Entry into Jerusalem (c. 1620), Pedro Orrente
“Hosanna to the Son of David… Hail Jesus, King of the Jews… Truly this was the Son of God…”
In a way, those three quotations from the various readings today capture the dramatic moments of today’s liturgy. Palm Sunday is such a fascinating liturgy because within it, from reading to reading, the drama intensifies, and where we end is a different place from where we began.
We began by gathering together, outside, not just recalling but reenacting the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This was the moment that all of Israel had been waiting for for centuries – an event that every Jewish child knew by heart, because their parents and grandparents had described to them what it would be like. The king of Israel, the Messiah, fulfilling the words of Zechariah, at last would enter into his own kingly city to take possession of his throne, to overthrow Israel’s oppressors, gather together the lost tribe, and finally establish a kingdom of justice and peace. Imagine then the joy and exultation of not only the disciples but all of the people of Jerusalem as, at last, their dream became reality. “Hosanna to the Son of David!,” cried the young and old alike, as this Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth, arrived in the city prepared for him.
And then, how quickly things change. For the people of the time, it took just a few days, and for us, in the liturgy, just a few moments, to shift from the triumphal joy of the entrance into Jerusalem into the cruel humiliation and sorrow of the passion, the Cross, and the death of Christ. Whatever expectations had been present, whatever anticipations the disciples and others had established in their minds, quickly disappeared in the face of such brutality and bewilderment. The mouths that been full of praise and adulation for Jesus a few days before, now spat at him and cursed. “Hail, King of the Jews!”, they mocked. Behold the Christ, who came to bring liberty to those enslaved, now himself made captive; behold the Lord, who welcomed all, rejected and abandoned by all.
And so, as I said, in this liturgy, we bear this stark contrast in mind: that Christ has rejected what the world deemed as royal and noble so that he might more fully share in the weakness of our humanity. Jesus indeed came as our king, but not as a king who desires to rule and to dominate us. He entered into Jerusalem not to take possession of what was rightly his, but, as St. Paul says, to empty himself to the fullest degree. For our sake, he desired to experience the depth of every pain, every humiliation, every suffering that we ourselves might experience, even to the point of a criminal’s execution – so that everything in the human condition might also be the experience of God himself, and so also redeemed by God himself. Surely that was the realization of the centurions who, looking upon the face of the crucified Jesus, exclaimed, “Truly, this was the Son of God.”
My friends, as we enter into this most Holy Week, we know that we will end it in a far different place from where we begin it. We are called to walk this Passion journey with Christ, and so to be changed with him. Each day this week, let us take a moment to reflect upon this momentous love of God, upon this wondrous love of the King who desires only to reign in our hearts. As we walk the steps of our week, let us bear in a conscious way – in our minds, in our hearts, in all of our experiences – the certainty that we have a king who desires to exalt us in our lowest moments, who desires to lift from us our burdens, who desires to place upon us his kingly favor. May we look upon the humility of a God who humbled himself even to the point of death, so as to save us from eternal death, and find there the strength to say, with love and awe,
Hosanna to the Son of David… Hail Jesus, King of the Jews… truly, the Son of God!
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