Sunday, April 5, 2009AD
Palm Sunday
The Big Picture
Today, we hear some of the most powerful, memorable portions of the Bible. The haunting figure of the Crucified Christ speaks to us after twenty centuries. We feel His pain.
The founders of other religions, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius and Lao-Tsu all lived to ripe old ages. What happened with Jesus? Why did He meet such a horrific end?
One answer that has been offered for the enigma is to show us how much God loves us. We are the ones who need to be won over to the forgiving love of God. Then, we are asked by God to transform the anger, violence and hatred in our own lives in imitation of the God-man who did not return hatred for hatred.
St Mark’s account of the Passion is the shortest and probably earliest account of the last days of Jesus. In fact, St Mark’s Gospel has been called “a Passion Narrative with an extended opening”. The machinations that culminated in Good Friday (and Easter) began as far back as Mk 3.36, when the Pharisees and Herodians (political enemies) decided that Jesus was too much to handle.
We know now that St Mark combined one (and possibly, two) extended accounts of the death of Jesus. He also touched up the narrative with references from the Hebrew Bible (such as our first reading today, the Suffering Servant Poems) with Psalm 22 (our Responsorial Psalm today) and Psalm 69.
However, recently, a manuscript was discovered in a synagogue in the Mid East which spoke of the liturgy which the synagogue followed for the Day of Atonement, viz., Yom Kippur. In the manuscript was a description of a scapegoat (literally a goat) that was wrapped around in thorns in either a red or purple cloth. As the scapegoat, which bore the sins of the community was driven out of the synagogue and town, Jewish penitents seeking forgiveness for their own sins would spit upon the scapegoat or beat it with a reed. This Jewish liturgy gives a further insight into what St Mark is describing in the Death of the Messiah in today’s Gospel. The first Christians probably would have been familiar with the Jewish liturgy of Yom Kippur and recognized in St Mark’s account the similar pattern in the death of Jesus.
St Mark tells us throughout the Gospel that Jesus was recognized as God’s Holy One by the demons that Jesus expelled. In addition, St Peter also proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, although he did not understand what he said. When Jesus immediately said, “He was to be handed over and put to death and rise on the third day”, Peter’s response was negative and he expressed his hope that such a fate would never befall Jesus. The only time that Jesus called a human person Satan was when Jesus told Peter that Peter was thinking human thoughts, not God’s thoughts. God sees reality differently than we do; the Paschal Mystery which Jesus was to experience is the road to transformation not only for Jesus, but also all his disciples who take up their crosses and follow after Him.
When have we to carry our cross and die to Self (EGO), individual and collective? This happens when we experience the disappointments, the rejections, the absurdities, the failure, the tragedies, the sickness and suffering confronting every human person along the way (although it normally happens when we are in the second half of adulthood, not the first half. With Grace, the Energy of Christ Crucified (and Risen), we learn to bear the pains of life, to make a leap of faith in God, and to surrender, let go, and trust the Paschal Mystery.
During the Holy Week, we travel to Jerusalem on His journey to destiny. Through our baptism into Christ, His death and Resurrection become the source of transformation for all the rest of His disciples (that would be you and me!)
We remember the love that God has for us in sending His Son to show us how to live, to die and to live forever. We remember the betrayal that all of us make of God’s Love for us through our taking the Paschal Mystery manifesting the Love of God so much for granted. We remember the forgiveness that God poured out upon all of us through Christ’s transformation of anger, hatred and violence on Easter Sunday. We remember the journey that we all still are making as His disciples, in, through and with Him.
We recall that each of us lives in a dome in which the principal question that we ask is, “Who am I?” viz., I am …..? That is the search for personal identity that is necessary for each of us to pursue. Psychology is a useful tool here in answering the question, but not the only tool. However, there is a second dome over the first dome. The principal question that we ask now is “Who are we?” Viz., We are…? History and sociology and anthropology are useful here in answering this question, but again, not the only tools. The final dome is “What is the big story?” viz., I Am Who Am, “What are the universal truths that are true for all in all times and in all places.” The question here involves the I Am Who Am, the reality of Transcendence, Infinity and Mystery permeating the universe and experienced through transformation, from the I and the We into the realization that the big picture of the I Am Who Am that involves the Paschal Mystery of emptying and transformation. Honest religion teaches us that no matter what you or your culture feel in domes one or two, ultimately all of us are called to learn how to bear pain, to make a leap of faith and to surrender, let go and trust the Paschal Mystery permeating all the universe. No accident that it permeates the existence of the Son of God incarnate, the pattern of all creation, according to St Paul.
Holy Week is the time that we remember not only the tragic and, ultimately, glorious events in the fateful week of Jesus in Jerusalem. It is the remembrance and celebration that in Christ Jesus, we still experience the Paschal Mystery of dying and rising in Him again and again and again. In the process, we find that in Christ Jesus, we are born again and again and again.
St Paul tells us, “Jesus did not grab at His equality with God, but emptied Himself for us in humility and obedience, even to death, death on the cross. Ergo, God exalted Him, bestowing on Him the Name above every other name. Jesus is the Lord.”
One of the great lines that comes from the Hebrew Bible is the gentle request for humble obedience made by God of each of us and all of us, viz., “to do the right, to love the God and to walk humbly with one’s God each day.” This week, Jesus continues to fulfill the mandate for us by walking with God to Calvary, humbly and obediently. We ask Him for the strength for us to do the same, each and everyday of our lives as well.
St Paul tells us in 1 Cor that when we gather for the Eucharist as the Jesus Movement, something happens. “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim Your death, Lord Jesus, until You come in glory.” Why and how can we proclaim and/or celebrate the cruel death of Someone by the system? It, indeed, is a paradox!!
The paradox of Holy Week is that the crucified, battered, rejected loser hanging on the cross is also the Firstborn of the Dead, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the Future. For 2000 years, people like us have celebrated the Paschal Mystery. We cannot explain God. Disciples of Jesus realize that in Christ Jesus, we do not have to express it in words. Holy Week tells us that our intuitions are true, that no matter how things seem. Come back and tune in next Sunday as the God of Life flips the coin as we celebrate the other side of the Paschal Mystery. 040509AD jfq
