Palm Sunday: Help for the Helpless

When something terrible happens, it is natural to think: “Is there something I could have done?” In a natural disaster, the first responders wonder how they could have saved more lives, and the government officials question whether they could have done more in prevention. In our family lives, when we are undergoing a great trial, we wonder sometimes what to do and whether we can do more. So often, we want to help but we are not sure exactly how.

The Master of the Aachen Altarpiece, Crucfixion (central panel, Aachen Altar Triptych, c. 1490)

We have just read an account of the Passion and Death of Jesus. If this account makes us solemn and sad to hear it, imagine the feelings of those who were present when it happened. Surely, there were many who were present during our Lord’s suffering who looked upon him and thought “What can I do?” They desperately wanted to help him in his hour of need, but his fate was beyond their control. All they could do was accompany him, walk with him as he went to his terrible death.

While Jesus’s suffering was terrible, it was not the most desperate situation present at that moment. Believe it or not, there was a situation even more dire, even more deserving of intervention. That situation was the reality of our human sinfulness. Jesus’s suffering shows us all of the nastiness of the human condition – the pain and sorrow, the brutality and injustice – all of our moral and spiritual dysfunction. God looked upon us in our brokenness and desired to intervene. While we may be limited to help those who are in need, God has no limits, especially none on his love and mercy, and so he desired to act. And he did act: through the Passion of Christ.

That Jesus suffered and died in the way he did is a dreadful thing. But it was not a senseless thing; it had a great purpose. The Lord’s Passion is God’s answer to our sinful dysfunction. It is the remedy by which he restored us to himself. In our second reading, Saint Paul tells us that Jesus is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who humbled himself to take upon our human form and even went to his death like a slave, all to save us from sin. When we were helpless in our sinfulness, God himself became our help. When our fate seemed sealed, God himself rescued us from eternal death. That is what we see with the eyes of faith when we look upon the suffering of Christ.

Friends, with our celebration today of Palm Sunday, we enter into Holy Week. This is indeed the holiest week of our year as Christians; a chance to remember all that the Lord has done for us, especially in his greatest act, the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. We are invited to accompany Jesus through this week and allow him to accompany us. The greatest act our King has accomplished for us is to lay down his life for us. His Passion is the remedy for our sin, and so he is help for the helpless, the one to whom we turn when we do not know to whom to turn. In Jesus, we are never beyond God's power to save. This week, let us honor his loving sacrifice, by recalling his presence in our lives, and by modeling our own lives upon his. Remembering what he has given to us, we can give something to him: our faith, our hope, and our love. Let us praise Christ our King!