Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday
March 16, 2008
Isaiah 45:21-25
Psalm 22:1-21
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:36-27:1-66
So, now you have heard it. Matthew’s version of the Passion of Jesus—from his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem to his death on the cross. This is an important story for us to hear because as Christians we need to revisit what happens to Jesus between Palm Sunday and Easter. We need to journey with Jesus to the cross to know why the powerful message of Easter is central to our faith.
As we journey with Jesus through Holy Week we need to know what it feels like to be betrayed by someone you love and trust, to be sentenced to death for a crime you did not commit, to be abandoned by friends at our time of greatest need and to feel the helplessness of being a victim in circumstances which are beyond our control. We need to experience the dread of being absolutely alone with our terrifying fears and our pent up tears. We need to suffer the deep humiliation of being mocked and ridiculed and scorned, and have a sense of what is like to suffer harsh abuse and deadly torture, only to die the most painful and humiliating death the human body and mind can be subjected to. And in the end, we need to feel the hopelessness which comes in the finality death if we are to appreciate the new life which comes to us in the power of resurrection. Yes, we need to experience the horror of Holy Week to know why Easter is central to our faith as Christians.
So it’s a good thing that we take this opportunity on this Sunday before Holy Week to tell the story of Jesus’ passion and death. Because some of us, for whatever reason, will not attend the services of Holy Week. This will be your only opportunity to hear this story and it is so important for all of us that we do. It is important because there can be no Easter without the passion. And there is a danger that if we do not walk with Jesus this week through the events of his passion, Easter becomes just another religious celebration of the Church year; the joy of resurrection has little impact on our life and little meaning for our faith. This is why we must tell this story of Jesus’ passion on Palm Sunday.
After our shouts of “Hosanna” at the celebration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, our service takes a dramatic turn with the reading of the Gospel. The drama of Holy Week is played out for us today by those who presented a dramatic reading of our Gospel. And like any drama, the events of the story are meant to engage our minds and our hearts to experience the horror and injustice of the tragedy which unfolds, so that when Easter comes we can find our joy in the knowing that the greatest tragedy of human history does not end in death. Out of tragedy and death comes new life in resurrection.
And so today, and on every Palm Sunday, we hear a dramatic reading of Jesus’ Passion and death so that we will not forget. Because if we forget, we will not remember where Easter joy comes from when we come to worship next Sunday. Easter will be just another day of holy obligation in the church year, and nothing will change, in us or in our church. This is the same thing which began to happen to Christians in the early church only decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection. People began to forget. The Church did not place emphasis on Jesus’ passion and death; they only celebrated Easter. Over time, Christian communities became removed from the events of Jesus’ passion and death; they began to forget the powerful story which made Easter possible. It became clear to church fathers that Easter was losing its sense of power and authenticity as the central tenet of faith for Christians. It was not until the church began to place emphasis on the scriptures of the passion that Easter was restored to its place of central significance in the life of baptized Christians.
I have observed the same kind of forgetting among Christians in churches I have attended throughout my life. When I was a child even nominal Christians would attend church faithfully on Christmas and Easter. Now, if nominal Christians attend church at all, they seem to prefer celebrating Christmas more than Easter. As a result, baptized Christians are becoming more removed from the central celebration of their faith. And even those who attend church on Easter have little interest in the events which lead to resurrection. It seems that Jesus’ Passion and death are no longer important stories of the church; Christians have given our story over to film makers to tell. The Passion of Jesus has become merely a form of movie entertainment, or a means of provoking controversy.
So this is why we tell the story of Jesus’ passion and death on Palm Sunday. Because we need to remember. Otherwise we will forget. We will forget the purpose for Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross and we will never fully experience the joy, or grow our faith in our story of resurrection. The cross Jesus died on will be only an empty or perverted symbol. A decoration for our walls; a piece of jewelry to wear on our body or in our ears; a subject for artists to engage their creativity. Even in the church our symbol of sorrow and shame in death, and glory and honor in resurrection becomes merely an object of religious beauty to be worshiped and adored, paraded in grand processions and placed on high altars, far removed from us.
One of the great ironies of my life is that when I decided I would become a priest, I began receiving crosses as gifts for all the events of my life; birthdays, Christmas, ordination, and even at my retirement from teaching. I accepted these crosses for the gifts they were meant to be; gifts which were meant to please me and honor my new vocation. I did not have the heart to tell people that when I became a priest, I would no longer be allowed to wear a cross as a sign of my vocation. My clerical stole would be the sacramental symbol of my vocation and my clerical collar would be a sign of my priesthood.
Over these past four years I have discovered, to my surprise, that I am even reluctant to wear a cross as a piece of jewelry when I am wearing street clothes. Not that I have an objection to wearing a cross. In fact I like noticing the crosses that other people wear. Mine is a personal choice. I no longer want to wear a cross which others might only see as a lovely piece of jewelry or a beautiful work of art. So all of my beautiful crosses have a special place where I keep them and care for them. They continue to mean much to me because of the wonderful people who gifted me with them. People who knew how much they would matter to me. And they do. So much so I can only wear them for the reasons that they matter.
I am sure you would agree that the cross is the most significant symbol of our faith. It lies at the center of our passion story. It is the symbol of judgment against cruelty and death and it is a sign of triumph over death in resurrection life. We cannot get from Lent to Easter without the cross. We cannot bypass Holy Week if we are to share in the full meaning of the cross and in the fullness of the life we are meant to live as inheritors of the cross. Jesus knows that if we are to follow him in his life then we must follow him to his death. So that we will be able to feel the suffering and pain of this world and want to become agents of relief and healing. So that we can empathize with those who suffer shame, humiliation, and are willing to find the means to provide them with aid and comfort. We need to follow Jesus to his death so we can truly know what it is like to be a powerless victim of injustice, and find the courage take our stand for human rights against the injustices of our world. We need to witness the abuse and violence perpetrated upon Jesus so that we can acquire his courage not to participate in the abuse and violence of our world; rather, like him, we can become agents of peace and reconciliation in our life and for the world.
No, we cannot live a life in the fullness of our faith, after the example of Christ without Holy Week. To live after the example of Jesus is not only to follow his teaching and ministry; to live after the example of Christ is to know what it is like to suffer the human indignities of this world, and to feel the finality of human death. Only then can we know what it really means to be an Easter people. Only then can we be a people who live in the promise and hope of new life in resurrection. A people who are empowered to BE the difference which MAKES a difference in a world ripe for redeeming.