Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
Pr 22:6 NIV
Out front of the red brick building, were two signs. One was a marquee type of sign. Behind the glass read, "FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH" in big bold black letters. Below it were several rows of information. The last row stating, "Dr. Robert Patterson, Pastor." It stood alongside a tall and very wide cascading stairway. The steps of which were made of marble. Rev. Patterson would stand at the top of the steps after church in his long flowing black robe to shake hands with the members of the congregation as they filed out each Sunday morning.
The second sign was mounted on a metal post which was welded to the center of a big truck tire rim. The sign was right in the middle of the street…but only on Sundays. It read, "Yield to pedestrians in crosswalk." It was sort of a joke to my three older brothers. They always thought it read, "Yield to PRESBYTERIANS in crosswalk."
It's funny what sticks to your mind as a child. I'm 54 years old and I can remember those images as plain as if they happened yesterday. Just like the scene in that grand sanctuary on Broadway in Shawnee, Oklahoma on Palm Sunday…every year. It was one of the most meaningful days I can remember at that church, with it's high choir loft and 200+ pipe, pneumatic organ behind the pulpit deck, guarded with appropriate hand carved modesty board in front of the wide, commanding pulpit.
I remember Palm Sunday in particular, because in Sunday School class, every kid got a palm frond to carry into worship as they left. Only those who went to Sunday School would get one, too! Palm Sunday school was usually packed. The highest attendance of the year! All because of those palm fronds. Why? Because that was the Sunday that Rev. Patterson would call all the children down to the front during worship service to lay their palm frond down the two aisles from front to back of the cavernous sanctuary.
First Presbyterian Church of Shawnee was a big church. Probably 200 kids (or it seemed like to to a 6 year old). So, when all the palms were laid down the aisle, the mauve carpet was almost completely covered. Then, Rev. Patterson would preach a message about the Palm Sunday Jesus entered Jerusalem. I think it was the only sermon I ever heard and put in my heart.
Why would Jesus, who was God, enter the city on the back of a donkey, to the shouts of "Hosanna!" Why would people throw their cloaks down on the ground in front of him so the donkey would walk over them? He wasn't the President. He wasn't the Governor. He wasn't even the principal of the school! And he wasn't my Daddy! (That was the limit to my knowledge of authority figures at age 6.)
The, Rev. Patterson would shout as his face would turn bright pink and say, "He came with shouts and celebration to die for what we have done!"
Now… at age 6, that statement was a pretty hard lesson to understand. In fact I didn't understand it for a long time. Until I was a man. I was a very, very, young man. I was age 14. In Jesus day, I would have been considered a man. Why? Because at age 12, an abstract thought, like the one Rev. Patterson would proclaim from his grandiose pulpit, could be understood. So, at 14, a man named Ron Lashley sat down with me, and taught me from God's Word.
As he spoke, he would take me to sections of the scripture which, though I had not studied for six or seven years, started to come alive. Ron was a master teacher. Because he had bathed our lessons in prayer, the Holy Spirit allowed me to recall those lessons from my early childhood at First Presbyterian Church of Shawnee, Oklahoma.
It all came together, when Ron read, They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel!"
Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, "Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt."
At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realise that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him." John 12:13-16 NIV
Ron said, "And do you know why the heavens shout to welcome Jesus to Jerusalem?"
"No, why?" I asked.
"Because he came to die for what we have done." said the master teacher…and the Holy Spirit. "It was Palm Sunday. And in one week, Jesus would be dead and risen from the dead to atone for your, and my sins."
Cha-ching! Palm Sunday!
I was immersed into Christ the following week.