by Rev. Canon David B. Tabo-oy
v4This happened in order to make come true what the prophet had said:
v5″Tell the city of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you!
He is humble and rides on a donkey
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
v6So the disciples went and did what Jesus had told them to do: v7they brought the donkey and the colt, threw their cloaks over them, and Jesus got on. v8A large crowd of people spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. v9The crowds walking in front of Jesus and those walking behind began to shout, “Praise to David’s Son! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise be to God!” – Matthew 21:4-9
Read the Passion Narrative: Matthew 26:36-27:1-66
This Sunday is the observance of Palm or Passion Sunday.
Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week. For adherents of mainstream Christianity, it is the last week of the Christian solemn season of Lent that precedes the arrival of Eastertide.
In most liturgical churches, Palm Sunday is celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches (or the branches of other native trees), representing the palm branches which the crowd scattered in front of Christ as he rode into Jerusalem; these palms are sometimes woven into crosses. (Wikipedia).
It is also called Passion Sunday with the reading of Christ’s passion from the Synoptic Gospels.
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Holy Week, the most sacred time in the church year, begins today with the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The enthusiastic throng of people gathered in the City for the religious festival of Tabernacles, were in a joyous mood as they spread their cloaks on the road, waved palm branches in the air and openly proclaimed Him as their earthly King. The powerful feeling of those moments resounded in the exuberant chants: “Hosanna to the Son of David.’ Christ has no illusions about this fickle crowd because as the week unfolds, the palm branches will shape themselves into a cross and the hosannas will become the jeers of a treacherous mob calling for his death. ‘Let him be crucified, his blood be upon us and upon our children.’
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We hear about vox populi, the voice of the people, but let me tell you that the voice of the people is a fickle voice. The voice of the people cannot be relied upon; it’s a fickle voice. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s goat. Crowds have a short memory. They are usually asking the question, “What have you done for me today?”
Illustration: Napoleon, traveling through Switzerland with his army, was greeted with thunderous applause and enthusiasm. One of his supporters said, “It must be delightful to be greeted with such demonstrations of enthusiastic admiration.”
“Bah,” said Napoleon, “this same unthinking crowd under a slight change of circumstances would follow me just as eagerly to the scaffold!”
That happened to Jesus. The same folks who cheered him on Sunday cried, “Crucify him and give us Barabbas” before the week was over. They greeted him with joy, but the applause ended.
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We all deny Jesus in our lives. In our Baptism, we promise to reject Satan and his works and to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Yet we continually fall into sin, choosing our own will rather than God’s will for us. In every sin, we deny Jesus, and tragically, sin is a daily part of our lives.
How does Jesus respond to our faithlessness? He first prays to God that we may be his, and that we not be lost. He then faces the reality of his impending death, praying that this cup of suffering may be taken away from him. However, he remains totally committed to his Father’s will. “Not my will, but thine be done.” Even after his betrayal and torture, as he is crucified, he prays,” Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”
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Jesus then takes upon himself the sins of all people who have ever lived, or who will ever live in the future. He who has never known sin, who is perfect in every way, feels the slime and corruption of sin and selfishness, reaching every part of his soul, cutting him off from the light of his Father and surrounding him in darkness and death.
We know sin only too well. In fact, we have become inured to sin. For most of us, sin is so much a part of our lives that we don’t even feel bad about “little” sins at all. But Jesus is never inured to sin. The enormity of all the sin of every soul in the universe is too horrible for us to even grasp. Jesus grasps the ugliness of sin, and cries out the words of the 22nd Psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In our own separation from God, we often feel forsaken. Yet we are never alone. Jesus is always with us, even when the cost of sin is death. (William C Wantland)
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It would be a mistake to comfort ourselves with the thought that it was a group of Jews who killed Christ. The people involved in Christ’s death are very like us. The rejection and the crucifixion continue daily. We must never forget that each of us has a hand in Jesus’ death when we hurt others through gossip and slander and ride rough-shod over them for our own purpose. Jesus is crucified every time a human being is degraded, treated unjustly and deprived of freedom.
This Holy Week is a great opportunity to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord in a way that will change our lives. The simple truth of a Christian experience is that sin has marred our lives, has made a mess of our world by leading us to conduct our affairs with hearts hardened against God. The cross is lifted up as a sign of Christ taking the sins of humanity upon himself in order to soften our hearts, by revealing the depth of his perfect love. The fact that God thought we were worth all that pain and suffering should reduce us to silence. We must never forget that Jesus died on the cross so that we might have new life. We should try in our own simple way to imitate him. (Desmond Knowles)
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Paul reminds us that the wages of sin is death. Jesus pays those wages for us. Having taken my sins and your sins into his own pure soul, having felt the separating effect of sin, he then pays its price, and dies on the cross.
….v5and think the same way that Christ Jesus thought: v6Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God. v7Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us. v8Christ was humble. He obeyed God and even died on a cross. v9Then God gave Christ the highest place and honored his name above all others. v10So at the name of Jesus everyone will bow down, those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. v11And to the glory of God the Father everyone will openly agree, “Jesus Christ is Lord!” (Philippians 2:5-11)
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Here is the real meaning of Palm Sunday; not the all-too-human triumphal entry, soon to be forgotten like a ticker tape parade for human heroes, but the entry of Jesus into our sinfulness, the greatest sacrifice ever offered. This can never be forgotten.
Yes, we may have joined the crowd to shout, “Hosannah!” but we would also have joined the same crowd to scream, “Crucify him!” Let us pray that we can then join with the centurion in proclaiming, in awe and humility, and even joy, “Truly, this was the Son of God.”
Let us pray.
Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, Palm Sunday Collect)**
