by Archbishop Joseph Harris
AT THE PROCESSION WITH PALMS
Gospel Mark 11:1-10
When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately on entering it, you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone should say to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ reply, ‘The Master has need of it and will send it back here at once.’” So they went off and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street, and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They answered them just as Jesus had told them to, and they permitted them to do it. So they brought the colt to Jesus and put their cloaks over it. And he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!”
Homily
This Sunday we begin our celebration of Holy Week. We remember Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The gospel for this Sunday however is Passion story according to Mark. It reminds us that some of the same people who applauded Jesus five days before as he entered Jerusalem are the same ones who called for his crucifixion. How fickle can we be! All of are reminded of this fickleness by incidents in our own lives.
As I have meditated on this passion story however one thing has struck me very forcibly, i.e., the absolute faith of Jesus. Jesus has spent his life, from his earliest years, doing what his father wanted. We remember him as a young boy telling his mother with a slight tone of reproach after she found him in the temple “Did you not know that I would be about my father’s business.”
The father’s business was the instauration of the kingdom and to this Jesus dedicated every moment of his life.” Even as he entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, Jesus was occupied with the instauration of the kingdom. In a very real sense Jesus was in charge throughout his life except during the short time from the moment of his arrest in the garden to his death on the cross. In that period Jesus was no longer in charge, he was powerless, arrested, beaten, and humiliated, led like a lamb to the slaughter house. One would have thought, as Jesus himself seems to have thought that in the moment when he most needed his Father, his Father would have been there for him. Yet the comfort of the Father’s presence in this most difficult moment of his life, a presence which humanly speaking was his due, seemed to Jesus to have been denied him. This feeling of total abandonment by the person he most loved forced him to cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Yet Jesus kept his faith in this Father who seemed to have abandoned him and died with such dignity that the Roman centurion could only exclaim in wonder and awe “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
The contemplation of the Passion and death of Jesus is not only a moment for us to recognize the great love which Jesus had for us. It is also important for us, in moments of powerlessness, to recognize the faith and dignity in suffering unfairly, that all of us are called to emulate.
All of us have experienced moments in our lives when we have been powerless; called to suffer unfairly, perhaps because of the envy of others, perhaps out of the sheer malice of people who do not want to see us progress. At times it seems that even the God that we worship so faithfully has abandoned us. We cry out to him in vain and there seems to be no answer. We may be inclined to ask, “What have I done? Have I sinned so badly that I have to be so punished?” It is in moments like these that we are called to emulate the faith of Jesus, who did not lose faith in his Father. He abandoned himself totally to the Father’s will. He did not curse those who were mocking him. He did not rail against his Father, He accepted his sufferings. He accepted his fate with dignity. He understood that he was called to stand in the place of every single human being with their faults and failings brought on by the disobedience of Adam and Eve and continued down through the ages and by his attitude tell the father and the world that he preferred death rather than disobey his Father. He not only accepted death however he also took on the consequences of that disobedience which is the absence of God. And to that Father’s hands, that Father who appeared to be absent, that Father whom he could no longer feel, into that Father’s hands, in a spirit of faith, he placed his spirit and his whole future.
For us in a culture given to vengeance and to a false understanding of Justice, it is hard to understand the attitude of Jesus. Yet Jesus somehow understood that for those who love God, all things, even the most unfair and atrocious sufferings, work for Good.
Jesus’ sufferings worked for our Good, I am sure that our sufferings, accepted with the same attitude of Jesus, work for the Good of those whom we love. Not one of us has had to suffer to the degree that Jesus suffered. May The Grace of Jesus’ passion and death help us to emulate Jesus and react with dignity when we are powerless and faced with unjust suffering.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, your Son Jesus accepted the cross, unjust though it was, rather than sin. The greater punishment though was the sense that he had of being abandoned by you the Father he loved so much. At times we too feel abandoned by you, our God. Strengthen our faith in those moments so that we do not resort to unchristian like behaviour but rather exhibit the dignity which Jesus showed. We ask this through Mary who stood at the foot of the Cross and Jesus your Son. Amen
