Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Fr Dominic’s Homily

As well as being called Palm Sunday today is also Passion Sunday because we read the Passion Gospel. It is a combination of the joyful entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem combined with his betrayal, rejection and persecution.

We hear that Jesus was first welcomed into Jerusalem by people waving palms as we have done today. Palms are used as a sign of welcoming a royal king. They also spread their cloaks in front of him. Cloaks had a special meaning in those days. They were a sign of life and dignity. So to lay them on the ground was a great sign of reverence.

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. 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.

The Pharisees try to calm the crowds down but Jesus tells them that if the people didn’t welcome him the very stones would cry out. This was to fulfil a prophesy from the Old Testament explaining who he is and why he has come.

After the last supper Jesus goes to the garden to pray. He sweats blood anticipating the suffering he will endure. But also to emulate chapter 3 in Genesis where Adam having been thrown out of the Garden of Eden will now have to bring bread from the earth through the sweat of his brow. Jesus is the New Adam who will now undo the effects of the fall in a different garden.

Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane. This means ‘oil press’ in Hebrew because it was full of Olive trees and the olive tree was known as the tree of life because of the oil it produced.

Jesus of course will use a new tree of life in his cross to undo the sin of Adam associated with the original tree of life. He will allow himself to become crushed and so allow his life giving oil to flow for the healing and salvation of the world. It begins and ends in a garden. The sin of death becomes everlasting life.

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 one who has simply 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 true communication.

At the end of the struggle the disciples who had promised their faithfulness to the Lord 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. Yet false witnesses and liars are brought to testify. By admitting his identity to the High priests he is condemned to death because blasphemy is punishable by death in their law.

Jesus tells the women of Jerusalem to weep for themselves and their children. This is because of what lies ahead in the total destruction of the temple that they will all be caught up in.

We hear that he dies at the 9th hour which is 3pm in the afternoon. 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.

So in this Passion reading we see all the various forms of human weakness and human dysfunction that we find in our world today. It’s a kind of symphony of sin. A perfect storm. 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 use them and transform them into something that has a deeper meaning and purpose.

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