Let Us Face the Reality of the Cross

Palm Sunday: Readings: Matthew 21: 1-11; Isaiah 50:4–7; Philippians 2:6–11; Matthew 26:14–27:66

(Jesus riding on a donkey in Jerusalem)

An Eventful Week

Palm Sunday is an eventful celebration in the Church's liturgical calendar. Indeed, we have reached the climax of the liturgical year, the highest peak of salvation history, when all that has been anticipated and promised is to be fulfilled. This Sunday prepares us for a very important week in the Lenten Season, that is Holy Week. This memorable week begins with Jesus triumphantly entering the city of Jerusalem, the Holy City of Jews, the seat of King David, the City of God.  There in that city of Holy Temple, Jesus would receive the death sentence from Pontius Pilate, the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea. Jesus would carry the Cross until that mountain of Calvary and would die a terrible death of shame, pain and alienation. And finally, he would rise up as resurrected Christ.

There are three things that are very clear from the scriptural readings that we have today.

1. Identity of Jesus is clarified and endorsed

Jesus no more asks here, "who do people say that the Son of Man is? (Matt 16:13) People themselves shout with joy who that Jesus is for them. "Hosanna for the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" (Mt 21:9). People have seen what he has done for them, healing the blind, cleansing the lepers, driving out demons, raising the dead to life, feeding the hungry, calming the storms, blessing the children, pardoning the sinners, clarifying the laws of Moses, touching the untouchables and wiping the tears of so many, including the excluded, showing the mercy of God and justice of the One who sent him.  He is beyond any other prophets of the day. He is the fulfilment of the prophesy of Isaiah, and others.

In order to fulfil what the prophets have said about Jesus, he takes up a donkey to ride and enter the Holy City of Jerusalem. Jesus enters the power house of the Romans and of erstwhile Jewish kings by riding on a humble animal, donkey. That too, which did not belong either to Jesus or to his disciples. 

Every major event or journey of our life should begin with humble signs and symbols. You take up the position of power only when you are worthy to receive it. First be the person you are called to be, only then God will raise you up.

2. Jesus is met with mixed feelings of  love and hate even on the way to the Calvary

At one side we see the praise and glory of Jesus with people raising their voices with joy and the other the tensed moments at the last supper, and the betrayal by Judas Iscariot. People made sure that Jesus had a trimphant entry into their city of blessings with all the festive fervour thinking that they would get some more benefits from Jesus. Looking for one's benefits and profit was in people's mind including that of Judas Iscariot. Even the disciples did not seem to have understood the weight and seriousness of Jesus' words at the Last Supper including the conversation between Jesus and his betraying disciple (Mt 26:21-29).  Each one was busy with his own thought processing which left them blank at that momentous episode of their life, when Jesus established the Eucharist. 

People take you for granted when profit becomes the primary objective of their life. In His Passion, Jesus is “counted among the wicked,” ("numbered with the transgressors") as Isaiah had foretold (53:12). No profit, no deal is today's business mantra. Using people or a person merely as a means has deep rooted in the lives of many. The ills of today are a result of such an attitude of more the merrier. Judas Iscariot was ready to get money even at the cost of sending his guru, Jesus to the death on the cross. In the complexity and nitty gritty's of everyday life there are hard truths which we need to confront too. The eternal truths will continue to survive till the end of time. Neither Corona virus bug nor the human selfishness would take them away from us. Jesus is God's eternal truth manifested in the Eucharist. It is this sacrament that makes us one with Jesus in pain and peace, suffering and joy, life and death, in temporality and eternity, in disintegration and redemption. 

3. There is a way out in spite of failures and triumphs

Jesus' way of the cross symbolise both failures and successes. Mathew's Gospel is particular in demonstrating that life is a mixture of both good and bad. However, Jesus had to face the reality of the cross in spite of his divine-man-hood. Following the beaten path of the cross is painful and agonising. In the words of Prophet Isaiah "he is the suffering servant of Yahweh." In human terms, Jesus' mission was an utter failure. In a world where only success is counted and measured, who is ready to accompany people who are failures in life? Still there were people who come to bring comfort to Jesus - his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, mother of the sons of Zebedee, his close disciple John, women and children of Jerusalem, Simon the Cyrian, etc.   People do remember the person of Jesus and what he meant for them in their lives.

Jesus also goes through sense of emptiness when his close disciple denies him three times, another one betrays him and sends him to death. In other words, practically all the disciples abandoned Jesus. The sense of utter abandonment which he experienced at Gethsemane becomes real on the way to the Calvary. And yet, a foreigner, a centurion having witnessed what happened at the mountain called  Skull exclaims "Truly this man was God's Son" (Matthew 27: 54).

God is present in our failures and triumphs. Even though, we may feel God has abandoned us yet there is some force that keeps us pushing forward and make things happen. Jesus felt all these things still he was able to carry the cross and die on that cross. That was his mission to fulfil the scriptures and bring salvation to the humanity. “All this has come to pass that the writings of the prophets may be fulfilled,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel (Matthew 26:56). By the end of today’s long Gospel, the work of our redemption will have been accomplished, the new covenant will be written in the blood of His broken body hanging on the cross. People come into our life like Simon the Cyrene, women and children of Jerusalem, disciple John, mother Mary, Mary Magdeline, etc., who help us to carry the cross. God does not abandon us instead God sends angels of good time to be with us. That is how God manifests to us that He is still labouring with us and in us. This is possible by confronting the reality of the cross. 

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

Palm Sunday (05 April 2020)