Palm Sunday Year C
Luke 19:28-40
Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
Philippians 2:6-11
Luke 22:14-23:56
It all seemed to keep getting worse. An initially ebullient crowd had become a murderous mob in less than a week’s time.
It included families He had healed and helped. Even His closest followers had abandoned Him after years of prophetic preparation for this very moment.
One member of the inner circle, in fact, betrayed Him on a bribe. Unsurprisingly, the sham trial had been completely unjust. Everyone around Him suddenly acted inept or apathetic or cowardly or downright malicious.
The secular bigwigs were either indifferent or politically vexed, there on the fringes of the most prosperous and ruthless empire in history. The religious authorities had been after Him for quite a while, but never with this level of vengeance. He only taught and preached out of ardor for His faith.
Wasn’t there much more still to do? Yet He died young.
From all external indicators, the staying hand of the Almighty was perceived to be absent from the proceedings; He called out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” to the loving Father Whom He represented in flesh and prayed to in spirit.
Nonetheless, His torture was merciless, albeit the standard of the day. He was violently punished, executed in the pathetic company of common criminals and in the sight of His own Mother. All His life’s work appeared to be in vain.
Then He was buried in a borrowed tomb, only to descend to the realm of the dead. Nowhere lower to go. The whole affair might feel like a freefall into the bottomless pit of suffering.
The familiar emblem of the crucifix encapsules this central mystery of Christian redemption, exhausting the awful depths of our universal fallen human experience. Every consummate fear we all cower to consider is epitomized in the cross: death, pain, betrayal, deceit, injustice, apathy, mockery, poverty, shame, nakedness, weakness, defenselessness, rejection, humiliation, loneliness, helplessness, emptiness … the full brutality of which reality is capable.
The collective sins of mankind, from the Garden on down, the cumulative effects of this fallen race’s iniquity, were all embodied there in the flesh of the Savior hanging on a tree.
How can we contemplate the supremely grim account of the Passion? The answer can only lie in terms of our salvation. Anything less renders it utterly meaningless for us.
The universe’s maximum force of malevolence casts our souls into irrevocable despair when endured without love. However, divine love shows forth its power to overcome every turn of evil, even before Easter Sunday. The offer of forgiveness to each Biblical figure in need of it, no matter the seriousness of the treachery, extends to us as well.
Innocent holiness Himself, all the way throughout His agony and anguish inflicted by all of us sinners, nobly and voluntarily endured each moment of it for perfect love for us: the apex, the aggregation of all potential modes of sacrifice … self, son, savior, sin, God, man.
In consummate benevolence against what He calls “the time for the power of darkness,” He responded with such fervent prayer “that His sweat became like drops of blood.” Compassionate beyond imagining, “He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted Him.”
From that splintery, bloody throne with a “face like flint,” the King of the Universe personifies the victorious truth of love.
The crucifix, therefore, became the one sure ideal for us Christians united by it, sharing “the Name which is above every Name.” We mystically shout out with the fickle rabble, “Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord.”
Alongside the Psalmist we promise, “I will proclaim your name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly, I will praise you.” For His Holy Name means “The Lord saves,” and He intends to include us all: “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.”
Here we realize the purpose of His mission: the worship of God through the redemption of souls. When we undergo persecution with Him, on account of Him, we enjoy some blessed company from Peter (the rock of the faith) to the tiniest little pebbles: “‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ He said in reply, ‘I tell you, if they keep silent, the stones will cry out!’”
Our willing participation in His Passion is our partaking in His love.