walk-up music, this has to be dynamic! Smoke and lights! Energy! All the hoopla for a triumphant entry – right? We really have a special way of making things about us, don't we? We try so hard to be impressive. We have a hard time choosing what to wear for the flight home from vacation, let alone a triumphant entry for the most important and final week of your life. We overthink … you know why – because we're thinking about ourselves. Really we are – even when we think of others, we're typically thinking of how they receive us, how they treat us, and how they make us feel. It's all about us. But Jesus shows us how to make a triumphant entry that's all about HIM, without making it all about him. Now, let's be clear. This really is all about Jesus. Everything in our Bible is ultimately about Jesus. It's about how Jesus saved us from what we couldn't save ourselves from. It's about how Jesus changed absolutely everything for us. So, how do you show up and make an entrance when in fact, it really is about you? Answer: With humility! It was time for Jesus to willfully walk toward Jerusalem, knowing this was the place he would sacrifice his life. Knowing this was the place he would be betrayed. Knowing this was the place he would suffer. Knowing this was the place absolutely nothing would be fair for him, and he would endure it to make it right for us. And do you know how he makes his triumphant entry? Does he show up with chariots? No. Does he call out the band to play his walk-up song? No. Does he even ride in on a horse? No. Jesus chooses the most humble entry – riding on a donkey. A donkey was not a sign of power. A donkey was a sign of humble work. Jesus was making his entry to Jerusalem for his humble work of saving both me and you! Matthew 21: 1-6, “As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the town of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. ‘Go into the village over there,' he said. ‘As soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there, with its colt beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, The Lord needs them, and he will immediately let you take them.' This took place to fulfill the prophesy that said, ‘Tell the people of Jerusalem, Look your King is coming to you. He is HUMBLE, riding on a donkey – riding on a donkey's colt.' The two disciples did as Jesus commanded. They brought the donkey and the colt to him and threw their garments over the colt, and he sat on it.” So now we see Jesus didn't only choose the humble means of a donkey, but he chose even lower – the donkey's colt. The colt wasn't as strong, wasn't as experienced, and not as useful. It's the equivalent today of traveling on an airplane, not choosing first class, not choosing business class, not even choosing the isle or the window – but choosing row 41, middle seat – ON PURPOSE. Who does that? Nobody does that. Especially not when you have not only the power to fly the plane, but the RIGHT to fly the plane. Jesus had the power to show up any way he wanted to. He had the right to make an entrance in any manner. He could have made it all about him, and absolutely no one would have blamed him. I mean really, do you blame the person riding in first class for getting extra leg room when they can afford it and paid for it? No, you just envy them a little bit as you walk on by and get yourself to the back of the plane. Jesus knew his assignment, and he walked in it perfectly. He rode in, entering his final week of life on a donkey's colt, with the ultimate humility. And here's the wild thing – God had always planned it that way. Many years earlier, God had spoken to Zechariah and told him the King would come to save the world, and he would come with absolute humility on a donkey's colt. This is now being quoted in Matthew. And remember, when God spoke those words to Zechariah through the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, Jesus was there, because Jesus is God in human form. The trinity. With all the power in the world, LITERALLY, God planned his own entry into the world … with humility. And he planned the joy of saving his children while holding the grief of sacrificing his son. Jesus was born in humility to a virgin girl in a stable – and now Jesus would enter into his final week knowingly with that same power contained in humility. He didn't make it about him. But let's be clear – IT WAS ABOUT HIM. It's all about Jesus. But do you know what Jesus made it about – HE MADE IT ABOUT YOU. Imagine going to a concert and your absolute favorite artist walks out on stage holding a sign with your name on it. And imagine every song they sing, they sing looking directly at you in the audience. THAT'S WHAT OUR JESUS DID, and he did it for you. At the end of this week, Jesus is betrayed and arrested, which he knew was coming since the very beginning. He didn't fight it. He didn't run from it. He endured it all with humility and a focus on us, not on himself. There, surrounded by a crowd of men with swords and clubs, being arrested and ultimately led to his death, Jesus says in Matthew 26: 53-54, “Don't you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly. But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?” Jesus knew his mission, and although he knew he held the power to do absolutely anything he wanted, he chose to humbly surrender to the Father's will – even when it was hard. Jesus shows us how to live in the hardest seasons of our lives and walk with purpose. We restrain ourselves from doing the things we could do, and focus on doing what God wants us to do. Jesus doesn't just tell us to surrender and submit to God – he shows us how to do it. Jesus is here in his final week, holding the grief of being betrayed in one hand, and the joy of walking in his purpose in his other. The grief of suffering in one hand, and the joy of knowing his suffering was temporary but forever good in his other hand. Jesus is showing us how to hold grief and joy at the same time. When you hurt, it's okay to hurt – but there can still be joy knowing this hurt isn't all there is. When there's joy, you can feel the joy knowing everything doesn't have to be perfect and fixed to experience moments of beauty. On our final night together here in the retreat house in Hawaii, we sat together and we each shared two things – what is the sweetest thing in this season of your life, and what is the hardest. We all had something hard we're currently in, and we all had something so sweet too. We're holding both, at the same time. One who has lost her husband. Three who are going through divorces. Many who have hard to love children. Some who battle health issues. And yet, each who have immense awareness of their blessings straight from heaven. There's a song called “Evidence” by Josh Baldwin that says: In every season from where I'm standing I see the evidence of your goodness All over my life All over my life I see your promises and fulfillments All over my life All over my life Help me remember when I'm weak The fear may come The fear will leave You lead my heart to victory You are my strength And you always will be I see the evidence of your goodness All over my life With humility, Jesus shows us how to take the focus off self, while holding grief and joy at the same time. He reminds us of the evidence of God's goodness all over our life, even in the midst of a hard season. Wherever you are standing, may you humbly see the evidence of God's goodness all over your life. In every season, may you always remember it's never all bad. Jesus faced this final week of his life, holding the grief and weight of all the sin in the world, yet he held joy knowing it was about YOU! Saving you. Redeeming you. Making a way for you. May you humbly hold your joy and your grief, and walk your path knowing there's a greater purpose. Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela Or Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pamela.crim Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com

21.1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,5 “Say to the daughter of Zion,‘Behold, your king is coming to you,    humble, and mounted on a donkey,    on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'”6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

“The King We Want, Is Not The King You Need”Matthew 21:1-171 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:5 “Say to Daughter Zion,    ‘See, your king comes to you,gentle and riding on a donkey,    and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'”6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,“Hosanna[b] to the Son of David!”“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.'”14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.16 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,“‘From the lips of children and infants    you, Lord, have called forth your praise'?”17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.CONNECT WITH USIf you have any questions or would like to get to know us further, head over to https://www.triumphlbc.org/connect and fill out our online connection card.ABOUT TRIUMPHTriumph wants to see the life and message of Jesus transform your heart, home, and city. To learn more visit https://www.triumphlbc.org/

“After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.  As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden.  Untie it and bring it here.  If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?' say, ‘The Lord needs it.'  Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them.  As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?'  They replied, ‘The Lord needs it.'  They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it.  As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.  When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:  ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!'  ‘Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.'  Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!'  ‘I tell you,' he replied, ‘if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.'  As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you bring you PEACE-but now it is hidden from your eyes.  The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.  They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls.  They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.'  When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling.  ‘It is written, he said to them, ‘My house will be a house of prayer; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.'  Every day he was teaching at the temple.  But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him.  Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his Words.” - Luke 19:28-48“If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” - Luke 19:40“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.  Look, your house is left to you desolate.  I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'” - Luke 13:34-351. He is A Worthy King2. He is A Weeping King3. He is A Warning King

WELCOME- START OF PASSION WEEK BEGIN NEW SERIES ENCOUNTERS ENCOUNTERS JESUS HAD THIS SEASON SET THE SCENE- MATTHEW 21 ( ALL 4 WRITERS SAY) 21 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away. 10 day of Nisan This was the day they selected the lamb to be sacrificed on the 14th day- the day when Jesus this lamb would ride. He then says to them and us- I will take on the entire sin nature of these dirty people The mud was cleaner than the souls of the people LIMO VEHICLE VLADIMIR PUTIN CAR HELICOPTER FORMER BRITTISH PRIME MINISTER RISHI SUNAK TRAIN ARORMORED- FOOD SECURE- POWERED KIM JONG UN DONKEY LAST YEAR PASTOR STEPHEN WILLIS DONKEY- THIS CROSS DESGN ON ITS BACK HORSE- A WAR HORSE RODE DONKEY MEANS YOU “COME” IN PEACE WAR HORSE MEANS YOU COME TO … SIZE DIFFERNCES ARE BIG SCRIPTURE ZECHARIAH 9:9 9. “REJOICE, O PEOPLE OF ZION! SHOUT IN TRIUMPH, O PEOPLE OF JERUSALEM! SCRIPTURE ZECHARIAH 9:9 9. LOOK YOUR KING IS COMING TO YOU. HE IS RIGHTEOUS AND VICTORIOUS, YET HE IS HUMBLE, RIDING ON A DONKEY- RIDING ON A DONKEY'S FOAL. SCRIPTURE ZECHARIAH 9:10 10. I WILL REMOVE THE BATTLE CHARIOTS FROM ISRAEL AND THE WARHORSES FROM JERUSALEM. SCRIPTURE ZECHARIAH 9:10 10. I WILL DESTROY ALL THE WEAPONS USED IN BATTLE, AND YOUR KING WILL BRING PEACE TO THE NATIONS. HOSANA-(SAVE NOW) PALM BRANCHES SCRIPTURE 9:10 10. HIS REALM WILL STRETCH FROM SEA TO SEA AND FROM THE EUPHRATES RIVER TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH.” THE VISUAL PICTURE DIFFERENCE JESUS ARRIVES ON A COLT- PEACE-HUMILITY WASN'T THE FIRST KING TO ARRIVE DONKEY- SOLOMON RODE IN TO JERUSALEM SCRIPTURE LUKE 19:41 41. “AS HE APPROACHED JERUSALEM AND SAW THE CITY HE WEPT OVER IT.” WHY- WHY IS HE WEEPING? BECAUSE OF THE PAIN WILL SUFFER? PASSION WEEK FOCUS MATTHEW – 40 %- LAST WEEK OF JESUS LIFE MARK- 60 % LUKE 33 % JOHN- ALMOST 50 % HOW MUCH TIME THIS WEEK IN REFLECTION? BE INTENTIONAL IN REPENTANCE- IN PRAISE SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:13 13. “WOE TO YOU, TEACHERS OF THE LAW AND PHARISEES, YOU HYPOCRITES! (1)YOU SHUT THE DOOR OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN PEOPLES FACES. HYPOCRITE DEFINED A PERSON WHO PRETENDS TO HAVE MORAL STANDARDS OR OPINIONS THAT THEY DO NOT ACTUALLY HAVE. ACTOR Ain't going to church- church is full of hypocrites- TRUE ON SOME LEVEL I also had some relatives and friends who loved Jesus and they were NOT hypocrites- do you know some real very real THE HYPOCRISY STARTED 6 DAYS BEFORE THIS JUDAS AND JESUS BEING ANOINTED- WOW WHAT A JOKE THIS WAS – JUDAS WHEN YOU HEAR HYPCOCRITE- YOU THINK OF WHAT IT IS OR DO YOU PICTURE A FACE? LANCE ARMSTRONG/HOLLYWOOD NOT PICKING ON LANCE- BUT HE TALKED HOLLYWOOD- EVERYONE GETS UPSET THEM SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:13 13. YOU YOURSELVES DO NOT ENTER, NOR WILL YOU LET THOSE WHO ARE TRYING TO. SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:23 23. “WOE TO YOU, TEACHERS OF THE LAW AND PHARISEES, YOU HYPOCRITES! (2) YOU GIVE A TENTH OF YOUR SPICES-MINT, DILL, CUMIN. SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:23 23. BUT YOU HAVE NEGLECTED THE MORE IMPORTANT MATTER OF THE LAW-JUSTICE, MERCY, AND FAITHFULNESS. SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:23 23. YOU SHOULD HAVE PRACTICED THE LATTER, WITHOUT NEGELCTING THE FORMER. SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:24 24. YOU BLIND GUIDES! YOU STRAIN OUT A GNAT BUT SWALLOW A CAMEL.” SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:25 25. “WOE TO YOU, TEACHERS OF THE LAW AND PHARISEES, YOU HYPOCRITES! (3) CLEAN THE OUTSIDE OF THE CUP AND DISH, BUT INSIDE THEY ARE FULL OF GREED AND SELF-INDULGENCE. SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:26 26. BLIND PHARISEE! FIRST CLEAN THE INSIDE OF THE CUP AND DISH, AND THEN THE OUTSIDE ALSO WILL BE CLEAN. SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:27 27. “WOE TO YOU, TEACHERS OF THE LAW AND PHARISEES, YOU HYPOCRITES! (4) YOU ARE LIKE WHITE WASHED TOMBS, SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:27 27. WHICH LOOK BEAUTIFUL ON THE OUTSIDE BUT ON THE INSIDE ARE FULL OF BONES OF THE DEAD AND EVERYTHING UNCLEAN. SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:28 28. IN THE SAME WAY, ON THE OUTSIDE YOU APPEAR TO PEOPLE AS RIGHTEOUS BUT ON THE INSIDE YOU ARE FULL OF HYPOCRISY AND WICKEDNESS. QUOTE FRANCIS CHAN “IF GOD CARED ONLY ABOUT RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES, THEN THE PHARISEES WOULD HAVE BEEN HEROES OF THE FAITH.” QUOTE A.W. TOZER “A PHARISEE IS HARD ON OTHERS AND EASY ON HIMSELF, BUT A SPIRITUAL MAN IS EASY ON OTHERS AND HARD ON HIMSELF.” RECORD PLAYER WHATS THE OPPOSITE OF HYPOCRISY? FIDELITY HIGH- FI ( HIGH FIDELITY) THIS RECORD SOUNDS EXACTY LIKE STUDIO THE CHOSEN RIGHTEOUS ANGER RELIGIOUS MEN WHO KNEW BETTER WHO WAS JESUS REALLY TALKING TO HERE? IN A SENSE HE WAS DONE TALKING TO PHARISEES HE'S INVITING THEM TO KILL HIM QUOTE BRENNAN MANNING “THE GREATEST SINGLE CAUSE OF ATHEISM IN THE WORLD TODAY IS CHRISTIANS WHO ACKNOWLEDGE JESUS WITH THEIR LIPS AND WALK OUT THE DOOR AND DENY HIM WITH THE LIFESTYLE. THAT IS WHAT AN UNBELIEVING WORLD SIMPLY FINDS UNBELIEVABLE OUR PUBLIC LIVES MUST BE AN EXTENSION OF THE WORK HE HAS DONE INWARDLY IN OUR PRIVATE LIVES LENT IS THE PERFECT TIME TO REFLECT TO EXAMINE OURSELVES MIRROR TALK PRIMARY PURPOSE OF THE MIRROR NOT ABOUT LOOKING AT WHO ELSE I SEE SEARCH ME OH GOD AND KNOW MY HEART, SEE IF THERE IS ANY OFFENSIVE WAY IN ME. JESUS HUMILITY WAS ON FULL DISPLAY HE WASN'T THE ONLY LEADER WHO EVER ROAD A DONKEY BUT MANY SCHOLARS BELIEVE IT WAS 2 ANIMALS DONKEY AND THEN A FOAL- EVEN SMALLER

PASSION WEEK READING GUIDE Palm Sunday - Mark 11:1-11  Monday - Mark 11:12-19 Tuesday - Mark 11:20-13:37 Wednesday - Mark 14:1-11 Thursday - Mark 14:12-72 Good Friday - Mark 15:1-15:42 Saturday - Mark 15:42-47 Easter Sunday - Mark 16:1-8  Mark 11:1-11 1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.' " 4 They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5 some people standing there asked, "What are you doing, untying that colt?" 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. 7 When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, "Hosanna! " "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" 10 "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!" "Hosanna in the highest!" 11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. NIV 84 LESSON NOTES There's no doubt, the secret's out: After keeping His identity hidden throughout much of Mark, Jesus now deliberately goes public as the Messiah. Palm Sunday is not spontaneous—it is a carefully instructed revelation of His identity. Faithful obedience goes beyond what makes sense: The disciples obeyed instructions that likely felt confusing and uncomfortable. True allegiance to Jesus often requires trust before understanding.  Jesus is not just worthy of worship—He is worthy of royal worship: The crowd's actions (cloaks, branches, shouts) were not casual—they were fit for a king. Allegiance to Jesus means honoring Him as King over every area of life.  Genuine allegiance is revealed in the day to day: The crowd celebrated on Sunday but disappeared by the end of the day. In contrast, true disciples kept following. Allegiance means following Jesus in the day to day.  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Can you think of a time when God called you to do something that didn't make sense at the time? What helped (or hindered) your willingness to obey?  2. What are some practical ways you can honor Jesus as King in our daily decisions this week (finances, time, relationships, habits)? 3. What does it look like for you personally to follow Jesus in the “in-between” days—not just on Sundays or big spiritual moments? What tends to pull you away from following Jesus consistently during the week? What is one step you can take this week to grow in that? 4. Which of the three—faithful obedience, royal worship, or daily discipleship—resonated with you the most when it comes to understanding allegiance? Which one is most challenging, and why?

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:5 “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'” 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,“Hosanna[b] to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! “Hosanna[d] in the highest heaven!”10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

2026-03-29 What Hill Would You Die On by The Rev Anders Edstrom This is the Palm Sunday sermon from Greenfield Presbyterian Church in Berkley, MI. SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 19:28-44 28 After Jesus said this, he continued on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. Procession into Jerusalem 29 As Jesus came to Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives, he gave two disciples a task. 30 He said, “Go into the village over there. When you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks, ‘Why are you untying it?' just say, ‘Its master needs it.'” 32 Those who had been sent found it exactly as he had said. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They replied, “Its master needs it.” 35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their clothes on the colt, and lifted Jesus onto it. 36 As Jesus rode along, they spread their clothes on the road. 37 As Jesus approached the road leading down from the Mount of Olives, the whole throng of his disciples began rejoicing. They praised God with a loud voice because of all the mighty things they had seen. 38 They said, “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.” 39 Some of the Pharisees from the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, scold your disciples! Tell them to stop!” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if they were silent, the stones would shout.” Jesus predicts Jerusalem's destruction 41 As Jesus came to the city and observed it, he wept over it. 42 He said, “If only you knew on this of all days the things that lead to peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 The time will come when your enemies will build fortifications around you, encircle you, and attack you from all sides. 44 They will crush you completely, you and the people within you. They won't leave one stone on top of another within you, because you didn't recognize the time of your gracious visit from God.”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTIONQuestion 31: Why is he called “Christ,” meaning “anointed”?Answer: Because he has been ordained by God the Father and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief prophet and teacher who fully reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our deliverance; our only high priest who has delivered us by the one sacrifice of his body, and who continually pleads our cause with the Father; and our eternal king who governs us by his Word and Spirit, and who guards us and keeps us in the freedom he has won for us. Question 37: What do you understand by the word “suffered”?Answer: That during his whole life on earth, but especially at the end, Christ sustained in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race. This he did in order that, by his suffering as the only atoning sacrifice, he might deliver us, body and soul, from eternal condemnation, and gain for us God's grace, righteousness, and eternal life.~Heidelberg Catechism (1563) “When Christ entered into Jerusalem the people spread garments in the way: when He enters into our hearts, we pull off our own righteousness, and not only lay it under Christ's feet but even trample upon it ourselves.”~Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778), English clergyman and hymn writer “God, of your goodness, give me yourself; you are enough for me, and anything less that I could ask for would not do you full honor. And if I ask anything that is less, I shall always lack something, but in you alone I have everything.”~Julian of Norwich (c.1343-c.1416), medieval anchoress and author “By thus riding through the streets in state, Jesus Christ claimed to be a king. That claim had been to a great extent kept in the background until now; but ere he goes to his Father, when his enemies rage has reached its utmost fury, and when his own hour of deepest humiliation has just arrived, he makes an open claim before the eyes of all men to be called and acknowledged a king.”~Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London preacher “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.”~John Stott (1921-2011), English clergyman and theologian SERMON PASSAGELuke 19:28-40 (ESV) 28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?' you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.'” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” 35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

The Pictures of Palm Sunday Pastors JF & Ashley Wilkerson 1. The Lamb John 1:29 NIV 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 1 Corinthians 5:7b NIV 7b For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 1. The Lamb 2. The Colt Luke 19:28-34 NIV 28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.  29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?' say, ‘The Lord needs it.'” 32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.” Zechariah 9:9 NIV 9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Romans 8:27-28 NIV 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 1. The Lamb 2. The Colt 3. The Stones Luke 19:35-37 NIV 35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.  37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen. Matthew 21:9 NIV 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Luke 19:39-40 NIV 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” 40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” 1. The Lamb 2. The Colt 3. The Stones

Palm Sunday 2026   Exodus 12:3-7, 12-13 ESV   3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 7 "Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.       12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.             Matthew 21:1-5 ESV   Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once." 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,   5 "Say to the daughter of Zion,   'Behold, your king is coming to you,   humble, and mounted on a donkey,   on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'"       Matthew 21:6-9 ESV   6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"       2 Kings 9:13 NIV   13 They quickly took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, "Jehu is king!"       Psalm 118:25-26   25 Lord, save us!   Lord, grant us success!   26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.       John 12:12-13 ESV   12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!"       1 Macabees 13:51   51 On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred seventy-first year, the Jews entered it [Jerusalem] with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel.     Luke 19:41-42 NIV   41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.      

We're so glad you are here! Thanks for checking out Sunday's message!-- SUNDAY'S NOTES --Thy Kingdom Come - Gray AreasWritten on the hearts of men Romans 2:15 How do you decide things? When you live for God and the Kingdom of Light, Kingdom values should affect how you discern and decide.And culture and the ways of the kingdom of darkness creep in and make things grayWhat if you could know that you were discerning and deciding in alignment with the Kingdom of Light?4 gospels: Matt 21:1-11 (can open to this one), Mark 11:1-10, Luke 19:28-44, John 12:12-15Jesus & disciples were approaching Jerusalem (where all the sacrifices took place, the religious and social capital) John 12:12First Jesus gives instructionsMatthew 21:1-3 NIV As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”Matthew 21:4 NIV This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:“Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'”Jesus has a plan beyond what you know or can understand Matthew 21:6-8 NIV The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.King Jehu 2 Kings 9:13 They quickly took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, “Jehu is king!”Matthew 21:9 NIV The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,“Hosanna to the Son of David!”“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”Discernment is knowing what is Right vs Almost Right8 Value-based questions you can ask: What does God's Word say? Does it warn against or encourage it?Psalm 119:105 KJV Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my pathThe Word of God is everlasting, applicable, and alive. Following it requires obedience and trust in God's plan.What is my heart's motive?Psalm 139:23-24 NIV "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.“We must not think of the clothes on our backs too dear to part with for the service of Christ” - Matthew Henry commentaryWe need to hold our “coats” out and make sure that not only the logic aligns but that our affections are in line.Where might I see the consequence of this in my life?1 Corinthians 6:12 TLB I can do anything I want to if Christ has not said no, but some of these things aren't good for me. Even if I am allowed to do them, I'll refuse to if I think they might get such a grip on me that I can't easily stop when I want to. Choose what makes you happy holy.Is this what Jesus would do? 1 John 1:6 Anyone who says he is a Christian should live as Christ did.Does it bring glory to God?1 Cor 10:31 NIV So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.Africa Dominican Republic Alaska Japan Haiku PoemDomain of shadowsSpirit, my fog navigatorPriceless Kingdom light Matthew 5:16 NIV In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.Will it set the right example for others that might be watching?Romans 14:13 “Try to live in such a way that you will never make your brother stumble by letting him see you do something he thinks is wrong”Daniel 12:3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.God created us for community - be a light magnifier not a shadow maker.Have I discussed with others that are kingdom-minded?John 14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever-------------------------------------------------Download the 828 Church app!To view our latest e-newsletter, the Midweek Momentum, and subscribe to our weekly updates, go here! https://linktr.ee/828church

Matthew 21:1–11 | Colossians 3:17The world teaches us to seek recognition, success, and applause. Jesus calls us to a deeper ambition to live for God's approval alone. True ambition is not about being seen by others, but about faithfully serving Christ in every part of life. When God becomes our audience, our work becomes worship.Matthew 21:1–11 (ESV)Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,“Say to the daughter of Zion,‘Behold, your king is coming to you,    humble, and mounted on a donkey,    on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'”The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”Colossians 3:17 (ESV)And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

As Christians, we are to grow in spiritual maturity through the work of the Holy Spirit.

A Sermon for Palm Sunday Philippians 2:1-11, St. Matthew 21:1-17, and St. Matthew 27:1-54 by William Klock One of the buildings that intrigued me the most when I studied architectural history is the Pantheon in Rome.  It's absolutely massive.  If you're not familiar with it: it's a magnificent round building covered by the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.  It's so impressive, that until I studied the Pantheon in architectural history, I'd always assumed it had been built during the Renaissance.  But no.  It was built by the Romans in the early Second Century, a testament to their engineering capabilities.  That's what the Pantheon is known for. What doesn't get nearly as much attention is the function of that massive building.  It was a temple for all the gods of Rome, hence the name “Pantheon”, meaning “all the gods”.  It was a temple, full of altars and statues of the gods to which they were dedicated.  And, in this, it came to represent the imperial power of Caesar and his empire, backed and supported by the power and authority gods.  When I read Paul writing about the “principalities and powers” of the present wicked age, I can't help but think of the Pantheon. But in the Year of Our Lord Six-hundred-and-nine, the Christian Emperor Phocas and Boniface IV, the Bishop of Rome, ordered the by then disused Pantheon stripped of its pagan idols and pagan altars.  Twenty-eight cartloads containing the bones Christian martyrs were exhumed from the catacombs and reburied there.  A Christian altar was erected.  And the building was dedicated as a church in honour of those martyrs whom the pagan Romans had murdered in the names of their gods.  To this day, over fourteen-hundred years later, the Church of St. Mary and the Martyrs remains there, a faithful witness to the conquest of Rome by the gospel and of the lordship of Jesus the Messiah.  A testimony to the power of the cross and the blood of Jesus, not only to purify us from our sins and to make us a dwelling place fit for God's Spirit, but to wash creation itself clean from our sins as well.  There is nothing in creation—whether sinful humans or the most pagan of pagan temples—that Jesus cannot purify and redeem and set right for the glory of the living God.  But the Pantheon is also a testimony of how, of the power of gospel virtue—humility, love, grace, mercy—over the raw power and violence of empire and human endeavour. Think back to the beginning of Lent.  We listened as St. Matthew told us the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.  The devil took him off to a very high mountain and showed him all the magnificent kingdoms of the world.  Off on the horizon was Rome.  “I'll give the whole lot to you,” the devil said, “if you will fall down and worship me.” To rule creation was, after all what Jesus had come for.  He was creation's true Lord.  Caesar and all the other kings were pretenders, shams, parodies of who and what Jesus really is.  All of it, from Jerusalem to Rome and beyond belongs to him.  “There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” to quote Abraham Kuyper.  But this was not the way.  Jesus will not reclaim his creation without also setting it to rights, without dealing with the problems of sin and death.  Without purifying it from idolatry.  without dealing with the very problems that gave us kings in the first place.  To do that requires more than raw power. And so today we hear Matthew again as he tells us of Jesus' triumphal procession into Jerusalem.  When they came near to Jerusalem, and arrived at Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of the disciples on ahead.  Go into the village over there and at once you'll find a donkey tied and a foal beside it.  Untie them and bring them to me and if anyone says anything to you, say, “The Lord needs them and he'll send them back right away.”  He sent them off at once.   Jesus was about to act out another one of his prophecies.  This time it was to show and to remind the people what sort of king the Messiah was to be.  They did want a king who would set all to rights, but in their heads, to their way of thinking, that meant leading a revolt against the Romans.  He would be like David, who defeated the Jebusites to take their city Jerusalem as his capital.  He would be like Judas Maccabeus, who defeated the Greeks and established an independent Jewish kingdom under the high priest.  The Messiah would be like that, only better, greater, more powerful, and his kingdom would last forever.  He would raise up Israel and put the gentile kings under their feet.  The day before or maybe even that same day, as Jesus came to Jerusalem from Bethphage, Caesar's governor, Pontius Pilate, was marching into the city from the opposite direction, from his base in Caesarea, at the front of a column of Roman soldiers.  They were there to represent Caesar's might and to keep the peace with threat of violence during Passover.  If Jesus was the Messiah, now was his time—or so a lot of people thought—now was Jesus' time to finally and really be the Messiah, raise up his army, and cast down Pilate and the Romans and take his throne. But violence wasn't the way to the throne any more than bowing down to the devil was.  Matthew says that Jesus did it his way to remind the people of what the Lord had said about the Messiah through the Prophet Zechariah: Tell this to Zion's daughter: Look now! Here comes your King.  He's humble, mounted on a donkey, yes, on a foal, it's young. The king they expected was going to ride into Jerusalem in a chariot or at least on a great warhorse.  But God's king is different.  A great warrior might take care of the Romans and even take his throne.  He could set things to rights in the way of earthly kings like Caesar, but the world would still be subject to sin and death.  So Jesus acted out the prophecy.  The disciples brought the donkey and Jesus humbly rode it into the city.  And the people cheered all along the way.  They spread their cloaks on the road.  Others cut branches form the trees and scattered them on the road.  The crowds who went ahead of him, and those who were following behind shouted, “Hosanna to the son of David!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!”  And the whole city was gripped with excitement when they came into Jerusalem.  “Who is this!” they were saying.  And the crowds replied, “This is the prophet, Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.   The humble king, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah.  But Jesus wasn't done with his acted-out prophecy.  Matthew says that on entering Jerusalem, Jesus went straight to the temple and when he got there he threw out the people who were buying and selling in the temple.  He upturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of the dove-sellers.  It is written, he said to them, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a brigand's lair!”  The blind and lame came to him in the temple and he healed them.  But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the remarkable things he was doing, and the children shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David!” they were very angry.   The king was fulfilling the words of the prophets.  He came in humility.  And he came announcing that he really was going to set the world to rights.  He was going to set the world to rights in a way that would make the temple obsolete.  Jesus himself would bridge the gulf between God and sinful humans.  Jesus would offer himself as the once-for-all and perfect sacrifice for sin, a sacrifice that would finally purify his people so that in the Spirit, the living God could dwell within them and make them his temple.  So that he could finally give them new hearts full of love for him and love for each other.  They didn't want to hear that.  It was his preaching about the temple that got him arrested. Our long Palm Sunday Gospel today—Matthew 27—vividly depicts the Messiah's humble way to his throne.  Betrayed by his friends, rejected by his people.  Standing humbly before the Roman governor so many people expected him to slay.  Facing trumped up charges made by lying men.  Left condemned to death as the people chose instead that Pilate should free a brutal, violent revolutionary—a man truly guilty of the trumped up charges against Jesus.  Standing humbly as the very people he came to save cried out to Pilate, “Crucify him!”  Standing humbly as he, the king, was rejected by his own people who cried out the unthinkable, “We have no king but Caesar!”  Standing humbly as Roman soldiers mocked him, beat him senseless and scourged him, ripping the skin from his body.  Humbly dragging the very cross on which he would be crucified through the city.  The king, nailed to a cross and hoisted to die between two violent thieves as his own people shouted blasphemies at him, as the chief priests and scribes mocked him shouting, “He rescued others, but he cannot rescue himself.  If he's the king of Israel, let him come down from the cross!  He trusts in God; let God deliver him now if he's really God's son!” For hours Jesus suffered: pulling on those nails driven through his wrists, pushing on the nails driven through his feet, lifting himself to gasp for breath through the pain, while the people gathered around: Jews, Romans, even the spiritual shepherds of his people who claimed to speak for God mocked him and shouted blasphemies.  And despite all that, Luke writes that Jesus prayed for them: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.  And eventually his body could take no more and Jesus breathed his last breath.  Matthew says, the earth shook.  The great veil that guarded the holy of holies in the temple was torn in two.  And the Roman centurions standing guard, scared out of their wits, announced the very thing Jesus' own people would not: He really was the son of God!   Brothers and Sisters, there can be no Easter without Good Friday.  To set the world to rights—to really set it to rights—not just to take a throne, not just to defeat the Romans—but to defeat sin and death and to reconcile sinful men and women to God required a king willing to let evil rise up to its full height, to let evil concentrate itself all in one place, and to let it do its worst, crashing down on him all at once.  It required a king willing to throw himself into the gears of this fallen, broken, and sinful world to bring them to a stop.  It required a king willing to give his life for his own people even as they mocked and blasphemed him, so that he could rise from that humiliating death to overturn the verdict against him, rise victorious over sin and death and the absolute worst that they could do.  Only that humble king could defeat death and bring life—real and true life—back to God's creation and gather a people forgiven, cleansed by his blood, and filled with his Spirit to become a new temple, a new holy of holies where the nations would—where the nations now—enter the presence of God. It was in that humble king that those Roman centurions saw something they had never seen before.  Their Caesar called himself the son of God, but in Jesus they saw the God of Israel at work in all his glory, in all his love, in all his mercy, in all his faithfulness—like no god they'd ever known—completely unlike any god or goddess honoured in the Pantheon.  Whether they knew it or not, those centurions that first Good Friday announced the defeat of Jupiter and Mars, of Hera and Diana, of Neptune and Vesta and all the others.  And they announced the defeat of Caesar, too.  In less than three centuries, the Emperor of Rome himself would be captivated by the good news about Jesus, the son of God, the great King who was setting the world to rights. But Brothers and Sisters, the good news about Jesus, crucified and risen, didn't go out through the empire and to the nations all on its own.  It was carried, it was stewarded by a people—by a church—that, itself, took on the humility of the Saviour.  The bones of those martyrs buried in the Pantheon are a testimony to the faithful, humble, sacrificial witness of Jesus' people in those early centuries.  They didn't just proclaim a message.  They lived it out as a community—as the vanguard of God's new creation born that first Easter morning.  A people welling over with the humility of Jesus and the love of the Spirit.  In the midst of a world of darkness, of false gods and idolatry, of brutality and immorality hard for us to imagine today, they gave the pagans a glimpse of God's future.  By the way they lived, they lifted the veil and showed the world God's new creation.  It was not only the proclamation of the church, but the very life of the church that showed the world a better way, a way no one before had ever known. Here's the truth of it: The people of the humble king must be humble too or it's all for nought.  This is why Paul, writing to the Philippians, says to them, If our shared life in the king brings any comfort; if love still has the power to make you cheerful; if we really do have a partnership in the Spirit; if your hearts are at all moved with affection and sympathy—then make my joy complete!  Bring your thinking into line with one another.  In other words, if you're going to be a gospel community for all the world to see: Have this mind amongst yourselves!  Here's how to do it.  Hold on to the same love; bring your innermost lives into harmony; fix your minds on the same object.  Never act out of selfish ambition or vanity; instead, regard everyone else as your superior.  Look after each other's best interests, not your own.   And I can hear them asking Pau, “But how?  It seems impossible to be that kind of people.”  And Paul knew that, too.  And so he takes them back to the cross.  Brothers and Sisters, everything goes back to Jesus and the cross!  The cross is the only way a gospel people can be a gospel people.  He writes: This is how you should think amongst yourselves, with the mind that you have because you belong to Jesus the Messiah.  And what does that look like?  Paul quotes what looks like song lyrics—maybe a hymn they sang regularly in their churches—a hymn full of gospel truth that maybe they'd got just a little too used to over the years, truth they needed to be reminded of, to think through, to incorporate into their own lives.  Paul writes: Who, though in God's form, did not regard his equality with God as something he ought to exploit.  Instead, he emptied himself, and received the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men.  And then, having human appearance, he humbled himself, and became obedient even to death, yes, even death on a cross.  And so God has greatly exalted him, and to him in his favour has given the name which is over all names.  That now at the name of Jesus every knee within heaven shall bow—on earth, too, and under the earth.  And every tongue shall confess that Messiah Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.   Paul reminds them of the humble king, the son of God who not only took on our flesh, but who gave his life in the most painful and humiliating way possible so that on his way to his throne he might take us with him. Brothers and Sisters, the only way we will ever be faithful in being the people Jesus has called us to be, the only way we will ever be faithful in being the new creation people the Spirit has made us, the only way will ever be faithful stewards of the gospel is to keep the cross of Jesus always before us.  There's a reason why we confess our sins before we come to the Lord's Table.  There is a reason that we repeatedly recall our unworthiness to enter the presence of God on our own merit.  There is a reason why, as we rise in the morning and as we go to bed at night, we confess our sins.  It's so that as we hear the absolution and as we come to the Table, we will remember just how gracious and merciful and loving God has been to us.  It's why we sing songs like “Amazing Grace”.  Amazing grace is such a sweet, sweet sounds, because apart from grace we are such sinful wretches.  And it is inevitable that when we forget this, when we start to think of ourselves as deserving of the gifts God has poured out on us, when we forget the sinfulness of our sin, when we forget that we are the ones who have broken his beloved creation, dear Friends, that's when we forget the true power of the gospel and the true mercy of the cross and the great depth of the love of God for sinners.  When we forget the sinfulness of our sin, we lose sight of the amazingness of God's grace.  Eventually we lose the mind of Jesus the Messiah and we cease to be the community of humble servants that he has made us.  We turn, instead, to self-righteousness, to pride, to violence, to politics, to money, to power to further the kingdom of God.  And our light grows dim.  Our witness fails. We see it happening all around us in the West.  We've stopped talking about sin and we've thought more highly of ourselves than we ought.  We preach a doctrine of cheap grace.  And our light has gone dim.  Our churches have emptied and the culture has claimed them for its own.  In some they preach false gospels of prosperity or the divinity of man or the goodness of sexual immorality.  We setup idols to politics and earthly power in them.  Some are literally gutted, becoming theatres or bars.  Others are little more than tourist attractions: testimonies to the power of the gospel in the days we proclaimed it, but now empty, dead shells.  The culture removes the cross and sets up altars to its idols.  Brothers and Sisters, before it is too late, let us kneel before the cross of Jesus and look up.  Let it fill our vision.  Let us remember that he—the sinless son of God—died the death we deserve.  And let us meditate on the depth and power of his grace that we might share the humble mind of our humble king, that we might be the people he has called us to be, the people he has given his Spirit to make us, the people who will steward his gospel of grace until every knee bows and every tongues confesses that Jesus the Messiah is Lord and gives glory to God the Father. Let's pray: Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for mankind you sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility:  Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Study Passage: Matthew 21:1-11Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,“Say to the daughter of Zion,‘Behold, your king is coming to you,humble, and mounted on a donkey,on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'”The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in thehighest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

Beginning in verse 1. Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you'll find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, “The Lord needs them,” and he'll send them at once.' This took place to fulfill what

“Hosanna To Our King”Matthew 21:1-11s they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:5 “Say to Daughter Zion,    ‘See, your king comes to you,gentle and riding on a donkey,    and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'”6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,“Hosanna to the Son of David!”“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”“Hosanna[d] in the highest heaven!”10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”CONNECT WITH USIf you have any questions or would like to get to know us further, head over to https://www.triumphlbc.org/connect and fill out our online connection card.ABOUT TRIUMPHTriumph wants to see the life and message of Jesus transform your heart, home, and city. To learn more visit https://www.triumphlbc.org/

March 29, 2026 Palm Sunday Expectations The Rev. Maryanna Stumbaugh Download Matthew 21:1-11; 26:36-27:54 (ESV) 1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'” 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” 36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. 45 Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” 47 While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.” 49 And he came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him. 50 Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” 55 At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. 56 But all this has taken place that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled. 57 Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. 58 And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end. 59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, 60 but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward 61 and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.'” 62 And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” 63 But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” 65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. 66 What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” 67 Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, 68 saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?” 69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” 70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.” 71 And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” 72 And again he denied it with an oath: “I do not know the man.” 73 After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” 74 Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. 75 And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. -- Chapter 27 1 When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. 2 And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor. 3 Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” 5 And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. 6 But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. 8 Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, 10 and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me.” 11 Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You have said so.” 12 But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. 13 Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” 14 But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. 15 Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. 16 And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. 17 So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” 18 For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. 19 Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.” 20 Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. 21 The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” 22 Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” 23 And he said, “Why? What evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” 24 So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.” 25 And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” 26 Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. 27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. 28 And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. 31 And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. 32 As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. 33 And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), 34 they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. 35 And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. 36 Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. 37 And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” 38 Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. 39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” 41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.'” 44 And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. 45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 47 And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” 48 And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. 49 But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. 51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. 54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

Matthew 21:1-11Now when they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, telling them, “Go to the village ahead of you. Right away you will find a donkey tied there, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you are to say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet:“Tell the people of Zion,‘Look, your king is coming to you,unassuming and seated on a donkey,and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'”So the disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road. Others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those following kept shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” As he entered Jerusalem the whole city was thrown into an uproar, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Sermon Notes 3/31/26 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” Matthew 21:1-11 “Who is this?” Is the question before us in the text today. The response from the crowd is very different depending on the identity they perceive. Prophecy shows us who this is - This is the first time that Jesus presents Himself as king. He fulfills the prophecy regarding the coming king of Jerusalem. Jesus enters Jerusalem, not as a random man, but a king that was centuries in the making. He knows everything about this moment! It demonstrates that he is not just a man. He is making his announcement as “the ancient of days.” If he knows everything at this moment, then it means he knows everything that is about to happen to Him. And it highlights that His love for us is not accidental. He is the King of Promise. Matthew even gives us the genealogy of Jesus, showing that he is in the line of succession of David and of Abraham. But note how He comes - not as a conquering king like Rome or Caesar. He comes on a colt, and he doesn’t even have a saddle. The cloaks on the donkey is a mark of disgraceful poverty. The kingdom of God is different than the kingdoms of this world. It is not diminished by humility. Before the city even gets to ask “who is this” prophecy has already answered. Praise shows us who this is - They laid out cloaks on the ground for Him to enter and Palm branches and are shouting “Hosana.” This is a royal welcome! A welcome for a king. Hosanna is a Hebrew plea “I beg you to save (us deliver) us.” The crowd is even singing scripture aloud in reaction to what they are seeing. Yet even upon entering, he is prepared to be the “stone rejected by the builders” and in response to this, the lord tells us “if we were to keep silent, creation itself, the stones, would cry out to praise.” For all the shouting and all the branches and cloaks, the question is still asked - “who is this.” The answer that comes is "the prophet Jesus". They’re not wrong. But they’re not right either. The tragedy of this moment is that you can be near all the praise and worship, and still miss the point of it. Jesus is the king. He is worthy of praise. Lastly, Jesus shows us who He is through propitiation. The truth of his actions are loaded with meaning. The crowd crying Hosanna (which means save us) is answered by Jesus’s action. Scripture affirms itself over and over, Jesus’s mission was to save the world from sin. The king comes, but he comes to die. The triumphal entry is triumphant, but it also comes through sacrifice. Jesus is the sacrifice, the propitiation, for our sins. So the crowds cry “save us” and the Gospel answers, “I will.” If Jesus is only a prophet, we still have no peace with God. If Jesus is King and Lord and God, and sacrifices Himself as a perfect blood sacrifice for all sin - the world’s cry “Hosanna” - save us. Your answer of “who is this” changes everything. If he is king, submit to Him, and If he is Savior, trust Him.

John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.”When Jesus heard this he said,“This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea.”When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here,my brother would not have died.But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,God will give you.”Jesus said to her,“Your brother will rise.”Martha said,“I know he will rise,in the resurrection on the last day.”Jesus told her,“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.Do you believe this?”She said to him, “Yes, Lord.I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,the one who is coming into the world.”He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?”They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”And Jesus wept.So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”Jesus said to her,“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”So they took away the stone.And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me.I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”And when he had said this,He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”The dead man came out,tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.So Jesus said to them,“Untie him and let him go.”Now many of the Jews who had come to Maryand seen what he had done began to believe in him.

John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.”When Jesus heard this he said,“This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea.”When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here,my brother would not have died.But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,God will give you.”Jesus said to her,“Your brother will rise.”Martha said,“I know he will rise,in the resurrection on the last day.”Jesus told her,“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.Do you believe this?”She said to him, “Yes, Lord.I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,the one who is coming into the world.”He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?”They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”And Jesus wept.So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”Jesus said to her,“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”So they took away the stone.And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me.I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”And when he had said this,He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”The dead man came out,tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.So Jesus said to them,“Untie him and let him go.”Now many of the Jews who had come to Maryand seen what he had done began to believe in him.

John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.”When Jesus heard this he said,“This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea.”When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here,my brother would not have died.But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,God will give you.”Jesus said to her,“Your brother will rise.”Martha said,“I know he will rise,in the resurrection on the last day.”Jesus told her,“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.Do you believe this?”She said to him, “Yes, Lord.I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,the one who is coming into the world.”He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?”They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”And Jesus wept.So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”Jesus said to her,“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”So they took away the stone.And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me.I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”And when he had said this,He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”The dead man came out,tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.So Jesus said to them,“Untie him and let him go.”Now many of the Jews who had come to Maryand seen what he had done began to believe in him.

Reading IEzekiel 37:12-14Thus says the Lord GOD: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel.Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people!I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the LORD.I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.Reading IIRomans 8:8-11Brothers and sisters:Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.GospelJohn 11:1-45Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.So the sisters sent word to him saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.”When Jesus heard this he said,“This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.Then after this he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?”Jesus answered,“Are there not twelve hours in a day?If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” He said this, and then told them,“Our friend Lazarus is asleep,but I am going to awaken him.”So the disciples said to him,“Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.”But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep. So then Jesus said to them clearly,“Lazarus has died.And I am glad for you that I was not there,that you may believe. Let us go to him.”So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.”When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away.And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,she went to meet him;but Mary sat at home.Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here,my brother would not have died.But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,God will give you.”Jesus said to her,“Your brother will rise.”Martha said to him,“I know he will rise,in the resurrection on the last day.”Jesus told her,“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.Do you believe this?”She said to him, “Yes, Lord.I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,the one who is coming into the world.”When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.”As soon as she heard this,she rose quickly and went to him.For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him.So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out,they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here,my brother would not have died.”When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?”They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”And Jesus wept.So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”Jesus said to her,“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”So they took away the stone.And Jesus raised his eyes and said,“Father, I thank you for hearing me.I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”And when he had said this,He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”The dead man came out,tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.So Jesus said to them,“Untie him and let him go.”Now many of the Jews who had come to Maryand seen what he had done began to believe in him.

5 spots remain for for New Moon Alignment! https://www.quietmindastrology.com/newmoonThis last week of March 2026 presents a rare and powerful opportunity to untie the knots that strangle the heart. As Venus moves through the Gandanta—the "karmic knot" where the water of Pisces meets the fire of Aries—you may feel a surge of intensity in your relationships, finances, and sense of self. This is a volatile transition point that can shake things loose, shattering old illusions and inviting a deep, spiritual unknown. In this episode, I share how to navigate this boiling energy by moving from reactive patterns into a state of surrender and self-love.UNTIE THE KNOTS OF THE HEARTWe explore the transition from the wise, emotional waters of Revati Nakshatra to the swift, healing fire of Ashwini. You'll learn why slowing down and regulating your nervous system is the most effective way to allow these karmic knots to dissolve on their own.QUOTES“When all the knots that strangle the heart are loosened, the mortal becomes immortal.”“The Gandanta transit is like an activation energy that shakes it loose, regardless of whether you are working on it or not.”“The tighter the knot is, the slower you go.”“Your intention directs your attention.”TIMESTAMPS00:00 Opportunities to Untie the Knots of the Heart01:57 Understanding the Gandanta: The Junction of Water and Fire04:39 Venus in Revati: Compassion, Forgiveness, and Boundaries07:44 Releasing Old Love Cycles and Relationship Karma09:53 Venus enters Ashwini: A New Spark of Independence13:31 The Power of Intention and Quieting the Mind16:30 Navigating the "Boiling" Energy of Transition20:06 Managing Nervous System Triggers and Reactivity22:47 How to Let the Knot Untie Itself26:45 What to Avoid: Ultimatums and Impulsive RisksKEYWORDSVedic astrology, Gandanta, Venus in Pisces, Venus in Aries, Revati Nakshatra, Ashwini Nakshatra, relationship karma, nervous system regulation, Jyotish forecast, spiritual growth.FREE RESOURCES⭐️ Free Birth Chart: http://www.quietmindastrology.com/freebirthchart⭐️ Free Horoscopes: https://www.quietmindastrology.com/freehoroscopes⭐️ Podcast (Spotify, Apple, etc): https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/astrology⭐️ Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/quietmindastrology⭐️ YouTube: http://www.quietmindastrology.com/youtubeWORK WITH ME⭐️ Book a Reading: http://www.quietmindastrology.com/reading⭐️ Decode Your Chart: https://www.quietmindastrology.com/101⭐️ Mentorship: http://www.quietmindastrology.com/mentorship⭐️ Yoga Teacher Training Podcast: https://www.anchor.fm/yogateachertrainingNEXT STEPEnrollment is open for New Moon Alignment: https://www.quietmindastrology.com/newmoon

March 22, 2025. Fr. Tyler's homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent at the close of our Diocese of Helena Eucharistic Congress on Carroll's campus. Enjoy! Gospel John 11:1-45 Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany,  the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil  and dried his feet with her hair;  it was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So the sisters sent word to him saying,  “Master, the one you love is ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death,  but is for the glory of God,  that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill,  he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples,  “Let us go back to Judea.” The disciples said to him,  “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you,  and you want to go back there?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble,  because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles,  because the light is not in him.”  He said this, and then told them, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.” So the disciples said to him, “Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.” But Jesus was talking about his death,  while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep.  So then Jesus said to them clearly, “Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe.  Let us go to him.” So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples,  “Let us also go to die with him.” When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus  had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary  to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus,  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life;  whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,  and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” When she had said this,  she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying,  “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village,  but was still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her  saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her,  presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him,  she fell at his feet and said to him,  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping,  he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said,  “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” But some of them said,  “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man  have done something so that this man would not have died?” So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him,  “Lord, by now there will be a stench;  he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe  you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me;  but because of the crowd here I have said this,  that they may believe that you sent me.” And when he had said this, He cried out in a loud voice,  “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands,  and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him. OR:  John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45 The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying,  “Master, the one you love is ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death,  but is for the glory of God,  that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill,  he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples,  "Let us go back to Judea.” When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus  had already been in the tomb for four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him;  but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus,  “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life;  whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,  and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said,  “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” But some of them said,  “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man  have done something so that this man would not have died?” So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him,  “Lord, by now there will be a stench;  he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe  you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said,  “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me;  but because of the crowd here I have said this,  that they may believe that you sent me.” And when he had said this, He cried out in a loud voice,  “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands,  and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.  

2 FOR 1 SUNDAY!CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO W FR. RONCLICK HERE FOR VIDEO W FR. JIMLent, Week 5Theme: FREEDOMSaint: St. PaulGOSPEL: JOHN 11:1-45 [Shortened Version] The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea.”When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said,“Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” And when he had said this, He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.

Main Text: Matthew 21:1-11 (ESV) 1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.' ” 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”Preaching Point: Jesus reveals himself as the promised King of Kings and urges each of us to decide whether we will worship him as King or remain uncertain about who he is.Teaching Points: Recognize That Jesus Came to Be Your King (vv. 1-6)Welcome Jesus as Your King (vv. 7-9)Correct Your Deficient View of Jesus (vv. 10-11)Application Questions: Write down one observation or application you found helpful from this week's sermon. Why did it stand out to you?Read Matthew 21:1-7 and Zechariah 9:9-10. Why did Jesus intentionally ride a donkey into Jerusalem, and what does this fulfillment of prophecy reveal about the King he came to be?Read Matthew 25:31-34 and Philippians 2:10-11. How do these passages show that Jesus is King over everyone, not just those who acknowledge him as such? How should this shape the way we think about evangelism and calling all people to submit to Christ?Read Matthew 21:6-9 and 2 Kings 9:12-13. How do the actions of the people in these passages demonstrate honor and submission to a king?What are some ways you can actively welcome and honor Jesus as King in everyday life? (think of your priorities, time, obedience, love etc.)Read Matthew 21:10-11. The crowds described Jesus as a prophet, but their understanding of him was incomplete. What are some common misunderstandings people today have about Jesus? What are some deficient views of Jesus that you have had to correct in your life either in the past or present? And how can you guard yourself against a distorted or deficient view of Jesus moving forward?

Preaching Point: Jesus reveals himself as the promised King of Kings and urges each of us to decide whether we will worship him as King or remain uncertain about who he is.Text: Matthew 21:1-11 (ESV) 1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'” 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

An April Fools Prank Goes Awry.By SilverFoxMullet.Listen to the ►Podcast at Steamy Stories.Spring break was just that, a break. My leg, actually.When I went home to Ottawa for spring break, I met up with a few of my old high school buds, and we took a day trip to the Quebec side for some skiing at one of the nearby hills, north of Ottawa. Mid-gafternoon, I hit a patch of ice and went down hard. It was quite a day for falls, as the hills were pretty icy this late in the season. I tried to get up, but my right ankle hurt like a bitch. None of my friends had stopped, as we were all falling a lot today, they just assumed I would get up and follow them.“Aw fuck!” I groaned. I lay there in the snow for a few minutes, until someone slid to a stop next to me.“Hey, are you all right?” the guy asks.“No, I hurt my ankle. Fuck.”“Don’t move it, I’ll find the ski patrol. Hang on.” He skied away to get help.30 seconds later another guy stopped. Same question. "Hey are you all right?“"I think I sprained my ankle. There was a guy here a minute ago, he said he’d send the ski patrol.”The guy turned and looked around, then waved and yelled “Ici! Over here! Vien! Here they are.”Two guys in red jackets stopped and asked what’s wrong. This other guy said “Good luck!” to me, and skied away, as I recounted the fall and my symptoms. The ski patrol guys were great, they radioed for a stretcher and 20 minutes later they’re loading me into an ambulance. The rest of the day was a lot of waiting, x-rays, and paperwork. The local hospital had a seasonal trauma unit for all the ski injuries, and they’re used to dealing with the inter-provincial healthcare.I called my Dad, who said he’d fetch me from the hospital, then called my buddies who were still in the chalet . He told them to go home without me. They commiserated and said they’d drop by my house tomorrow and see how I was doing.I eventually got a cast on my right leg. It spanned from my toes to my mid-thigh. I was issued a pair of crutches, and a whole ream of instructions (in both French and English of course) about what to do and what not to do. My Dad showed up somewhere during this tedious process and reassured me everything would be fine.We got home really late, after stopping at a pharmacy for pain meds, and stopping for takeout, damn I was hungry by then. I was asleep in minutes after I took one of those pills after getting home.Next morning, I had to take another pill, damn leg was throbbing like mad. I had to learn how to negotiate using the toilet with crutches, fuck, that’s pain in the arse. Then I had to figure out how to shower. They gave me a shower bag for the cast but I couldn’t get the damn thing on by myself. Mom was trying to be motherly (naturally) but I was way too embarrassed to be seen naked in front of her. My Dad was a trooper, he helped me with all the bathroom stuff, and I got my shower Okay.I wasn’t going to be able to drive for a while, so my folks said they’d drive me back to school in Toronto. I could come home by bus and get my car once I was able to drive. Great.“Actually, if I could have my car on campus, one of my buddies could drive me around. None of the other guys have a car.” Not that my rattly old car was much of a ride, but it got us from A to B.“Okay” my Dad says, “Your mother can drive you there, and I’ll follow in your car, then we’ll drive back together.”“Awesome, sounds like a plan!”The rest of the day my parents helped me work out how to deal with the cast and crutches and take care of personal stuff by myself, like getting dressed, showering, shaving (yeah, ever try to balance on one foot to shave? fuckin hell), and using the toilet. My mom went shopping and bought me a bunch of baggy sweat pants, something that would go over my cast.My old friends dropped by with some hard coolers the next day, thinking it would cheer me up; but I had to pass on those due to the meds I was on. They laughed at me and drank it all, themselves. We all had a good laugh about my predicament, and they wished me luck at college. Gonna need it, eh?Then it was time to head back to school. I’d been texting and calling my buddies at school, told them the whole idiot story of my misadventures. They laughed at me big time, and of course they worried about their ride, what was gonna happen to my car? I told them about the arrangements and they were happy that it would still be available.The drive to school was really tedious, seemed to last forever, because it was so fricking uncomfortable to sit there with that stiff cast on. They got me and my stuff into my room in the dorm, and said their good-byes. I was so happy that I was on the first floor! No stairs here but there were stairs all over campus. Sure, there’s elevators everywhere but I didn’t know where most of them were.First order of business, I gotta pee after that road trip. I used the big accessible stall in the bathroom, that was great. Grab bars, lots of room, it really was made for this kind of thing. Easier than the bathroom at home, that’s for sure.I was the butt of a lot of jokes and shit for the first few days, but otherwise it was fine. Down in the dining hall I spotted someone else who’d had a fun spring break. There was a girl with her whole arm in a cast, like from shoulder to wrist, with the elbow bent at 90 degrees. I wondered what happened to her. Skiing too I supposed. My buddies said we’d make a great couple and told me to go ask her out. No way, dudes, not gonna happen. I can’t talk to girls, I always get freaked out and clam up.The end of March rolled around, and I still had weeks to go before getting my cast off. There was a party on Saturday night, and I was weaning off the strong meds by now so I could have a few drinks. My floor mates were getting me drinks, too; so I ended up having a few more than I would normally have. I was feeling buzzed by the end of the night.One of the guys suddenly showed up with a wheelchair. "Robbo! we got you some wheels, man!“"Where’d you steal that from?” I asked, a little dubious about the idea of them scamming someone’s chair.“No-No, totally not stolen, we got it for you from the Red Cross. It’s legit, dude!”“All right! Let’s check out my new ride then!” I hopped over and settled into the chair. They adjusted the footrest out for me and one of them took my crutches, and they started wheeling me away. "Where we goin?“ I asked."It’s a surprise.” says one of them, and then pull a pillowcase down over my head so I can’t see where we’re going. When I try to pull the covering off, they stopped me, and then the started grabbing my arms & duct taping them to the chair’s armrests. We were outside by now, and I started yelling, until they taped the pillowcase tight against my mouth, to muff my yelling. Now I was getting pissed, but there’s not much I could do, except literally ride this out.They laughed and giggled and make goofy jokes as they wheeled me around campus. Eventually, I had no idea where I am, and it suddenly strikes me that it was now April 1st. The alcoholic buzz is wearing off fast under the rush of my adrenaline and anger, and I wondered what kind of demented nightmare game they’ve come up with.I heard more laughing, girls this time, and they make whispered comments back and forth with the guys. I m now in a building, but I had no clue where. My chair was pushed around some more, bumping into stuff, and then a body is dumped in my lap, then they yanked the duct tape off the pillowcase and I can again my mouth. The room is pitch black. The giggling and laughing is cut off by the slamming of a door, and everything goes quiet.I think there’s a girl in my lap, or a small, really nice smelling guy with long hair. She’s quiescent, asleep or passed out, pressed against my chest.“Hey. Hey, wake up.” I said.No response, she’s just sitting there, draped over my lap. She’s warm and breathing, so it’s not a manikin or something. I wondered if she’s okay.I started to shift a bit, can’t use my arms because they’re taped down, but I try to shake her awake with my rocking shoulders. It didn’t work, and now I’m afraid that if I move too much she’ll fall off onto the floor.“Hey, uh, miss, wake up.” louder. She’s out of it. I turn my head to the side so I’m not yelling in her ear and holler “Hey, enough crap, let me out of here!” Silence reigns. Well, fuck. Now what?‘Now what’. Then the fire alarm starts blaring. It startles the heck out of me, but still isn’t enough to wake the girl.  I heard loud commotion in the halls for about 30 seconds, but then suddenly there is silence. Fuck, this is getting serious. What if it’s a real fire? No, no way, it's April 1st now, gotta be a prank. I’ll just wait for her to wake up, and we’ll get out of here. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I began to see faint outlines of what is probably a maintenance closet or storage room.The alarm rings for an annoyingly long time. 15 minutes I guess, I dunno, but it seems interminable. And I need to pee now. When the alarm finally stops the need to pee gets more insistent. I shifted uncomfortably under the weight of my passenger. Her hip is pressed up against my groin, adding to the struggle of my urge to piss.More time passes, and damn, I gotta go bad, now. I’m gonna wet myself, and her too, if I don’t get out of here right now. I’ve tried speaking to her, yelling, shaking her, and then there was another alarm that went on and on. She just isn’t gonna wake up. Did those morons drug her or something?I’m desperate now. “Come on, sleeping beauty, wake up!” Sleeping beauty? Yeah, fine, I’ll try that before I piss all over her. I think a girl would be slightly less angry about a stolen kiss than wet pants. So I seek her mouth. There was a little light coming in under the door, but suddenly that light went out, and only a faint intermittent light glowed. Oh, crap! That would be the emergency exit lighting. I eventually bumped my faced against her nose, then lowered a bit and kissed her, probably a little too hard for a wakeup smooch, cause I'm dying’ here, gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee.She’s got nice soft lips, really quite kissable, and I kinda wished she was awake and under different circumstances. I kissed her again, even harder. No response. I try again, this time I let my tongue do the talking, and I push into her mouth. Helluva way to experience my own first tongue-kiss . Finally, she stirred & turned into the kiss.Surprised, I pull back, and say “Oh thank god you’re awake, help me up!”She startled, yelping at me, “Who are you?!”“Help me, please, I’m gonna piss my pants! Untie me!”In the dim red glow of an exit sign I finally saw her face. She’s kinda cute, not particularly pretty, and she has a cast on her right arm. It’s the girl I saw in the dining hall a few times.“Hurry!" I pleaded.She struggled off me, and stood. Where the hell did you take me! she demanded.I told her that we were both abducted by campus hooligans and locked in some storage room, but I didn t know which building. Then I said; But I gotta pee right now and my leg is in a cast, and I m bound to this wheelchair.She felt the tape on my wrists. It's slow going for her to undo the tape with her one weak hand, the way she’s pulling at it, she’s obviously not left handed.I’m not gonna make it, and I looked around. We’re in a janitor’s room or something. I spotted a stack of small waste baskets. "Quick, grab one of those buckets and put it between my legs.”She’s quick on the uptake, I’ll give her that, and she grabbed the bucket for me. “Pull my pants down, hurry.”“What? No!” she protested.“Argh. Please, I’m gonna wet myself.” I grind out through my clenched teeth.She reached out with that uncoordinated left hand of hers and fumbles with my sweat pants. I squirmed to lift my hips a bit to help, and the elastic waistband slipped down, exposing my tight briefs.“You gotta help. Pull me out, aim for the bucket. Please?”I can see she’s not happy with the situation, and she’s fighting with her distaste at touching a man, a total stranger at that, in such a bizarre circumstance. But she perseveres, and that delicate hand fishes in my shorts for my cock. She paused momentarily as she made contact, then pulled my cock free. She picked up the empty bucket and aimed my hose toward the container.I groaned as I let loose. Oh god, finally! The relief was incredible. The poor girl was acting shocked as she dutifully aimed me at the bucket, and she even nudged the bucket a bit closer. I pissed on and on, holy fuck there was so much, and eventually I ran dry.Her disposition is no longer shocked, but instead she appeared to be curious.“Oh thank you, you saved me so much embarrassment. You can put me back in there now. Thanks.”She hesitated, and timidly tried to one-handedly stuff my cock back through the fly, and after a couple of clumsy tries I’m all set. And of course now my cock was growing fast in her hand, as I no longer had to pee, but there’s a wonderful-smelling girl handling that most sensitive part of my anatomy. Something that’s never happened before.That last drop of pee evidently got on her hand, and she looked a bit frantic now, “Ew” she says.“Just wipe it on my sweats, it’s Okay.” I told her, and she rubbed her hand on my inner thigh. That doesn’t help with my ever increasing boner of course.She looked up at me, and her brow wrinkled. “Do you smell smoke?” she asked.It’s my turn to be startled, and I looked toward the door. Oh Fuck, there’s smoke coming in under the door! That alarm was real! Why wasn’t it still going off? “Quick, help me get this tape off!” She started trying to pull up my sweats, but I say “No, leave that, just get me undone!”She started working on the tape on my left arm, and it took a few minutes to get me free. Working together, my right arm is unstuck in less than a minute. “Check the door.” I told her as I looked around the room. No other doors, just shelves, a big sink, a floor pan for filling and emptying mop buckets, and stacks of boxes and stuff.She tried the light switch but it doesn’t work. Great, my idiot friends probably unscrewed the light bulb. Then she tried the door. “It’s locked!” she says.“From the outside? Why the fuck would it be set up to lock people in? Sorry. I swear when I get nervous.”“Is there really a fire, do you think?”“I guess so, there was an alarm that went off when you were out cold.”“What do we do?” She started frantically searching her pockets and said; “I can’t find my phone!”“I didn’t even bring mine to the party. No pockets.”The smell of smoke got stronger. I wheeled up next to the sink, and ran some water. Grabbing a package of paper towels, I ripped it open and dumped them in the sink. “Here, block up the crack under the door with these!”I handed her wads of soggy paper, and she knelt down to stuff them under the door. The smoke stoped coming in, thank goodness.  But now the room is black. “Now what?” she said.I shrugged, “I guess we wait and hope.”“I’m scared.” she said in a small voice.“Come here, sit on my lap here. Oh, uh, maybe pull up my pants first.” She helped me with that and sat on me. I think the gravity of the situation is now hitting her pretty hard, I know it’s got me freaked out. She burrowed into my neck and wraps her good arm wraps around me. “We’re Okay for now.” I tell her.I smelled her hair again, as she’s crushed against me. Damn that feels nice. Shit, I don’t even know her name. “I’m Robert by the way. Robert Green.”“Suzanne. Suzanne Shelton.”, she informed me.“I’d say pleased to meet you Suzanne, but under these circumstances, maybe the sentiment should be I’m ecstatic to meet you. If I was by myself I would have pissed my pants and suffocated.”She giggled, my goofy sense of humor somehow helped in this situation. “I’m glad to meet you too, Robert.”“So how did you get here?”“I don’t know, I was at the dorm party and felt dizzy, then you were kissing me.” She blushed again.“Sorry about that, I tried to wake you for like 20 minutes, but you were really out of it. I finally thought I would try the sleeping beauty trick, and it worked. Did you drink something someone else gave you?”“Oh. Shit. She seemed to recall. I think so. One of my floor mates gave me a coke. It must have been spiked?  I had to take some of my pain meds for my arm earlier tonight, it was bothering me. I keep trying to do too much with it all the time.”“Oh, yeah, you don’t want to mix booze or anything with that stuff, I know! Sorry about the pee episode. I really was going to wet my pants in another few seconds. Wet both our pants.”She blushed and giggled. “I never saw a guy like that, like your, thing, before.”“Wow. Okay, well, I never had a girl touch my co-, um, thing, before.”“It changed when I was putting it away. Was that, um, like…’"Yeah, well, when a pretty girl touches me like that, I’m bound to get aroused.”Her eyes went wide at that statement. “Oh” she said. She paused a few seconds, then put her head back on my shoulder. There was that scent again. "So. Um, you think I’m pretty?“"Well, yeah, of course. You’re what I think my grandpa would call 'fetching’”She giggled again. Damn, that sounds nice, and she smells really nice. Little Robert stirred down below. I heard a sharp intake of breath. Uh Oh. She felt that. I may have just ruined what might have been a moment.“Am I pretty enough to make you, uh, aroused, then?”“Oh, Suzanne, I am so embarrassed. Please, don’t be offended, it’s just circumstances, you know?”She pulled back again and looked at the door. Still no smoke. Then she looked at me with a sad smile, saying “I didn’t think so.” Suzanne started to get up, and I realized where our wires had crossed.I put my arms around her and said " Oh, no no. You’re very pretty, and definitely arousing.“She looked surprised, but settled back down on my lap. "Oh.” she said. “Thank you.”Just

An April Fools Prank Goes Awry.By SilverFoxMullet.Listen to the ►Podcast at Steamy Stories.Spring break was just that, a break. My leg, actually.When I went home to Ottawa for spring break, I met up with a few of my old high school buds, and we took a day trip to the Quebec side for some skiing at one of the nearby hills, north of Ottawa. Mid-gafternoon, I hit a patch of ice and went down hard. It was quite a day for falls, as the hills were pretty icy this late in the season. I tried to get up, but my right ankle hurt like a bitch. None of my friends had stopped, as we were all falling a lot today, they just assumed I would get up and follow them.“Aw fuck!” I groaned. I lay there in the snow for a few minutes, until someone slid to a stop next to me.“Hey, are you all right?” the guy asks.“No, I hurt my ankle. Fuck.”“Don’t move it, I’ll find the ski patrol. Hang on.” He skied away to get help.30 seconds later another guy stopped. Same question. "Hey are you all right?“"I think I sprained my ankle. There was a guy here a minute ago, he said he’d send the ski patrol.”The guy turned and looked around, then waved and yelled “Ici! Over here! Vien! Here they are.”Two guys in red jackets stopped and asked what’s wrong. This other guy said “Good luck!” to me, and skied away, as I recounted the fall and my symptoms. The ski patrol guys were great, they radioed for a stretcher and 20 minutes later they’re loading me into an ambulance. The rest of the day was a lot of waiting, x-rays, and paperwork. The local hospital had a seasonal trauma unit for all the ski injuries, and they’re used to dealing with the inter-provincial healthcare.I called my Dad, who said he’d fetch me from the hospital, then called my buddies who were still in the chalet . He told them to go home without me. They commiserated and said they’d drop by my house tomorrow and see how I was doing.I eventually got a cast on my right leg. It spanned from my toes to my mid-thigh. I was issued a pair of crutches, and a whole ream of instructions (in both French and English of course) about what to do and what not to do. My Dad showed up somewhere during this tedious process and reassured me everything would be fine.We got home really late, after stopping at a pharmacy for pain meds, and stopping for takeout, damn I was hungry by then. I was asleep in minutes after I took one of those pills after getting home.Next morning, I had to take another pill, damn leg was throbbing like mad. I had to learn how to negotiate using the toilet with crutches, fuck, that’s pain in the arse. Then I had to figure out how to shower. They gave me a shower bag for the cast but I couldn’t get the damn thing on by myself. Mom was trying to be motherly (naturally) but I was way too embarrassed to be seen naked in front of her. My Dad was a trooper, he helped me with all the bathroom stuff, and I got my shower Okay.I wasn’t going to be able to drive for a while, so my folks said they’d drive me back to school in Toronto. I could come home by bus and get my car once I was able to drive. Great.“Actually, if I could have my car on campus, one of my buddies could drive me around. None of the other guys have a car.” Not that my rattly old car was much of a ride, but it got us from A to B.“Okay” my Dad says, “Your mother can drive you there, and I’ll follow in your car, then we’ll drive back together.”“Awesome, sounds like a plan!”The rest of the day my parents helped me work out how to deal with the cast and crutches and take care of personal stuff by myself, like getting dressed, showering, shaving (yeah, ever try to balance on one foot to shave? fuckin hell), and using the toilet. My mom went shopping and bought me a bunch of baggy sweat pants, something that would go over my cast.My old friends dropped by with some hard coolers the next day, thinking it would cheer me up; but I had to pass on those due to the meds I was on. They laughed at me and drank it all, themselves. We all had a good laugh about my predicament, and they wished me luck at college. Gonna need it, eh?Then it was time to head back to school. I’d been texting and calling my buddies at school, told them the whole idiot story of my misadventures. They laughed at me big time, and of course they worried about their ride, what was gonna happen to my car? I told them about the arrangements and they were happy that it would still be available.The drive to school was really tedious, seemed to last forever, because it was so fricking uncomfortable to sit there with that stiff cast on. They got me and my stuff into my room in the dorm, and said their good-byes. I was so happy that I was on the first floor! No stairs here but there were stairs all over campus. Sure, there’s elevators everywhere but I didn’t know where most of them were.First order of business, I gotta pee after that road trip. I used the big accessible stall in the bathroom, that was great. Grab bars, lots of room, it really was made for this kind of thing. Easier than the bathroom at home, that’s for sure.I was the butt of a lot of jokes and shit for the first few days, but otherwise it was fine. Down in the dining hall I spotted someone else who’d had a fun spring break. There was a girl with her whole arm in a cast, like from shoulder to wrist, with the elbow bent at 90 degrees. I wondered what happened to her. Skiing too I supposed. My buddies said we’d make a great couple and told me to go ask her out. No way, dudes, not gonna happen. I can’t talk to girls, I always get freaked out and clam up.The end of March rolled around, and I still had weeks to go before getting my cast off. There was a party on Saturday night, and I was weaning off the strong meds by now so I could have a few drinks. My floor mates were getting me drinks, too; so I ended up having a few more than I would normally have. I was feeling buzzed by the end of the night.One of the guys suddenly showed up with a wheelchair. "Robbo! we got you some wheels, man!“"Where’d you steal that from?” I asked, a little dubious about the idea of them scamming someone’s chair.“No-No, totally not stolen, we got it for you from the Red Cross. It’s legit, dude!”“All right! Let’s check out my new ride then!” I hopped over and settled into the chair. They adjusted the footrest out for me and one of them took my crutches, and they started wheeling me away. "Where we goin?“ I asked."It’s a surprise.” says one of them, and then pull a pillowcase down over my head so I can’t see where we’re going. When I try to pull the covering off, they stopped me, and then the started grabbing my arms & duct taping them to the chair’s armrests. We were outside by now, and I started yelling, until they taped the pillowcase tight against my mouth, to muff my yelling. Now I was getting pissed, but there’s not much I could do, except literally ride this out.They laughed and giggled and make goofy jokes as they wheeled me around campus. Eventually, I had no idea where I am, and it suddenly strikes me that it was now April 1st. The alcoholic buzz is wearing off fast under the rush of my adrenaline and anger, and I wondered what kind of demented nightmare game they’ve come up with.I heard more laughing, girls this time, and they make whispered comments back and forth with the guys. I m now in a building, but I had no clue where. My chair was pushed around some more, bumping into stuff, and then a body is dumped in my lap, then they yanked the duct tape off the pillowcase and I can again my mouth. The room is pitch black. The giggling and laughing is cut off by the slamming of a door, and everything goes quiet.I think there’s a girl in my lap, or a small, really nice smelling guy with long hair. She’s quiescent, asleep or passed out, pressed against my chest.“Hey. Hey, wake up.” I said.No response, she’s just sitting there, draped over my lap. She’s warm and breathing, so it’s not a manikin or something. I wondered if she’s okay.I started to shift a bit, can’t use my arms because they’re taped down, but I try to shake her awake with my rocking shoulders. It didn’t work, and now I’m afraid that if I move too much she’ll fall off onto the floor.“Hey, uh, miss, wake up.” louder. She’s out of it. I turn my head to the side so I’m not yelling in her ear and holler “Hey, enough crap, let me out of here!” Silence reigns. Well, fuck. Now what?‘Now what’. Then the fire alarm starts blaring. It startles the heck out of me, but still isn’t enough to wake the girl.  I heard loud commotion in the halls for about 30 seconds, but then suddenly there is silence. Fuck, this is getting serious. What if it’s a real fire? No, no way, it's April 1st now, gotta be a prank. I’ll just wait for her to wake up, and we’ll get out of here. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I began to see faint outlines of what is probably a maintenance closet or storage room.The alarm rings for an annoyingly long time. 15 minutes I guess, I dunno, but it seems interminable. And I need to pee now. When the alarm finally stops the need to pee gets more insistent. I shifted uncomfortably under the weight of my passenger. Her hip is pressed up against my groin, adding to the struggle of my urge to piss.More time passes, and damn, I gotta go bad, now. I’m gonna wet myself, and her too, if I don’t get out of here right now. I’ve tried speaking to her, yelling, shaking her, and then there was another alarm that went on and on. She just isn’t gonna wake up. Did those morons drug her or something?I’m desperate now. “Come on, sleeping beauty, wake up!” Sleeping beauty? Yeah, fine, I’ll try that before I piss all over her. I think a girl would be slightly less angry about a stolen kiss than wet pants. So I seek her mouth. There was a little light coming in under the door, but suddenly that light went out, and only a faint intermittent light glowed. Oh, crap! That would be the emergency exit lighting. I eventually bumped my faced against her nose, then lowered a bit and kissed her, probably a little too hard for a wakeup smooch, cause I'm dying’ here, gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee.She’s got nice soft lips, really quite kissable, and I kinda wished she was awake and under different circumstances. I kissed her again, even harder. No response. I try again, this time I let my tongue do the talking, and I push into her mouth. Helluva way to experience my own first tongue-kiss . Finally, she stirred & turned into the kiss.Surprised, I pull back, and say “Oh thank god you’re awake, help me up!”She startled, yelping at me, “Who are you?!”“Help me, please, I’m gonna piss my pants! Untie me!”In the dim red glow of an exit sign I finally saw her face. She’s kinda cute, not particularly pretty, and she has a cast on her right arm. It’s the girl I saw in the dining hall a few times.“Hurry!" I pleaded.She struggled off me, and stood. Where the hell did you take me! she demanded.I told her that we were both abducted by campus hooligans and locked in some storage room, but I didn t know which building. Then I said; But I gotta pee right now and my leg is in a cast, and I m bound to this wheelchair.She felt the tape on my wrists. It's slow going for her to undo the tape with her one weak hand, the way she’s pulling at it, she’s obviously not left handed.I’m not gonna make it, and I looked around. We’re in a janitor’s room or something. I spotted a stack of small waste baskets. "Quick, grab one of those buckets and put it between my legs.”She’s quick on the uptake, I’ll give her that, and she grabbed the bucket for me. “Pull my pants down, hurry.”“What? No!” she protested.“Argh. Please, I’m gonna wet myself.” I grind out through my clenched teeth.She reached out with that uncoordinated left hand of hers and fumbles with my sweat pants. I squirmed to lift my hips a bit to help, and the elastic waistband slipped down, exposing my tight briefs.“You gotta help. Pull me out, aim for the bucket. Please?”I can see she’s not happy with the situation, and she’s fighting with her distaste at touching a man, a total stranger at that, in such a bizarre circumstance. But she perseveres, and that delicate hand fishes in my shorts for my cock. She paused momentarily as she made contact, then pulled my cock free. She picked up the empty bucket and aimed my hose toward the container.I groaned as I let loose. Oh god, finally! The relief was incredible. The poor girl was acting shocked as she dutifully aimed me at the bucket, and she even nudged the bucket a bit closer. I pissed on and on, holy fuck there was so much, and eventually I ran dry.Her disposition is no longer shocked, but instead she appeared to be curious.“Oh thank you, you saved me so much embarrassment. You can put me back in there now. Thanks.”She hesitated, and timidly tried to one-handedly stuff my cock back through the fly, and after a couple of clumsy tries I’m all set. And of course now my cock was growing fast in her hand, as I no longer had to pee, but there’s a wonderful-smelling girl handling that most sensitive part of my anatomy. Something that’s never happened before.That last drop of pee evidently got on her hand, and she looked a bit frantic now, “Ew” she says.“Just wipe it on my sweats, it’s Okay.” I told her, and she rubbed her hand on my inner thigh. That doesn’t help with my ever increasing boner of course.She looked up at me, and her brow wrinkled. “Do you smell smoke?” she asked.It’s my turn to be startled, and I looked toward the door. Oh Fuck, there’s smoke coming in under the door! That alarm was real! Why wasn’t it still going off? “Quick, help me get this tape off!” She started trying to pull up my sweats, but I say “No, leave that, just get me undone!”She started working on the tape on my left arm, and it took a few minutes to get me free. Working together, my right arm is unstuck in less than a minute. “Check the door.” I told her as I looked around the room. No other doors, just shelves, a big sink, a floor pan for filling and emptying mop buckets, and stacks of boxes and stuff.She tried the light switch but it doesn’t work. Great, my idiot friends probably unscrewed the light bulb. Then she tried the door. “It’s locked!” she says.“From the outside? Why the fuck would it be set up to lock people in? Sorry. I swear when I get nervous.”“Is there really a fire, do you think?”“I guess so, there was an alarm that went off when you were out cold.”“What do we do?” She started frantically searching her pockets and said; “I can’t find my phone!”“I didn’t even bring mine to the party. No pockets.”The smell of smoke got stronger. I wheeled up next to the sink, and ran some water. Grabbing a package of paper towels, I ripped it open and dumped them in the sink. “Here, block up the crack under the door with these!”I handed her wads of soggy paper, and she knelt down to stuff them under the door. The smoke stoped coming in, thank goodness.  But now the room is black. “Now what?” she said.I shrugged, “I guess we wait and hope.”“I’m scared.” she said in a small voice.“Come here, sit on my lap here. Oh, uh, maybe pull up my pants first.” She helped me with that and sat on me. I think the gravity of the situation is now hitting her pretty hard, I know it’s got me freaked out. She burrowed into my neck and wraps her good arm wraps around me. “We’re Okay for now.” I tell her.I smelled her hair again, as she’s crushed against me. Damn that feels nice. Shit, I don’t even know her name. “I’m Robert by the way. Robert Green.”“Suzanne. Suzanne Shelton.”, she informed me.“I’d say pleased to meet you Suzanne, but under these circumstances, maybe the sentiment should be I’m ecstatic to meet you. If I was by myself I would have pissed my pants and suffocated.”She giggled, my goofy sense of humor somehow helped in this situation. “I’m glad to meet you too, Robert.”“So how did you get here?”“I don’t know, I was at the dorm party and felt dizzy, then you were kissing me.” She blushed again.“Sorry about that, I tried to wake you for like 20 minutes, but you were really out of it. I finally thought I would try the sleeping beauty trick, and it worked. Did you drink something someone else gave you?”“Oh. Shit. She seemed to recall. I think so. One of my floor mates gave me a coke. It must have been spiked?  I had to take some of my pain meds for my arm earlier tonight, it was bothering me. I keep trying to do too much with it all the time.”“Oh, yeah, you don’t want to mix booze or anything with that stuff, I know! Sorry about the pee episode. I really was going to wet my pants in another few seconds. Wet both our pants.”She blushed and giggled. “I never saw a guy like that, like your, thing, before.”“Wow. Okay, well, I never had a girl touch my co-, um, thing, before.”“It changed when I was putting it away. Was that, um, like…’"Yeah, well, when a pretty girl touches me like that, I’m bound to get aroused.”Her eyes went wide at that statement. “Oh” she said. She paused a few seconds, then put her head back on my shoulder. There was that scent again. "So. Um, you think I’m pretty?“"Well, yeah, of course. You’re what I think my grandpa would call 'fetching’”She giggled again. Damn, that sounds nice, and she smells really nice. Little Robert stirred down below. I heard a sharp intake of breath. Uh Oh. She felt that. I may have just ruined what might have been a moment.“Am I pretty enough to make you, uh, aroused, then?”“Oh, Suzanne, I am so embarrassed. Please, don’t be offended, it’s just circumstances, you know?”She pulled back again and looked at the door. Still no smoke. Then she looked at me with a sad smile, saying “I didn’t think so.” Suzanne started to get up, and I realized where our wires had crossed.I put my arms around her and said " Oh, no no. You’re very pretty, and definitely arousing.“She looked surprised, but settled back down on my lap. "Oh.” she said. “Thank you.”Just

An April Fools Prank Goes Awry.By SilverFoxMullet.Listen to the ►Podcast at Steamy Stories.Spring break was just that, a break. My leg, actually.When I went home to Ottawa for spring break, I met up with a few of my old high school buds, and we took a day trip to the Quebec side for some skiing at one of the nearby hills, north of Ottawa. Mid-gafternoon, I hit a patch of ice and went down hard. It was quite a day for falls, as the hills were pretty icy this late in the season. I tried to get up, but my right ankle hurt like a bitch. None of my friends had stopped, as we were all falling a lot today, they just assumed I would get up and follow them.“Aw fuck!” I groaned. I lay there in the snow for a few minutes, until someone slid to a stop next to me.“Hey, are you all right?” the guy asks.“No, I hurt my ankle. Fuck.”“Don’t move it, I’ll find the ski patrol. Hang on.” He skied away to get help.30 seconds later another guy stopped. Same question. "Hey are you all right?“"I think I sprained my ankle. There was a guy here a minute ago, he said he’d send the ski patrol.”The guy turned and looked around, then waved and yelled “Ici! Over here! Vien! Here they are.”Two guys in red jackets stopped and asked what’s wrong. This other guy said “Good luck!” to me, and skied away, as I recounted the fall and my symptoms. The ski patrol guys were great, they radioed for a stretcher and 20 minutes later they’re loading me into an ambulance. The rest of the day was a lot of waiting, x-rays, and paperwork. The local hospital had a seasonal trauma unit for all the ski injuries, and they’re used to dealing with the inter-provincial healthcare.I called my Dad, who said he’d fetch me from the hospital, then called my buddies who were still in the chalet . He told them to go home without me. They commiserated and said they’d drop by my house tomorrow and see how I was doing.I eventually got a cast on my right leg. It spanned from my toes to my mid-thigh. I was issued a pair of crutches, and a whole ream of instructions (in both French and English of course) about what to do and what not to do. My Dad showed up somewhere during this tedious process and reassured me everything would be fine.We got home really late, after stopping at a pharmacy for pain meds, and stopping for takeout, damn I was hungry by then. I was asleep in minutes after I took one of those pills after getting home.Next morning, I had to take another pill, damn leg was throbbing like mad. I had to learn how to negotiate using the toilet with crutches, fuck, that’s pain in the arse. Then I had to figure out how to shower. They gave me a shower bag for the cast but I couldn’t get the damn thing on by myself. Mom was trying to be motherly (naturally) but I was way too embarrassed to be seen naked in front of her. My Dad was a trooper, he helped me with all the bathroom stuff, and I got my shower Okay.I wasn’t going to be able to drive for a while, so my folks said they’d drive me back to school in Toronto. I could come home by bus and get my car once I was able to drive. Great.“Actually, if I could have my car on campus, one of my buddies could drive me around. None of the other guys have a car.” Not that my rattly old car was much of a ride, but it got us from A to B.“Okay” my Dad says, “Your mother can drive you there, and I’ll follow in your car, then we’ll drive back together.”“Awesome, sounds like a plan!”The rest of the day my parents helped me work out how to deal with the cast and crutches and take care of personal stuff by myself, like getting dressed, showering, shaving (yeah, ever try to balance on one foot to shave? fuckin hell), and using the toilet. My mom went shopping and bought me a bunch of baggy sweat pants, something that would go over my cast.My old friends dropped by with some hard coolers the next day, thinking it would cheer me up; but I had to pass on those due to the meds I was on. They laughed at me and drank it all, themselves. We all had a good laugh about my predicament, and they wished me luck at college. Gonna need it, eh?Then it was time to head back to school. I’d been texting and calling my buddies at school, told them the whole idiot story of my misadventures. They laughed at me big time, and of course they worried about their ride, what was gonna happen to my car? I told them about the arrangements and they were happy that it would still be available.The drive to school was really tedious, seemed to last forever, because it was so fricking uncomfortable to sit there with that stiff cast on. They got me and my stuff into my room in the dorm, and said their good-byes. I was so happy that I was on the first floor! No stairs here but there were stairs all over campus. Sure, there’s elevators everywhere but I didn’t know where most of them were.First order of business, I gotta pee after that road trip. I used the big accessible stall in the bathroom, that was great. Grab bars, lots of room, it really was made for this kind of thing. Easier than the bathroom at home, that’s for sure.I was the butt of a lot of jokes and shit for the first few days, but otherwise it was fine. Down in the dining hall I spotted someone else who’d had a fun spring break. There was a girl with her whole arm in a cast, like from shoulder to wrist, with the elbow bent at 90 degrees. I wondered what happened to her. Skiing too I supposed. My buddies said we’d make a great couple and told me to go ask her out. No way, dudes, not gonna happen. I can’t talk to girls, I always get freaked out and clam up.The end of March rolled around, and I still had weeks to go before getting my cast off. There was a party on Saturday night, and I was weaning off the strong meds by now so I could have a few drinks. My floor mates were getting me drinks, too; so I ended up having a few more than I would normally have. I was feeling buzzed by the end of the night.One of the guys suddenly showed up with a wheelchair. "Robbo! we got you some wheels, man!“"Where’d you steal that from?” I asked, a little dubious about the idea of them scamming someone’s chair.“No-No, totally not stolen, we got it for you from the Red Cross. It’s legit, dude!”“All right! Let’s check out my new ride then!” I hopped over and settled into the chair. They adjusted the footrest out for me and one of them took my crutches, and they started wheeling me away. "Where we goin?“ I asked."It’s a surprise.” says one of them, and then pull a pillowcase down over my head so I can’t see where we’re going. When I try to pull the covering off, they stopped me, and then the started grabbing my arms & duct taping them to the chair’s armrests. We were outside by now, and I started yelling, until they taped the pillowcase tight against my mouth, to muff my yelling. Now I was getting pissed, but there’s not much I could do, except literally ride this out.They laughed and giggled and make goofy jokes as they wheeled me around campus. Eventually, I had no idea where I am, and it suddenly strikes me that it was now April 1st. The alcoholic buzz is wearing off fast under the rush of my adrenaline and anger, and I wondered what kind of demented nightmare game they’ve come up with.I heard more laughing, girls this time, and they make whispered comments back and forth with the guys. I m now in a building, but I had no clue where. My chair was pushed around some more, bumping into stuff, and then a body is dumped in my lap, then they yanked the duct tape off the pillowcase and I can again my mouth. The room is pitch black. The giggling and laughing is cut off by the slamming of a door, and everything goes quiet.I think there’s a girl in my lap, or a small, really nice smelling guy with long hair. She’s quiescent, asleep or passed out, pressed against my chest.“Hey. Hey, wake up.” I said.No response, she’s just sitting there, draped over my lap. She’s warm and breathing, so it’s not a manikin or something. I wondered if she’s okay.I started to shift a bit, can’t use my arms because they’re taped down, but I try to shake her awake with my rocking shoulders. It didn’t work, and now I’m afraid that if I move too much she’ll fall off onto the floor.“Hey, uh, miss, wake up.” louder. She’s out of it. I turn my head to the side so I’m not yelling in her ear and holler “Hey, enough crap, let me out of here!” Silence reigns. Well, fuck. Now what?‘Now what’. Then the fire alarm starts blaring. It startles the heck out of me, but still isn’t enough to wake the girl.  I heard loud commotion in the halls for about 30 seconds, but then suddenly there is silence. Fuck, this is getting serious. What if it’s a real fire? No, no way, it's April 1st now, gotta be a prank. I’ll just wait for her to wake up, and we’ll get out of here. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I began to see faint outlines of what is probably a maintenance closet or storage room.The alarm rings for an annoyingly long time. 15 minutes I guess, I dunno, but it seems interminable. And I need to pee now. When the alarm finally stops the need to pee gets more insistent. I shifted uncomfortably under the weight of my passenger. Her hip is pressed up against my groin, adding to the struggle of my urge to piss.More time passes, and damn, I gotta go bad, now. I’m gonna wet myself, and her too, if I don’t get out of here right now. I’ve tried speaking to her, yelling, shaking her, and then there was another alarm that went on and on. She just isn’t gonna wake up. Did those morons drug her or something?I’m desperate now. “Come on, sleeping beauty, wake up!” Sleeping beauty? Yeah, fine, I’ll try that before I piss all over her. I think a girl would be slightly less angry about a stolen kiss than wet pants. So I seek her mouth. There was a little light coming in under the door, but suddenly that light went out, and only a faint intermittent light glowed. Oh, crap! That would be the emergency exit lighting. I eventually bumped my faced against her nose, then lowered a bit and kissed her, probably a little too hard for a wakeup smooch, cause I'm dying’ here, gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee.She’s got nice soft lips, really quite kissable, and I kinda wished she was awake and under different circumstances. I kissed her again, even harder. No response. I try again, this time I let my tongue do the talking, and I push into her mouth. Helluva way to experience my own first tongue-kiss . Finally, she stirred & turned into the kiss.Surprised, I pull back, and say “Oh thank god you’re awake, help me up!”She startled, yelping at me, “Who are you?!”“Help me, please, I’m gonna piss my pants! Untie me!”In the dim red glow of an exit sign I finally saw her face. She’s kinda cute, not particularly pretty, and she has a cast on her right arm. It’s the girl I saw in the dining hall a few times.“Hurry!" I pleaded.She struggled off me, and stood. Where the hell did you take me! she demanded.I told her that we were both abducted by campus hooligans and locked in some storage room, but I didn t know which building. Then I said; But I gotta pee right now and my leg is in a cast, and I m bound to this wheelchair.She felt the tape on my wrists. It's slow going for her to undo the tape with her one weak hand, the way she’s pulling at it, she’s obviously not left handed.I’m not gonna make it, and I looked around. We’re in a janitor’s room or something. I spotted a stack of small waste baskets. "Quick, grab one of those buckets and put it between my legs.”She’s quick on the uptake, I’ll give her that, and she grabbed the bucket for me. “Pull my pants down, hurry.”“What? No!” she protested.“Argh. Please, I’m gonna wet myself.” I grind out through my clenched teeth.She reached out with that uncoordinated left hand of hers and fumbles with my sweat pants. I squirmed to lift my hips a bit to help, and the elastic waistband slipped down, exposing my tight briefs.“You gotta help. Pull me out, aim for the bucket. Please?”I can see she’s not happy with the situation, and she’s fighting with her distaste at touching a man, a total stranger at that, in such a bizarre circumstance. But she perseveres, and that delicate hand fishes in my shorts for my cock. She paused momentarily as she made contact, then pulled my cock free. She picked up the empty bucket and aimed my hose toward the container.I groaned as I let loose. Oh god, finally! The relief was incredible. The poor girl was acting shocked as she dutifully aimed me at the bucket, and she even nudged the bucket a bit closer. I pissed on and on, holy fuck there was so much, and eventually I ran dry.Her disposition is no longer shocked, but instead she appeared to be curious.“Oh thank you, you saved me so much embarrassment. You can put me back in there now. Thanks.”She hesitated, and timidly tried to one-handedly stuff my cock back through the fly, and after a couple of clumsy tries I’m all set. And of course now my cock was growing fast in her hand, as I no longer had to pee, but there’s a wonderful-smelling girl handling that most sensitive part of my anatomy. Something that’s never happened before.That last drop of pee evidently got on her hand, and she looked a bit frantic now, “Ew” she says.“Just wipe it on my sweats, it’s Okay.” I told her, and she rubbed her hand on my inner thigh. That doesn’t help with my ever increasing boner of course.She looked up at me, and her brow wrinkled. “Do you smell smoke?” she asked.It’s my turn to be startled, and I looked toward the door. Oh Fuck, there’s smoke coming in under the door! That alarm was real! Why wasn’t it still going off? “Quick, help me get this tape off!” She started trying to pull up my sweats, but I say “No, leave that, just get me undone!”She started working on the tape on my left arm, and it took a few minutes to get me free. Working together, my right arm is unstuck in less than a minute. “Check the door.” I told her as I looked around the room. No other doors, just shelves, a big sink, a floor pan for filling and emptying mop buckets, and stacks of boxes and stuff.She tried the light switch but it doesn’t work. Great, my idiot friends probably unscrewed the light bulb. Then she tried the door. “It’s locked!” she says.“From the outside? Why the fuck would it be set up to lock people in? Sorry. I swear when I get nervous.”“Is there really a fire, do you think?”“I guess so, there was an alarm that went off when you were out cold.”“What do we do?” She started frantically searching her pockets and said; “I can’t find my phone!”“I didn’t even bring mine to the party. No pockets.”The smell of smoke got stronger. I wheeled up next to the sink, and ran some water. Grabbing a package of paper towels, I ripped it open and dumped them in the sink. “Here, block up the crack under the door with these!”I handed her wads of soggy paper, and she knelt down to stuff them under the door. The smoke stoped coming in, thank goodness.  But now the room is black. “Now what?” she said.I shrugged, “I guess we wait and hope.”“I’m scared.” she said in a small voice.“Come here, sit on my lap here. Oh, uh, maybe pull up my pants first.” She helped me with that and sat on me. I think the gravity of the situation is now hitting her pretty hard, I know it’s got me freaked out. She burrowed into my neck and wraps her good arm wraps around me. “We’re Okay for now.” I tell her.I smelled her hair again, as she’s crushed against me. Damn that feels nice. Shit, I don’t even know her name. “I’m Robert by the way. Robert Green.”“Suzanne. Suzanne Shelton.”, she informed me.“I’d say pleased to meet you Suzanne, but under these circumstances, maybe the sentiment should be I’m ecstatic to meet you. If I was by myself I would have pissed my pants and suffocated.”She giggled, my goofy sense of humor somehow helped in this situation. “I’m glad to meet you too, Robert.”“So how did you get here?”“I don’t know, I was at the dorm party and felt dizzy, then you were kissing me.” She blushed again.“Sorry about that, I tried to wake you for like 20 minutes, but you were really out of it. I finally thought I would try the sleeping beauty trick, and it worked. Did you drink something someone else gave you?”“Oh. Shit. She seemed to recall. I think so. One of my floor mates gave me a coke. It must have been spiked?  I had to take some of my pain meds for my arm earlier tonight, it was bothering me. I keep trying to do too much with it all the time.”“Oh, yeah, you don’t want to mix booze or anything with that stuff, I know! Sorry about the pee episode. I really was going to wet my pants in another few seconds. Wet both our pants.”She blushed and giggled. “I never saw a guy like that, like your, thing, before.”“Wow. Okay, well, I never had a girl touch my co-, um, thing, before.”“It changed when I was putting it away. Was that, um, like…’"Yeah, well, when a pretty girl touches me like that, I’m bound to get aroused.”Her eyes went wide at that statement. “Oh” she said. She paused a few seconds, then put her head back on my shoulder. There was that scent again. "So. Um, you think I’m pretty?“"Well, yeah, of course. You’re what I think my grandpa would call 'fetching’”She giggled again. Damn, that sounds nice, and she smells really nice. Little Robert stirred down below. I heard a sharp intake of breath. Uh Oh. She felt that. I may have just ruined what might have been a moment.“Am I pretty enough to make you, uh, aroused, then?”“Oh, Suzanne, I am so embarrassed. Please, don’t be offended, it’s just circumstances, you know?”She pulled back again and looked at the door. Still no smoke. Then she looked at me with a sad smile, saying “I didn’t think so.” Suzanne started to get up, and I realized where our wires had crossed.I put my arms around her and said " Oh, no no. You’re very pretty, and definitely arousing.“She looked surprised, but settled back down on my lap. "Oh.” she said. “Thank you.”Just

An April Fools Prank Goes Awry.By SilverFoxMullet.Listen to the ►Podcast at Steamy Stories.Spring break was just that, a break. My leg, actually.When I went home to Ottawa for spring break, I met up with a few of my old high school buds, and we took a day trip to the Quebec side for some skiing at one of the nearby hills, north of Ottawa. Mid-gafternoon, I hit a patch of ice and went down hard. It was quite a day for falls, as the hills were pretty icy this late in the season. I tried to get up, but my right ankle hurt like a bitch. None of my friends had stopped, as we were all falling a lot today, they just assumed I would get up and follow them.“Aw fuck!” I groaned. I lay there in the snow for a few minutes, until someone slid to a stop next to me.“Hey, are you all right?” the guy asks.“No, I hurt my ankle. Fuck.”“Don’t move it, I’ll find the ski patrol. Hang on.” He skied away to get help.30 seconds later another guy stopped. Same question. "Hey are you all right?“"I think I sprained my ankle. There was a guy here a minute ago, he said he’d send the ski patrol.”The guy turned and looked around, then waved and yelled “Ici! Over here! Vien! Here they are.”Two guys in red jackets stopped and asked what’s wrong. This other guy said “Good luck!” to me, and skied away, as I recounted the fall and my symptoms. The ski patrol guys were great, they radioed for a stretcher and 20 minutes later they’re loading me into an ambulance. The rest of the day was a lot of waiting, x-rays, and paperwork. The local hospital had a seasonal trauma unit for all the ski injuries, and they’re used to dealing with the inter-provincial healthcare.I called my Dad, who said he’d fetch me from the hospital, then called my buddies who were still in the chalet . He told them to go home without me. They commiserated and said they’d drop by my house tomorrow and see how I was doing.I eventually got a cast on my right leg. It spanned from my toes to my mid-thigh. I was issued a pair of crutches, and a whole ream of instructions (in both French and English of course) about what to do and what not to do. My Dad showed up somewhere during this tedious process and reassured me everything would be fine.We got home really late, after stopping at a pharmacy for pain meds, and stopping for takeout, damn I was hungry by then. I was asleep in minutes after I took one of those pills after getting home.Next morning, I had to take another pill, damn leg was throbbing like mad. I had to learn how to negotiate using the toilet with crutches, fuck, that’s pain in the arse. Then I had to figure out how to shower. They gave me a shower bag for the cast but I couldn’t get the damn thing on by myself. Mom was trying to be motherly (naturally) but I was way too embarrassed to be seen naked in front of her. My Dad was a trooper, he helped me with all the bathroom stuff, and I got my shower Okay.I wasn’t going to be able to drive for a while, so my folks said they’d drive me back to school in Toronto. I could come home by bus and get my car once I was able to drive. Great.“Actually, if I could have my car on campus, one of my buddies could drive me around. None of the other guys have a car.” Not that my rattly old car was much of a ride, but it got us from A to B.“Okay” my Dad says, “Your mother can drive you there, and I’ll follow in your car, then we’ll drive back together.”“Awesome, sounds like a plan!”The rest of the day my parents helped me work out how to deal with the cast and crutches and take care of personal stuff by myself, like getting dressed, showering, shaving (yeah, ever try to balance on one foot to shave? fuckin hell), and using the toilet. My mom went shopping and bought me a bunch of baggy sweat pants, something that would go over my cast.My old friends dropped by with some hard coolers the next day, thinking it would cheer me up; but I had to pass on those due to the meds I was on. They laughed at me and drank it all, themselves. We all had a good laugh about my predicament, and they wished me luck at college. Gonna need it, eh?Then it was time to head back to school. I’d been texting and calling my buddies at school, told them the whole idiot story of my misadventures. They laughed at me big time, and of course they worried about their ride, what was gonna happen to my car? I told them about the arrangements and they were happy that it would still be available.The drive to school was really tedious, seemed to last forever, because it was so fricking uncomfortable to sit there with that stiff cast on. They got me and my stuff into my room in the dorm, and said their good-byes. I was so happy that I was on the first floor! No stairs here but there were stairs all over campus. Sure, there’s elevators everywhere but I didn’t know where most of them were.First order of business, I gotta pee after that road trip. I used the big accessible stall in the bathroom, that was great. Grab bars, lots of room, it really was made for this kind of thing. Easier than the bathroom at home, that’s for sure.I was the butt of a lot of jokes and shit for the first few days, but otherwise it was fine. Down in the dining hall I spotted someone else who’d had a fun spring break. There was a girl with her whole arm in a cast, like from shoulder to wrist, with the elbow bent at 90 degrees. I wondered what happened to her. Skiing too I supposed. My buddies said we’d make a great couple and told me to go ask her out. No way, dudes, not gonna happen. I can’t talk to girls, I always get freaked out and clam up.The end of March rolled around, and I still had weeks to go before getting my cast off. There was a party on Saturday night, and I was weaning off the strong meds by now so I could have a few drinks. My floor mates were getting me drinks, too; so I ended up having a few more than I would normally have. I was feeling buzzed by the end of the night.One of the guys suddenly showed up with a wheelchair. "Robbo! we got you some wheels, man!“"Where’d you steal that from?” I asked, a little dubious about the idea of them scamming someone’s chair.“No-No, totally not stolen, we got it for you from the Red Cross. It’s legit, dude!”“All right! Let’s check out my new ride then!” I hopped over and settled into the chair. They adjusted the footrest out for me and one of them took my crutches, and they started wheeling me away. "Where we goin?“ I asked."It’s a surprise.” says one of them, and then pull a pillowcase down over my head so I can’t see where we’re going. When I try to pull the covering off, they stopped me, and then the started grabbing my arms & duct taping them to the chair’s armrests. We were outside by now, and I started yelling, until they taped the pillowcase tight against my mouth, to muff my yelling. Now I was getting pissed, but there’s not much I could do, except literally ride this out.They laughed and giggled and make goofy jokes as they wheeled me around campus. Eventually, I had no idea where I am, and it suddenly strikes me that it was now April 1st. The alcoholic buzz is wearing off fast under the rush of my adrenaline and anger, and I wondered what kind of demented nightmare game they’ve come up with.I heard more laughing, girls this time, and they make whispered comments back and forth with the guys. I m now in a building, but I had no clue where. My chair was pushed around some more, bumping into stuff, and then a body is dumped in my lap, then they yanked the duct tape off the pillowcase and I can again my mouth. The room is pitch black. The giggling and laughing is cut off by the slamming of a door, and everything goes quiet.I think there’s a girl in my lap, or a small, really nice smelling guy with long hair. She’s quiescent, asleep or passed out, pressed against my chest.“Hey. Hey, wake up.” I said.No response, she’s just sitting there, draped over my lap. She’s warm and breathing, so it’s not a manikin or something. I wondered if she’s okay.I started to shift a bit, can’t use my arms because they’re taped down, but I try to shake her awake with my rocking shoulders. It didn’t work, and now I’m afraid that if I move too much she’ll fall off onto the floor.“Hey, uh, miss, wake up.” louder. She’s out of it. I turn my head to the side so I’m not yelling in her ear and holler “Hey, enough crap, let me out of here!” Silence reigns. Well, fuck. Now what?‘Now what’. Then the fire alarm starts blaring. It startles the heck out of me, but still isn’t enough to wake the girl.  I heard loud commotion in the halls for about 30 seconds, but then suddenly there is silence. Fuck, this is getting serious. What if it’s a real fire? No, no way, it's April 1st now, gotta be a prank. I’ll just wait for her to wake up, and we’ll get out of here. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I began to see faint outlines of what is probably a maintenance closet or storage room.The alarm rings for an annoyingly long time. 15 minutes I guess, I dunno, but it seems interminable. And I need to pee now. When the alarm finally stops the need to pee gets more insistent. I shifted uncomfortably under the weight of my passenger. Her hip is pressed up against my groin, adding to the struggle of my urge to piss.More time passes, and damn, I gotta go bad, now. I’m gonna wet myself, and her too, if I don’t get out of here right now. I’ve tried speaking to her, yelling, shaking her, and then there was another alarm that went on and on. She just isn’t gonna wake up. Did those morons drug her or something?I’m desperate now. “Come on, sleeping beauty, wake up!” Sleeping beauty? Yeah, fine, I’ll try that before I piss all over her. I think a girl would be slightly less angry about a stolen kiss than wet pants. So I seek her mouth. There was a little light coming in under the door, but suddenly that light went out, and only a faint intermittent light glowed. Oh, crap! That would be the emergency exit lighting. I eventually bumped my faced against her nose, then lowered a bit and kissed her, probably a little too hard for a wakeup smooch, cause I'm dying’ here, gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee.She’s got nice soft lips, really quite kissable, and I kinda wished she was awake and under different circumstances. I kissed her again, even harder. No response. I try again, this time I let my tongue do the talking, and I push into her mouth. Helluva way to experience my own first tongue-kiss . Finally, she stirred & turned into the kiss.Surprised, I pull back, and say “Oh thank god you’re awake, help me up!”She startled, yelping at me, “Who are you?!”“Help me, please, I’m gonna piss my pants! Untie me!”In the dim red glow of an exit sign I finally saw her face. She’s kinda cute, not particularly pretty, and she has a cast on her right arm. It’s the girl I saw in the dining hall a few times.“Hurry!" I pleaded.She struggled off me, and stood. Where the hell did you take me! she demanded.I told her that we were both abducted by campus hooligans and locked in some storage room, but I didn t know which building. Then I said; But I gotta pee right now and my leg is in a cast, and I m bound to this wheelchair.She felt the tape on my wrists. It's slow going for her to undo the tape with her one weak hand, the way she’s pulling at it, she’s obviously not left handed.I’m not gonna make it, and I looked around. We’re in a janitor’s room or something. I spotted a stack of small waste baskets. "Quick, grab one of those buckets and put it between my legs.”She’s quick on the uptake, I’ll give her that, and she grabbed the bucket for me. “Pull my pants down, hurry.”“What? No!” she protested.“Argh. Please, I’m gonna wet myself.” I grind out through my clenched teeth.She reached out with that uncoordinated left hand of hers and fumbles with my sweat pants. I squirmed to lift my hips a bit to help, and the elastic waistband slipped down, exposing my tight briefs.“You gotta help. Pull me out, aim for the bucket. Please?”I can see she’s not happy with the situation, and she’s fighting with her distaste at touching a man, a total stranger at that, in such a bizarre circumstance. But she perseveres, and that delicate hand fishes in my shorts for my cock. She paused momentarily as she made contact, then pulled my cock free. She picked up the empty bucket and aimed my hose toward the container.I groaned as I let loose. Oh god, finally! The relief was incredible. The poor girl was acting shocked as she dutifully aimed me at the bucket, and she even nudged the bucket a bit closer. I pissed on and on, holy fuck there was so much, and eventually I ran dry.Her disposition is no longer shocked, but instead she appeared to be curious.“Oh thank you, you saved me so much embarrassment. You can put me back in there now. Thanks.”She hesitated, and timidly tried to one-handedly stuff my cock back through the fly, and after a couple of clumsy tries I’m all set. And of course now my cock was growing fast in her hand, as I no longer had to pee, but there’s a wonderful-smelling girl handling that most sensitive part of my anatomy. Something that’s never happened before.That last drop of pee evidently got on her hand, and she looked a bit frantic now, “Ew” she says.“Just wipe it on my sweats, it’s Okay.” I told her, and she rubbed her hand on my inner thigh. That doesn’t help with my ever increasing boner of course.She looked up at me, and her brow wrinkled. “Do you smell smoke?” she asked.It’s my turn to be startled, and I looked toward the door. Oh Fuck, there’s smoke coming in under the door! That alarm was real! Why wasn’t it still going off? “Quick, help me get this tape off!” She started trying to pull up my sweats, but I say “No, leave that, just get me undone!”She started working on the tape on my left arm, and it took a few minutes to get me free. Working together, my right arm is unstuck in less than a minute. “Check the door.” I told her as I looked around the room. No other doors, just shelves, a big sink, a floor pan for filling and emptying mop buckets, and stacks of boxes and stuff.She tried the light switch but it doesn’t work. Great, my idiot friends probably unscrewed the light bulb. Then she tried the door. “It’s locked!” she says.“From the outside? Why the fuck would it be set up to lock people in? Sorry. I swear when I get nervous.”“Is there really a fire, do you think?”“I guess so, there was an alarm that went off when you were out cold.”“What do we do?” She started frantically searching her pockets and said; “I can’t find my phone!”“I didn’t even bring mine to the party. No pockets.”The smell of smoke got stronger. I wheeled up next to the sink, and ran some water. Grabbing a package of paper towels, I ripped it open and dumped them in the sink. “Here, block up the crack under the door with these!”I handed her wads of soggy paper, and she knelt down to stuff them under the door. The smoke stoped coming in, thank goodness.  But now the room is black. “Now what?” she said.I shrugged, “I guess we wait and hope.”“I’m scared.” she said in a small voice.“Come here, sit on my lap here. Oh, uh, maybe pull up my pants first.” She helped me with that and sat on me. I think the gravity of the situation is now hitting her pretty hard, I know it’s got me freaked out. She burrowed into my neck and wraps her good arm wraps around me. “We’re Okay for now.” I tell her.I smelled her hair again, as she’s crushed against me. Damn that feels nice. Shit, I don’t even know her name. “I’m Robert by the way. Robert Green.”“Suzanne. Suzanne Shelton.”, she informed me.“I’d say pleased to meet you Suzanne, but under these circumstances, maybe the sentiment should be I’m ecstatic to meet you. If I was by myself I would have pissed my pants and suffocated.”She giggled, my goofy sense of humor somehow helped in this situation. “I’m glad to meet you too, Robert.”“So how did you get here?”“I don’t know, I was at the dorm party and felt dizzy, then you were kissing me.” She blushed again.“Sorry about that, I tried to wake you for like 20 minutes, but you were really out of it. I finally thought I would try the sleeping beauty trick, and it worked. Did you drink something someone else gave you?”“Oh. Shit. She seemed to recall. I think so. One of my floor mates gave me a coke. It must have been spiked?  I had to take some of my pain meds for my arm earlier tonight, it was bothering me. I keep trying to do too much with it all the time.”“Oh, yeah, you don’t want to mix booze or anything with that stuff, I know! Sorry about the pee episode. I really was going to wet my pants in another few seconds. Wet both our pants.”She blushed and giggled. “I never saw a guy like that, like your, thing, before.”“Wow. Okay, well, I never had a girl touch my co-, um, thing, before.”“It changed when I was putting it away. Was that, um, like…’"Yeah, well, when a pretty girl touches me like that, I’m bound to get aroused.”Her eyes went wide at that statement. “Oh” she said. She paused a few seconds, then put her head back on my shoulder. There was that scent again. "So. Um, you think I’m pretty?“"Well, yeah, of course. You’re what I think my grandpa would call 'fetching’”She giggled again. Damn, that sounds nice, and she smells really nice. Little Robert stirred down below. I heard a sharp intake of breath. Uh Oh. She felt that. I may have just ruined what might have been a moment.“Am I pretty enough to make you, uh, aroused, then?”“Oh, Suzanne, I am so embarrassed. Please, don’t be offended, it’s just circumstances, you know?”She pulled back again and looked at the door. Still no smoke. Then she looked at me with a sad smile, saying “I didn’t think so.” Suzanne started to get up, and I realized where our wires had crossed.I put my arms around her and said " Oh, no no. You’re very pretty, and definitely arousing.“She looked surprised, but settled back down on my lap. "Oh.” she said. “Thank you.”Just

Welcome to Lake Hills Church, we hope you find what you are looking for and that you feel at home here. To give you a brief overview, Pastor Mac and Julie Richard founded Lake Hills Church in 1997, with the aspiration to redefine church for the city of Austin and beyond. We believe deeply in the unique power that the local church has to change lives and unite people. We are committed to living out and sharing the vision of LHC: to grow the community of Christ one life at a time, through evangelism + discipleship. Enjoy your visit! Find us online: Visit our website: https://www.lhc.org/ Subscribe on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LakeHillsChurch Like our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/lhcatx Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lhcatx/ Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/lhcatx

In math and science, knots do far more than keep shoes on feet. For more than a century, mathematicians have studied the properties of different knots and been rewarded by a wide range of useful applications across science. Classifying how some knots are different from others is an important part of this work. Earlier this year, two mathematicians found that a theory for how to differentiate between knots is false. In fact, they found infinitely many counterexamples that prove that this method for studying knots does not work the way it's supposed to. In this episode, contributing writer Leila Sloman joins editor in chief Samir Patel to tell the story of how the unknotting number came unraveled.Audio coda courtesy Zinadelphia

JIMMY KIMMEL takes a long horn of a mysterious white substance up his nose. JIMMY KIMMEL You're right. That is good cocaine. Like really good. —only the best! JIMMY KIMMEL I'm going to bed now What?! JIMMY KIMMEL I've got to go to sleep. Are you serious?! JIMMY KIMMEL Very serious. You know. Mucho tired. Now excuse me. I don't understand. JIMMY KIMMEL passes out face down on the couch. {Enter The Multiverse} Lil bitz The jonas borthers made a christmas movie and at first I wasn't sure why, But then I thought about it harder, I was like “jonas brothers… Christmas…?” Oh, i get it– Like, “Ho, Ho, Ho!” …cause there's three of them. L. JONES DUM-DUM! YA LOOK RATCHET. BLŪ Omg why r u 18 feet tall. L. JONES YA LOOK CRUSTY. BLŪ I am crusty. L. JONES YA LOOK LOST. BLŨ. I am lost! L. JONES WHY I AINT GET MY WISH YET? HUH?! I'm not being Blū Tha Gürū right now. I'm just— [almost hit by a bus] L. JONES you simple bitch. BLŨ —blū. L. JONES What the hell that supposed to mean? BLŪ You came all the way to the lower realms just to be that tall. —Nah! Look, this is difficult. Can we just MERGE? BLŪ Nah uh— I already merged with— L. JONES Uhh-huh! —enough of you! Enough of you —“alumni” Enough of you already! Just. {Enter The Multiverse} Alright. We merged. Now where we at? I don't even know. Simple bitch. Molly with the suede suit, Black shirt Tan boots, Truth, King, Speak words— Design: leave earth Three times, I need Meanwhile, Three hursts, Three tries, The bullet doesn't miss twice, He hurts. Please, rehearse Get back in the beer bandit Here, bandit! (Hound dog) Heavy job, son— Him and all birds, All God, That's a strong heart— Let it blow out. Candle dust? Here and there. Set the box? Theatre office. Want a crumb? Want a whole number on a warred bat? This dimension's all that; This dimension's all that and then some! Clear to the agenda and a brick wall— I'll probably cut my head off I'll probably cut my head off— Before I cut my hair off; Lead ball? Medicine. Ten tall messages and massive planted evidence. Ten all autographs and all the fumbled balls caught; Penned down hens and reprimanded feeble horseradish, Course, cough, hold it back a second if you're strong, though— Sure, cross your heart inside of Molly in the bottle, I put the message down the river just a bit, But just a bit— But just a second, for the kids; The syndicate is dead, infact. I'm stuck inside your head, in fact— The President misread, in fact, The fractal our eyes mattered, Tip a hat to Mr. Random, On appealed ball fields, Diplomat and moral conduct, Struck before the clock forgot construct itself, Around and about, For here and for now, our— Missing hatred for negating, nothing said I And bitter here bats, and slaughtered hear hearts, For the never late the daughters eyes, For turning over Lilly leaves and parceled tongues, And tisk for tat, there were upon the Ace, her hands And slain in ink for our might. Therefore, to say, he hated her, Bearing him none and down the arm would flow the anchor, gallantly— Whispering cheery cherry blossoms in the hour I, For their time stands to nothing, Stands to none at all but thought forgotten Here for are, I And bare to one the number, Won the fight and mastered in the mortar, All the ashes flames and flit and flicker, tith the half, I, And fully weighed the anchor this and hither bate of fount, aye. And thou art my God; To stand and know and wither here under yet; brings us though nothing but thousand years longer, And nothing this time has yet passed us in all knowing, not keeping but feeling not seeking the band her; This waits you and I forage keep the heaping wate and grip that have I for your fortune, meadow tatter art, And ye, Ye shall not find me. Now I go. What?! She said she's leaving. IKNOWTHAT, L E G E N D S Red is the ram, Goes hard on the court; Ramshakle! Ramshakle! Full on the course; Coarse is the red jackal, Red suit and tie; Red is the sea, If you're willing to die, And I'd part it for neither and none, So come one and come all To the unknown dungeon, Of full feathered flowers. This thing is just festering— I've got to pop it. Not yet. I told you, there in his pocket— An advocate of the well known not-God, Sure was Chaos the done and the forest, Dark shadow! Dark shadow, Willing and honored. Forgiving and honest, brotherhoods— But who art thou? Keeping your tied and your triads as morals; Sacred for neither and loyal to none are, And art in her folds, so as one, We become our. Hours and ions and // Glitches// And circuit, Missed calls and mystics// [Intercepted] Hollow and all words And all worlds have gathered Beyond all our knowledge The all known has shattered. So sits beyond her graces in said forest as before none, And her altered battered ties to one beyond but not the rope cut, This twisting and the tide came, All as Scarlett, bronze, and crimson— Kill her, sire, sure—would you? Do her the honor; Untie the monster, And relish her pleasure, Please, sir, would you?? Shook her, wrought and gaping, Incrept, slaughtered and martyred— Bonded but not undone, As I bow before I. —bleeding waves. Chroma111. Copyright © The Complex Collective 2025 The Festival Project, Inc. ™ All rights reserved. Chroma111. Copyright © The Complex Collective 2025. [The Festival Project, Inc. ™] All rights reserved. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION OR DISTRIBUTION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED BY LAW. INFRIGMENT IS PUNSHABLE BY FEDERAL LAW

A Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent St. Matthew 21:1-13 by William Klock The Gospel we read on Christmas Day is the introduction to St. John's Gospel.  Those familiar words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” The light, God's Messiah, Jesus has come into the world.  He's brought light into the darkness.  He's brought life into the middle of death.  In him, God has become present to the world.  But between us and Christmas, between us and the coming of the light, stands Advent—to remind us what the world was like before light and life came into the midst of darkness and death—so that we might appreciate more the gift that God has given us in Jesus, so that we might appreciate more his love, his mercy, and his grace; so that we might appreciate more his faithfulness as we see his promises fulfilled in the Christmas story.  So that we might better live out the story he's given us in preparation for the day when he comes again. And so Advent begins with Jesus, the Messiah, the anointed king, on the Sunday before his crucifixion.  Palm Sunday.  Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  Today we have St. Matthew's telling of that day.  He writes—at the beginning of Chapter 21: “When they came near to Jerusalem and arrived at Bethpage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of the disciples on ahead.” The road from Jericho up to Jerusalem made its final approach to the city around the southern slope of the Mount of Olives. As the road came over the ridge, there was Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley, a mass of great walls and rooftops, and above it all on Mount Zion, was the temple—the place where earth and heaven were supposed to overlap, the place where men and women could draw near to the presence of God, the shekinah, the cloud of glory that sat on the ark in the holy of holies.  A cloud of smoke went up perpetually from the altar in the temple court where the burnt offerings were made.  This was the scene that met Jesus as the road took him over the Mount of Olives: the city, bustling with crowds of visitors for the Passover, the temple in all its beautiful glory standing above the city, and that column of smoke going up, an aroma to the Lord. A Jewish man or woman, walking over that ridge and seeing this scene ahead, might be overcome.  It was heaven on earth—or the closest you could get to it.  It was a scene of glory.  It was a scene that would make your heart swell with pride, knowing that you were the people who lived with the living God in your midst.  And it was exciting for all these people travelling from the outlying regions of Judea and Galilee—like they were arriving at the centre of the universe.  I think of the description Victorian travellers gave of arriving in London, to the heart of the British Empire.  To the way I've heard New Yorkers talk of flying home from other parts of the world and seeing the skyscrapers or the Statue of Liberty out the window and knowing that you're home and swelling with pride because their home is—today—the centre of the universe.  This past March, Veronica I drove down Highway 101 to the central California Coast.  Between Sausalito and the Marin Headlands, you pass through the Waldo Tunnel and when you come out the south end of the tunnel, you're greeted with a stunning panoramic vista of the Golden Gate Bridge with San Francisco's skyscrapers in the background.  That's where I was born.  And when we drove out of the tunnel and saw that view, I think I felt something very much like the Jews would have felt coming round the Mount of Olives and seeing Jerusalem and the temple in the distance.  Jesus' disciples—a bunch of bumpkins from Galilee, way up in the north—must have felt that way.  But not Jesus.  Matthew leaves this part out, but St. Luke tells us that Jesus, seeing that beautiful and glorious view, stopped and began to sob.  The beauty, the glory wasn't lost on him, but he sobbed because he knew that it masked a people with no heart for God.  The city and temple were like a whitewashed tomb—beautiful, but full of dead men's bones.  He knew—as everyone knew, but dared not admit—the glory, the presence of God was not there.  The smoke my have risen from the altar, but the holy holies was bare and empty—just like the heart of the people.  Jesus saw the coming judgement of God on a faithless people.  He saw the city and the temple as they would be in a generation: a smoking ruin. Matthew puts our attention on Jesus' acted out prophecy.  He sends two of his disciples ahead into the village of Bethphage, “‘Go into the village,' he said, ‘and at once you'll find a donkey tied up and a foal beside it.  Untie them and bring them to me.  And if anyone says anything to you, say, “The lord needs them, and he'll send them back straightaway.”'  He sent them off at once….So the disciples went off and did as Jesus had told them.  They brought the donkey and its foal and put their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.”  Why?  Well, says Matthew, “This happened so that the prophet's words might be fulfilled: ‘Tell this to Zion's daughter: Behold!  Here comes your king; humble and riding on a donkey, yes, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Matthew quotes from the Prophet Zechariah.  Matthew could see what Jesus was doing here.  Jesus never did anything randomly or without reason.  The location, the donkey, the colt—they're all important.  Jesus could have taken a different route to Jerusalem, but he picked this one so that he'd be standing on the Mount of Olives when all this happened.  This was the spot were Zechariah said that the Lord would stand when he came in judgement on faithless Jerusalem.  And Zechariah explains the strange command to the disciples about the donkey.  This was not how kings made their triumphal processions.  At least, not ordinary kings.  They were carried by their servants or they rode on horseback or in a chariot.  But Zechariah, hundreds of years before, had highlighted the humble nature of the coming Messiah.  He was the one who would ride to his coronation on the back of a humble donkey. Jesus' acted out prophecy reveals who he is and it exposes all the wrong ideas his people had about the Lord and his Messiah—and it probably exposes some of our wrong ideas, too.  To the people who longed for the Lord to come in judgement on the nations, Jesus comes in judgement to his own people.  To the people who imagined the Messiah coming in a chariot with a great army to liberate Jerusalem and to reign over his people like a greater David, Jesus comes riding on a donkey with an army of ordinary pilgrims.  To the people who imagined God coming in merciless, vengeful, pitiless wrath to bring judgement on sin, Jesus comes in humility, weeping over the coming judgement.  Jesus is coming to take his throne, to fulfil what the Prophets—like Zechariah—had spoken, to show the Lord's faithfulness, but not in the way anyone expected. I think of our Epistle today from Romans, where St. Paul writes those words: “Owe no one anything, but to love one another, for the one who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the torah.”  I don't think Paul could have written those words before he met the risen Jesus.  He certainly knew what the greatest commandments were: to love God and to love his neighbour.  But he didn't understand.  He was part of that Jerusalem Jesus wept over.  A city that talked about love of God and love of neighbour, but a city—a nation—of people at each other's throats, a people longing eagerly for fire and brimstone to rain down on their enemies, a people with little if any thought for those in their midst most in need, a people ready to cry out in demonic rage for the crucifixion of their own Messiah.  And a people who did all these things with an absolute and devoted passion for a God they utterly misunderstood.  And this was why what should have been the beating heart of Jerusalem—the presence of the living God in the temple—this is why it, why he was missing.  The people had returned from their Babylonian exile, they had rebuilt the temple, but the heart of the people was still far from God.  They were impure.  Their salt had lost its savour.  Their light had turned to darkness.  They were false witnesses of their God.  And so his presence, the cloud of glory, had never returned. The road to Jerusalem was jammed with people who say Jesus sobbing.  They probably thought his tears were tears of joy to see the holy city.  Little did they know.  They were just excited to see him.  They'd heard the stories.  Word was no doubt spread through about the healing of blind Bartimaeus in Jericho.  Pilgrims from Galilee told others of the amazing things Jesus had done and taught there.  And as the disciples places their coats on the donkey and Jesus took his place, word was going through the crowd: “That's him!” So, says Matthew, “the great crowd spread their coats on the road.  Others cut branches from the trees and scattered them on the road.  The crowds went on ahead of him and those who were following behind shouted: ‘Hosanna to the son of David!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest!” The crowd surrounds Jesus. All the way to Jerusalem they'd been singing the psalms of ascent and the royal psalms.  Songs full of hope.  Psalms about that recalled the glory days of David, psalms about God coming to his people, psalms about God finally setting this broken world to rights.  Psalms that looked forward to the coming Messiah.  And now—maybe, they hoped—here he was.  Not like anyone expected, but they'd heard the stories.  Maybe they'd heard him preaching.  Maybe they'd seen his miracles.  And that was enough.  So they parade him down the Mount of Olives, across the valley, and back up and into the gates of Jerusalem. Along the way they, Matthew says, they laid their coats and palm branches on the ground.  Now it's the people acting out prophetically even if they didn't know it. Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience makes sure that as they read this, they're reminded of a scene or two from their own history.  In 2 Kings 9 we read about Jehoram.  He was King of Israel, the son of the wicked King Ahab.  And in Jehoram, the apple had not fallen far from the tree.  He was as wicked as his father, so the prophet Elisha ordered that Jehu, instead, was to be anointed King in his place.  He announced that Jehu would bring the Lord's judgement on the wicked house of Ahab.  As Jehu was anointed by the prophet, the men who were gathered cast their coats on the ground before him and blew a trumpet. And then there's Judas Maccabeus.  2 Maccabees 10:7 describes the people hailing Judas as king by laying wreathes and palm branches at his feet.  Judas had not only defeated Israel's enemies and liberated the nation, but he had purified the temple from its defilement by the Greeks.  He was a national hero—particularly for the Pharisees and the Zealots.  Judas' kingdom inspired hope. But Jehu was not the saviour the people hoped for.  As a king he was a mixed bag.  He put an end to the more outrageous form of idolatry in Judah.  He got rid of the altars to Baal.  But he never removed the golden calves that Jeroboam has set up at Bethel and Dan.  He failed to dig out the root of Judah's idolatry and faithlessness to the Lord.  In the end, the Lord still allowed the people to be exiled for their faithlessness.  And Judas Maccabeus.  He was a national hero.  But his kingdom was short-lived.  The shekinah never returned to the temple, despite his zealousness for torah.  The hope he'd brought to the people was quickly crushed.  But this time, looking at Jesus, the people hoped, it would be different.  And so they sing to him.  They acclaim him as the Messiah, the anointed king.  “Hosanna—save us—O son of David!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  O Hosanna—save us—we cry to heaven!” Matthew gives us a sense of the longing and hope of the people.  They're desperate for the Lord to come and set their broken world to rights.  Jesus sees it too and I expect it made him weep all the more, because he knew that God's new world was not going to come the way they wanted it to, he knew that he would not going to his messianic throne the way they wanted him to, because he knew that to set everything to rights would mean judging the sin and corruption of his people and the city and even the temple.  And he knew the only way to his throne was through their rejection and death on Roman cross. But on he went into the city.  Acting out the prophecy.  Matthew writes that “When they came into Jerusalem, the whole city was gripped with excitement.  ‘Who is this?' they were saying.  ‘This is the prophet, Jesus,' replied the crowds, ‘from Nazareth in Galilee!”  This is the Prophet.  They weren't saying that Jesus was just another prophet.  He was the Prophet.  The one the people hailed Jesus as in our Gospel last Sunday, after he fed the multitude.  He was the one promised to come, like another Moses, to save the people and lead them out of bondage.  In other words, “This is the Messiah, Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.” He had come to take his throne.  And so from the gate of the city, Jesus led the triumphal parade of cheering people through the winding streets—the same route he would take in reverse, bearing a cross, just five days later.  He made his way up and up through the city to the temple and through the gate.  And when he got there, Matthew says, “Jesus threw out all the people who were buying and selling in the temple.  He flipped over the tables of the money-changers and the seats of the dove-sellers.  ‘It is written,' he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a lair of bandits!” Jehu and Judas Maccabeus had cleansed the temple.  That was the expectation of the Messiah.  But not like this.  I think we often focus too much on Jesus' actions as a condemnation of the commerce going on in the temple—probably because we're aware of the evils of our own overly materialistic and commercialistic culture.  I don't think Jesus was angered by the commerce itself.  People needed animals for the sacrifices and not everyone was a farmer.  A lot of people were travelling from far away and it wasn't easy or realistic to bring the animals with them.  And the money changers, well, since the temple only used its own coinage, they were at least a necessary evil.  Nevertheless when you think of Mary and Joseph going to the temple for her purification after the birth of Jesus and offering two turtledoves, it says something about how poor they were.  When you think about the words of her Magnificat, singing about filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty, when you think of the widow offering her “mite” in the offering box, you certainly get the sense that the system was privileging the rich and making access to the temple a burden for the poor—and in that this whole system was emblematic of the way in which Israel had lost the heart of God and was desperately in need of judgment…or renewal…or as it would happen: both.   But the really important thing about Jesus flipping tables and driving out the merchants is something I think we're prone to missing.  Again, this is another acted out prophecy.  The really important thing is that what Jesus did brought the work of the priests and the whole sacrificial system that day to a grinding halt.  It goes along with everything else he said about the temple—like announcing that he would tear it down and rebuild it in three day—and it goes right along with all the times that he bypassed the temple, the priests, and the sacrificial system by offering forgiveness apart from them.  That, far more than everything else, is what had angered the Pharisees.  That was what got him arrested and crucified. So what Jesus is getting at here is that the Messiah has come, not just to purify the temple, but to establish a new and better one.  To really inaugurate the work of new creation that the old temple had always pointed to.  The people had forgotten this.  The temple was never meant to be an end in itself.  The temple pointed to God's future—to the day when sin is gone, to the day when creation is made new and the garden restored, and to the day when men and women are made new as well, to the day when a renewed humanity once again lives in God's presence and serves in his temple as priests. And, Brothers and Sisters, that's what Jesus inaugurated through his crucifixion and resurrection.  He shed his blood, not for a building, not for an altar made of stone, but for a people: a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for their sins.  At the cross, Jesus washed his people clean and he's washed them—he's washed us clean—so that we can be God's temple.  And so Jesus rose from the grave and ascended to the right hand of his Father, the perfect man, the new Adam, to take up his vocation as high priest.  And as high priest, he's poured God's Spirit into his people, purified by his blood.  He's made us his temple and called us to join in the vocation we were originally created for: to be God's priests and stewards serving beside our saviour. So Advent comes as a forced pause.  We're racing towards Christmas and to the joy it represents.  And the church says, “Hold on.  Slow down.  You need to stop and think about what it all means.  You need to stop and think about why Jesus came, why he was born, why it was necessary for light and life to be born into the world.  You need to reflect on the darkness of this fallen and broken world.  You need to reflect on the awfulness of sin and of death and of our slavery to them so that you can fully appreciate the gift in the manger with more than mushy holiday sentimentalism.  This is the Messiah, this is the saviour—Israel's saviour and now our saviour.  Come not just to make us feel good, but come to deliver us from sin and death, come to set God's creation to rights.  Come to purify us with his blood, to dwell in the midst of the people, to fill us with Gods' Spirit, and to sweep us up into his messianic mission.  Brothers and Sisters, to make us the people in whom the world encounters the glory of the living God and meets the humble saviour whose kingdom has come, not by a sword, but by the cross.  To make us stewards of the Gospel that, empowered by the Spirit, we might prepare the world for Jesus' return. Let's pray: Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

11 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?' say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.' ” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. 8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” 11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. Jesus Curses the Fig Tree12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. 13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it. Jesus Cleanses the Temple15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 19 And when evening came they went out of the city. The Lesson from the Withered Fig Tree20 As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 21 And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” 22 And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” The Authority of Jesus Challenged27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, 28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” 29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.” 31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,' he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?' 32 But shall we say, ‘From man'?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. 33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mk 11:1–33.

What Happens When Pressure Builds—and You Don't Even Know It? In this episode, Natalie Born sits down with Ryan Dunlap, conflict strategist, former hostage negotiator, and author of How to Untie a Balloon: A Negotiator's Guide to Avoid Popping Under Pressure. Ryan brings real-life strategies from both interrogation rooms and executive coaching sessions, helping leaders recognize how pressure impacts their behavior and decision-making.Through powerful metaphors—like the overinflated balloon—and practical frameworks such as FIRST and STOP, Ryan offers a roadmap for decompressing emotionally, resolving deep-seated conflict, and returning to leadership with clarity and strength. If you're leading while stressed, burned out, or in constant response mode, this episode is a must-listen.[00:01 - 04:16] The Balloon Metaphor and Hidden PressureWhy law enforcement prepared Ryan less for pressure than pastoring did.How a balloon exercise revealed the emotional buildup leaders carry.The surprising connection between suspects and CEOs under pressure.[04:17 - 08:00] The FIRST FrameworkFeelings, Interests, Relationships, Situations, and Toll—breaking down complex issues into manageable parts.Why most leaders try to solve everything at once—and how that backfires.How FIRST builds sustainable emotional progress through small wins.[08:01 - 12:00] Resilience, Conflict, and the Grudge TrapStats on how long we hold grudges—and the hidden cost.Why strategy and resources don't matter when we're emotionally depleted.The critical need to “suffer well” and build a healthier foundation before scaling.[12:01 - 16:00] Identifying Internal Pressure Before You ExplodeHow to self-audit your automatic responses to stress.The difference between seeking relief and pursuing resolution.Recognizing that what you normalize might actually be a high-pressure state.[16:01 - 20:59] Reclaiming Your BaselineUnderstanding the hedonic treadmill and the identity toll of constant pressure.The STOP model: Space, Time, Opportunity, Perspective.A powerful question: “Who were you before the world hurt you?”[21:00 - 26:00] Sabbaticals, Rest, and Redefining ProductivityWhy many leaders are running unsustainable lives—and don't know it.The paradox of rest: You're more productive when you pause.Choosing the right kind of consequences: business strain vs. personal collapse.[26:01 - 28:00] Daily Tips, Deeper Coaching & the Conflict-ish CommunityWhere to find Ryan's 90-second daily videos.How to get your copy of How to Untie a Balloon.A look at Ryan's upcoming academy for personal and professional transformation.Quotes:“Pressure causes us to lean into relief instead of resolution.” – Ryan Dunlap“If you don't stop working, something bad is going to happen anyway. You have to choose—do you want the business to suffer or your family?” – Ryan Dunlap“Who were you before the world hurt you?” – Ryan DunlapConnect with Ryan:Website: https://www.conflictish.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanmdunlapSocial (TikTok, IG, YouTube): @conflictishBook: How to Untie a Balloon (Available wherever books are sold)Want More?LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone lead with clarity and courage under pressure by sharing this episode or click here to catch up on past episodes.

There is an experience some of us (but not all) are able to have called autonomous sensory meridian response or ASMR. It can be triggered by a soft monotonous voice explaining something as well as other triggers. Sounds weird, right? Listen as I explain how it works, why science doesn't recognize it as a real thing but for many of us, it is a wonderful sensation, and I will tell you how to experience it. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/53220/listening-soft-voices-can-cause-brain-orgasms The YouTube video link mentioned is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHiKxytbCWk Difficult conversations are never fun, but they are necessary. Whether you are negotiating for a raise or having a tough conversation with your spouse or friend, there are ways to make these conversations go better for you and everyone involved. Here to offer some expertise on this is Ryan Dunlap a former police detective and hostage negotiator. He has been involved in a lot of high stakes negotiations in his career and he is author of the book How to Untie a Balloon: A Negotiator's Guide to Avoid Popping Under Pressure (https://amzn.to/3Ia2c72) What are the best practices for living a long and healthy life? There are many theories on this but here to discuss the science of longevity is John Tregoning who explains that living a long life may best be accomplished by living a good life. John is Professor of Vaccine Immunology at Imperial College London and has published over sixty academic papers. He is author of the book, Live Forever?: A Curious Scientist's Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death (https://amzn.to/4kc9B2J). How do you write a good business email? Interestingly, there are some common mistakes people make that water down the message in business emails by making them sound more like personal emails. Listen as I reveal how to avoid that. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/7-common-habits-that-kill-credibility.html#ixzz3c6aUXNnN PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! SHOPIFY: Shopify is the commerce platform for millions of businesses around the world! To start selling today, sign up for your $1 per month trial at⁠ https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠ INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now! QUINCE: Stick to the staples that last, with elevated essentials from Quince! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! HERS: Hers is transforming women's healthcare by providing access to affordable weight loss treatment plans, delivered straight to your door, if prescribed. Start your initial free online visit today at ⁠https://forhers.com/something⁠ DELL: The Black Friday in July event from Dell Technologies is here. Upgrade for a limited-time only at ⁠https://Dell.com/deals⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to The Daily, where we study the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, every day. Today's shout-out goes to Mark Hardison from Murfreesboro, TN. Thank you for standing with us in Project23. You're helping lead people into the Word, one day at a time. This one's for you. Our text today is Mark 11:1-11: Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?' say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.'” And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.  — Mark 11:1-11 If Jesus wanted to signal war, he would've come on a stallion. But he chose a donkey. Why? Because the King had come, but not to conquer Rome. He came to conquer sin. This wasn't weakness. It was fulfillment. Zechariah 9:9 had prophesied it: “Behold, your king is coming… humble and mounted on a donkey.” Everything Jesus did was intentional. A war horse meant judgment. A donkey meant peace. That's the kind of King he is. Powerful enough to destroy, but humble enough to save. The people were shouting “Hosanna!”—but most of them missed what Jesus was really doing. They wanted political rescue. He came for spiritual rescue. Presently, they cheered him in as a hero. Days later, many would cry, “Crucify him.” Why? Because he didn't meet their expectations. He didn't take their side. He took over. But most still want "war horse" Jesus. We want him to charge in and fix our culture, correct our problems, defend our comfort, and affirm our plans. But he comes on a donkey—lowly, interrupting our assumptions and calling us to die to ourselves. He's not interested in sharing the throne of your heart with your politics, your preferences, or your personal agenda. Jesus doesn't just want a place in your life—he demands preeminence over it. So here's the call to action today: Are you cheering Jesus on Sunday but living for yourself by Monday? Are you praising the King with your lips but resisting his rule in your habits, finances, relationships, or priorities? Don't settle for a “safe” Savior who never challenges your comfort. That's not the real Jesus. Submit to the Lord of Lords, and bow to the King of Kings. #HumbleKing, #JesusIsKing, #Mark11 ASK THIS: Why is Jesus' choice of a donkey so surprising? What kind of King were the people expecting? Where are you tempted to treat Jesus like a helper, not a ruler? What would it look like to welcome him on his terms? DO THIS: Where am I expecting Jesus to ride in and fix something—when he's actually calling me to surrender something? PRAY THIS: Jesus, you came in humility when I expected force. Forgive me for trying to use you instead of following you. I welcome you as my King. Amen. PLAY THIS: “King of Kings.”

To become a follower of Jesus, visit: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/MeetJesus (NOT a Morning Mindset resource) ⇒ Get a copy of the MM Companion Journal: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/journal ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ TODAY'S SCRIPTURE:   ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FINANCIALLY SUPPORT THE MORNING MINDSET: (not tax-deductible) -- Become a monthly partner: https://mm-gfk-partners.supercast.com/ -- Support a daily episode: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/daily-sponsor/ -- Give one-time: https://give.cornerstone.cc/careygreen -- Venmo: @CareyNGreen ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FOREIGN LANGUAGE VERSIONS OF THIS PODCAST: SPANISH version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Spanish HINDI version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Hindi CHINESE version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Chinese  ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ CONTACT: Carey@careygreen.com  ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ THEME MUSIC: “King’s Trailer” – Creative Commons 0 | Provided by https://freepd.com/ ***All NON-ENGLISH versions of the Morning Mindset are translated using A.I. Dubbing and Translation tools from DubFormer.ai ***All NON-ENGLISH text content (descriptions and titles) are translated using the A.I. functionality of Google Translate. To become a follower of Jesus, visit: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/MeetJesus (NOT a Morning Mindset resource) ⇒ Get a copy of the MM Companion Journal: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/journal ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ TODAY'S SCRIPTURE: Mark 11:1–6 - [1] Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples [2] and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. [3] If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” [4] And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. [5] And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” [6] And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. (ESV) ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FINANCIALLY SUPPORT THE MORNING MINDSET: (not tax-deductible) -- Become a monthly partner: https://mm-gfk-partners.supercast.com/ -- Support a daily episode: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/daily-sponsor/ -- Give one-time: https://give.cornerstone.cc/careygreen -- Venmo: @CareyNGreen ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FOREIGN LANGUAGE VERSIONS OF THIS PODCAST: SPANISH version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Spanish HINDI version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Hindi CHINESE version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Chinese  ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ CONTACT: Carey@careygreen.com  ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ THEME MUSIC: “King’s Trailer” – Creative Commons 0 | Provided by https://freepd.com/ ***All NON-ENGLISH versions of the Morning Mindset are translated using A.I. Dubbing and Translation tools from DubFormer.ai ***All NON-ENGLISH text content (descriptions and titles) are translated using the A.I. functionality of Google Translate.