Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Until Where Do I Follow My Lord?
Today is a day of glory for the Lord, with people acclaiming him as God’s messenger: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” A few days from now, as we will hear in the Passion story, people will shout: “Crucify him!” We understand this better when we reflect on our lives. We have some days of glorious happiness, of success and joy, but also sad days of contradiction and failure. Today we look at them in the light of the Lord. With him we live happy days, with him we experience sad days, but whether sad or joyful, in all of them we follow the Lord.
Reading I: Is 50:4-7
a well-taught tongue,
So I know how to encourage tired people.
He wakes me up in the morning,
Wakes me up, opens my ears
to listen as one ready to take orders.
The Master, God, opened my ears,
and I didn’t go back to sleep,
didn’t pull the covers back over my head.
I followed orders,
stood there and took it while they beat me,
held steady while they pulled out my beard,
Didn’t dodge their insults,
faced them as they spit in my face.
And the Master, God, stays right there and helps me,
so I’m not disgraced.
Therefore I set my face like flint,
confident that I’ll never regret this.
My champion is right here.
Let’s take our stand together!
Who dares bring suit against me?
Let him try!
Look! the Master, God, is right here.
Who would dare call me guilty?
Look! My accusers are a clothes bin of threadbare
socks and shirts, fodder for moths!
Reading II: Phil 2:6-11
27-31 The soldiers assigned to the governor took Jesus into the governor’s palace and got the entire brigade together for some fun. They stripped him and dressed him in a red robe. They plaited a crown from branches of a thornbush and set it on his head. They put a stick in his right hand for a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mocking reverence: “Bravo, King of the Jews!” they said. “Bravo!” Then they spit on him and hit him on the head with the stick. When they had had their fun, they took off the robe and put his own clothes back on him. Then they proceeded out to the crucifixion.32-34 Along the way they came on a man from Cyrene named Simon and made him carry Jesus’ cross. Arriving at Golgotha, the place they call “Skull Hill,” they offered him a mild painkiller (a mixture of wine and myrrh), but when he tasted it he wouldn’t drink it.35-40 After they had finished nailing him to the cross and were waiting for him to die, they killed time by throwing dice for his clothes. Above his head they had posted the criminal charge against him: this is jesus, the king of the jews. Along with him, they also crucified two criminals, one to his right, the other to his left. People passing along the road jeered, shaking their heads in mock lament: “You bragged that you could tear down the Temple and then rebuild it in three days—so show us your stuff! Save yourself! If you’re really God’s Son, come down from that cross!”41-44 The high priests, along with the religion scholars and leaders, were right there mixing it up with the rest of them, having a great time poking fun at him: “He saved others—he can’t save himself! King of Israel, is he? Then let him get down from that cross. We’ll allbecome believers then! He was so sure of God—well, let him rescue his ‘Son’ now—if he wants him! He did claim to be God’s Son, didn’t he?” Even the two criminals crucified next to him joined in the mockery.45-46 From noon to three, the whole earth was dark. Around mid-afternoon Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”47-49 Some bystanders who heard him said, “He’s calling for Elijah.” One of them ran and got a sponge soaked in sour wine and lifted it on a stick so he could drink. The others joked, “Don’t be in such a hurry. Let’s see if Elijah comes and saves him.”50 But Jesus, again crying out loudly, breathed his last.51-53 At that moment, the Temple curtain was ripped in two, top to bottom. There was an earthquake, and rocks were split in pieces. What’s more, tombs were opened up, and many bodies of believers asleep in their graves were raised. (After Jesus’ resurrection, they left the tombs, entered the holy city, and appeared to many.)54 The captain of the guard and those with him, when they saw the earthquake and everything else that was happening, were scared to death. They said, “This has to be the Son of God!”
Prayer
God our Father,
in the passion and death of Jesus, your Son,
you have made us aware
of how deeply you love us.
Make us also conscious of how evil sin is
and dispose us to keep believing in your love
when we have to bear the cross of suffering.
For after the cross follows the resurrection,
for Jesus and for us.
Give us this firm faith
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Reflection:
2 April 2023 – PASSION (PALM) SUNDAY
Matthew 26:14- 27:66
The grain that dies.
The liturgy of Palm Sunday calls on us to meditate on two different journeys that Jesus makes. The first is his triumphant entry into Jerusalem amid the shouts of “hosana” by the crowds and the second is about his exit from the city toward Calvary – on the Way of the Cross. We move from one emotional extreme to the other. Welcome and triumph are transformed into rejection and failure. However, we also realise that both these journeys were victorious journeys. The way of the Cross and Christ’s suffering are the prelude to Jesus’ ultimate victory over sin and death, through the resurrection.
The account of the passion according to Mathew emphasises that the events that unfold in the week of the passion of Christ is in fulfilment of the scriptures. Therefore, he would repeatedly remind the readers that “all this has happened to fulfill the Scriptures of the prophets” (Mt 26:56).
God did not miraculously save Jesus from betrayal, passion and crucifixion. He did not save his son from torture and death. God does not overcome evil with any miraculous intervention. It is difficult to understand this logic of God and all the more difficult to accept that ‘a grain of wheat must fall and die to produces much fruit’ (cf. John 12:24).
The Gospel of Matthew particularly insists on the rejection of all sorts of violence even for self-defense. Only he reports the words of Jesus to Peter, “all who take hold of the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). Violence in self-defence could be the strongest temptation of the day. But through acts of humility, such as the washing of feet, and the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, Jesus presents a different style of countering the attacks of the enemy. Besides rejecting violence, the Lord encourages humble acceptance of our enemies and betrayers.
Matthew alone reports the death of Judas. This disciple is the symbol of all those who, for a time, follow Jesus. Then, when they are aware that Jesus does not fulfill their dreams of glory and their thirst for power, they abandon him and even turn against him. But Judas was not the only one who moved away from Jesus. Every other disciple also had their moments of failures. But the difference was that they still had their hopes in Jesus’ forgiveness.
Matthew alone speaks of the guards placed in custody of the tomb of Jesus: It is a sign of the triumph of evil. We too have similar experiences in life: evil always gives the impression of triumph. God, however, ensures his unexpected intervention. His angel will roll every stone that prevents life.