Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion A
April 17, 2011
At the Procession with Palms: Matthew 21:1-11
Reading I: Isaiah 50:4-7
Responsorial Psalm: 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
Reading II: Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel: Matthew 26:14 – 27:66 or 27:11-54
It is not easy, and perhaps not at all necessary, to ‘comment’ on the narrative of the passion of Jesus as it is read on Passion Sunday following the procession of palms. I have found the introduction to the scripture readings at the Saint Louis University Center for Liturgy site (HERE) more useful this week.
The authors set the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in context, explain the first reading and responsorial psalm, and then present the 2nd reading, an early hymn pre-dating Paul, in verse form, concluding with the comment that this hymn ‘sets the death of Christ in its total context. It is at once the nadir of the divine condescension begun in the incarnation and the ground of Christ’s exaltation and final triumph.’
Regarding the passion narrative, the elements that are particular to Matthew’s gospel are underlined. ‘Matthew’s account brings out the royalty of Christ, but it is a paradoxical royalty, manifesting itself precisely in humiliation.’ They see the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” as ‘not only one of the words from the cross [but as] the word of the cross, the interpretive word that gives the cross its whole meaning as redemptive event.’
‘It states what Paul in a more theological vein expressed when he said that “he [God] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).
‘When Jesus ate with the riffraff, he crossed over from God’s side and put himself on the side of sinners in order that he might seek and save them. On the cross he carries this action to its lowest point.
‘The human being as a sinner is under what the Bible calls the “wrath” of God, that is to say, alienation from God, the sense of God’s absence that springs not only from finitude but from willful rebellion.
‘The word from the cross gives Jesus’ death its theological meaning. His death is not just the ordinary dying of any person, a biological event—it is Jesus, not against God but for God, enduring the most bitter consequences of sin. Only by this identification does Jesus liberate from sin and death, both understood, as here, in their theological sense.’
***
As a youngster (aged 11) at boarding school I was early introduced to the terror of the passion in the annual retreat when Redemptorist or Passionist thunderers, with their gaunt features and gravelly voices, standing less than two metres from us little kids in the front rows, would blast the hell out of us. That brutish and brutalising methodology was par for the course at the time, not only in religion but in education itself. It supported in its own way our war effort and conditioned us to join in the brutal battles if ever we could get the chance.
As I move towards a little maturing in humanness, I am repulsed by cruelty of every kind. I will not dwell at all on the physical torture inflicted on Jesus of Nazareth. I see any connecting of sin with human suffering as gross misrepresentation.
It was only after I had really sinned, and gravely, that I began to understand the alienation sin produces, a fracture deep inside that no pain could touch. Jesus went down into that fracture of human shame, being publicly mocked, and charged with blasphemy, and despised along with murderers and notorious criminals.
The lesson of his passion is not about pain but about integrity, the effort a human being makes to maintain a positive outlook
to cling to some shred of hope
to stand
in shame
to thirst
for integrity destroyed.
Jesus dropped below the line in his despairing cry: My God, why have you abandoned me?
***
As a subject for discussion: what will you celebrate in this coming Passover? If we move away from the theology of painful reparation, the theology of paying redemption's price in Jesus' pain, the theology of a god who would be satisfied IF only his beloved son were to take on the punishment for all the sin of the world - otherwise NOT ...if we move away from these notions where do we go?
For my part, I will see in Jesus a chosen man, yes - called by god, to declare the course to freedom and to show the way. His passover is an illustration that, through the suffering and dying that are part of this existence, we evolve to a new dimension of being. This is the case especially when we pay the price of witnessing to the truth,
Is this an oversimplification? Does it have a ring of authentic truth in it? In fact, historically, it has been the hardest lesson to learn: freedom comes not from oppressing someone else, or killing anyone who oppresses us, but in accepting, intelligently and willingly, the pain that comes our way -
and (if only we dare) almost inviting the pain when we challenge what is evil and untrue with our own truth. There are many who dare and so many real martyrs in every country in the world, daring to challenge the darkness with their truth. They will rise to new life.
Those who dare also learn humility through suffering, being labelled traitors and much worse, slandered, rejected, and treated as idiots and hysterical fools. On the other side of despair they discover they are strong.
Those who so dare proclaim that life is stronger than death, light is stronger than the dark, truth is stronger than any lie. Excepting those who may have locked themselves in darkness and thrown away the key, every man and woman is able to see this, believe it, and hope for its outcome - to be free.