Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Fr Dominic’s Homily

Palms are used as a sign of welcoming a royal king. The people are hoping that Jesus is going to be a king like David and restore peace and justice. That he will use worldly power to fight off the Romans.

But he enters not as a warrior on a fine horse or a worldly king in his chariot. Instead he enters Jerusalem on a donkey.

He is the essence of humility and so is the exact opposite of worldly kings. He will be the true king of the world. But not in the way people expect.

Normally if somebody hurts us we sin in return. We retaliate. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This is the way of the world. But Jesus draws sin to himself so that he can take it away. He absorbs it and filters it.

We see all forms of human dysfunction displayed in this Passion reading. It’s a kind of symphony of sin. A perfect storm. And Jesus travels right into the middle of it. It starts with betrayal. For just a few coins Judas betrays his master and friend.

After the last supper Jesus goes to the garden to pray. He sweats blood anticipating the suffering he will endure. Jesus is at the very height of his spiritual attentiveness to the will of his father whilst his disciples are asleep.

Jesus always speaks out against those who are lukewarm. Those who have spiritual laziness and who just don’t care.

Judas appears with the Temple guards armed with clubs and swords. All the evil powers of the world come into that garden. Violence itself enters the garden in the ways of the sinful world.

Babylon, Greece and Rome all rolled into one. Armed with swords and clubs. To arrest the prince of peace - the very one who has proclaimed love and forgiveness.

In the confusion one of the disciples cuts off the ear of the guard. In the presence of violence no one is speaking and no one is listening. Violence always cuts off communication. And this is a struggle that continues in the Holy land to this day.

At the end of the struggle the disciples who had promised their faithfulness to the Lord to the end all run away. We all know the path to take but somehow we just don’t walk it. All it takes for evil to thrive in the world is for good people to do nothing.

Jesus is then brought before the supreme court of the Jewish nation - the revered Sanhedrin. Yet false witnesses and liars are brought to testify. The man who personifies truth itself is surrounded by deceit.

By admitting his identity to the High priests he is condemned to death because blasphemy is punishable by death in their law.

We hear that he dies at the 9th hour which is 3pm in the afternoon. This of course is the exact time that the Jews offer sacrifice in the temple every day in honour of the everlasting covenant made between Abraham and Moses.

So the irony is that while they are praying for the coming of the messiah and await their salvation at the exact same time they are crucifying the very one they are praying for just outside the city walls.

Peter denies Jesus as he is accused by a woman. She tells him “Your own accent gives you away”. We love to attack those who do not quite fit in. Think of all those who are bullied and attacked for no reason. We want reasons and excuses to hate people to channel our violence.

Pontius Pilate represents the great Roman Empire as a spokesperson for justice sees immediately that Jesus is innocent. Yet he caves in to the peer pressure of the crowd.

So in this reading we see all the various forms of human weakness and sin that we find in our world today. But the good news is that Jesus through the endurance of his passion and death has restored our relationship with God for ever.

As we now enter Holy Week we will be invited to take up the cross as he did. We will be encouraged to see in our own suffering and pain a richer and deeper meaning.

If we can unite our own personal crosses with his, he can transform them into something that has a deeper meaning and purpose.

Let us welcome the true King of Glory into our hearts.