Palm Sunday, Year B
Isaiah, 45:21-25
Philippians, 2:5-11
Mark, 14:32-15:46
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Crushed into a mere week, Christians re-live the most important, most powerful, most life-changing moment in history. It is a story that identifies us, a story that shapes us.
Holy Week shows us what we want to become. Surely, Holy Week doesn't show us much good about humanity. Here we are today, shouting ‘Hosanna' - ‘Save us, God,' and on Friday we are crying, ‘Crucify him.' Today, we are waving palms at him in jubilation, and on Friday we stick a crown of thorns on him. Today, we welcome him, and on Friday we mock and jeer at him. Today, we celebrate in triumph and bow down before him, and on Friday we nail him to a cross. Today, we acclaim him, and on Friday we abandon him.
That is our story, and we should ask, "Why identify with such pain, such sin? Where's the Good News in that?" But Jesus' story shows us what we are becoming. What Jesus did – not what we did – what Jesus did is what we are becoming, how he is changing us.
Still, we might ask, "How can the story of Jesus' passion and death be Good News? Isn't the horror and agony of innocent suffering depressing? Don't we have to wait until next Sunday until we see Good News, until we see God's love?" Not at all if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.
Jesus' last days show us the resurrection, even before the resurrection. A full third of S. Mark's gospel, his Good News, is about Holy Week. The first two-thirds of Mark's gospel has been called an introduction to Jesus' passion. After the close of the passion we heard this morning, Mark only has another nine verses before his gospel ends. Mark does not describe any resurrection appearances. But the Passion we just heard is full of the resurrection, full of the Good News. That's what we identify with; that's why this week is the center, the heart of our faith.
So where is the Good News in the darkness and sadness of Holy Week? On Thursday evening, Jesus celebrates the Last Supper and gives himself to us. Jesus institutes the mass, the primary means for us to have union and deep intimacy with him. He gives us the bread of heaven that sustains and strengthens us here on earth. That is Good News.
Last Wednesday evening at dinner, Fr Conner described the mass as making love with God – a tender, beautiful way for us to understand and treat worship. That's why our worship is sensuous, even sensual, stimulating us through movement, touching, tasting, smelling, hearing, and seeing. That's why our worship is a story, a romance. It creates in us new life and joy.
At the Last Supper, Jesus, the guest of honor, washed the filth and muck and smell off the feet of his followers, and just as he told us to baptize and to remember him in the breaking of bread, he commanded us to wash one another's feet. (Jn 13:14) It symbolically expresses: "a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you. . . People will know you are my disciples if you love one another." (Jn 13:34,35)
Washing feet is humbling. It's for the lowly, the meek, the poor in spirit. The Good News is that God identifies with the lowly, the poor, the forgotten, the oppressed, the lonely; God identifies with pain and suffering. God came and served us, that we are to serve one another, and that true greatness is in humility and service – not in exercising power. That is Good News.
After dinner, Jesus went out to Gethsemane and prayed. In anguish and sorrow, he prayed that his suffering would go away, but his suffering did not pass from him. The Father did not give him what he asked for. We all plea to be free of pain and suffering, and often we do not have relief, but that does not mean God doesn't hear us or that God doesn't love us or that God isn't with us. Our suffering has meaning even when don't understand it. That is Good News.
Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane is a temptation, just as Satan had tempted him at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus could have refused the cup of suffering, but he trusted his Father. In his prayer, in his temptation, Jesus bid the disciples to watch and pray with him, but in this moment of great trial and need, they fell asleep. When Jesus is arrested, the disciples abandoned him. But Jesus remains committed to human beings, willing to suffer and die for us, even when we abandon him. God is always faithful and loving to us, regardless of what we do. That is Good News.
We take one of two paths, that of S. Peter or that of Judas. Be sure that both Peter and Judas deny Jesus, betray him. Their mutual sin, their disloyalty is not different in kind. Peter said that he'd go to death before he denied Jesus, but then three times, three times, he denied his dear friend: "I do not know the man!" But Jesus still loves Peter.
And Jesus loves Judas, too. One of my first associations whenever I think of Judas is from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caufield, who calls himself an atheist, recalls a conversation with a classmate, a Christian, named ‘Childs' – certainly an editorial comment on this Christian's spiritual maturity. Holden says,
I remember I asked old Childs if he thought Judas, the one that betrayed Jesus and all, went to Hell after he committed suicide. Childs said certainly. That's exactly where I disagreed with him. I said I'd bet a thousand bucks that Jesus never sent old Judas to Hell. ...I think any one of the Disciples would've sent him to Hell and all – and fast, too – but I'll bet anything that Jesus didn't do it.1
I'd bet anything, too. The difference between Peter and Judas is that Peter repents. If Judas went to Hell, Judas made that decision. If so, Judas turned away from God and refused God's mercy and forgiveness. God forgives those who deny him, those who betray him. Peter weeps, confesses, and God changes him. Peter becomes a hero of the faith. Peter's story consoles and comforts us, and shows us what we can be. That is Good News.
Like Peter, despite our intentions, despite the promises we made at baptism, we sometimes deny Jesus. We are not always faithful to Jesus. Our salvation does not depend upon our faithfulness, but upon Jesus' faithfulness. We see in his death and passion that Jesus will never deny us. He loves us. We try to follow Jesus, to love as he loved, not so that we'll be saved, but so that we may have joy and love in our lives now, so that we will have purpose and meaning in our lives now. That is Good News.
Our integrity depends upon our willingness to judge ourselves, to confess, to repent, to seek God's mercy. The irony is that we judge Jesus. He stood silently before his accusers. In his first epistle, S. Peter writes, "When [Jesus] was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten." (1 Peter 2:23) Jesus didn't condemn us. Indeed, while hanging on the cross, Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." That is Good News.
Abandoned, betrayed, arrested, denied, scourged, mocked, humiliated, crucified, we might expect Jesus to feel that even his loving Father was absent. On the cross, Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But this is not simply a cry of despair. The Cross is Good News, not a tragedy.
The cross seems to us as weakness, but it is power. The cross seems to us as foolishness, but it is wisdom. The cross seems to us as failure, but it is victory. The cross seems to us despair, but it is hope. Jesus cries, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" – the first line of Psalm 22. It is both a lament over his suffering, a lament showing us the fullness of his humanity, but it is also a declaration of trust in God.
Psalm 22 begins with innocent suffering, but it moves on to hope. Toward its conclusion, it says – and think of Jesus saying this as he hangs on the cross: "The Lord has not ignored the afflicted, the suffering. He has not wandered off. He that hears their cries has not hid his face from them. . . . Their hearts will rejoice. The whole earth will acknowledge the Lord and return to him, and all the families of the nations shall bow down and worship him." (Ps 22:24-27) The Cross is Good News because while dying on the cross, Jesus shows us that we should always have hope, no matter how dark, how dire the situation.
Holy Week has much suffering and sadness and gloom, but like the tough parts of life darkness is not the full story. We must not allow the darkness to disguise the Good News. We have eyes to see and ears to hear, and all though the week we see signs of the resurrection, the victory of love and mercy, the Good News. Be here. Together it becomes our story, our identity.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1. J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Little, Brown and Company, 1951, p. 131.
© 2006 Lane John Davenport
