Today as we commemorate Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and begin Holy Week, we read the story of Jesus’ suffering and death as told by the evangelist Mark.
As we began our procession of palms today we read the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem. What would have been on Christ’s mind when he mounted that donkey and deliberately went to the very seat of the Roman power? It’s obvious he went to confront. Jesus went to confront Roman Imperial power and all misused power and the religious collaborators with it. He did so as the basic fundamental Jew that he was. A Jewish Prophet steeped in the heart of Judaism, which always pitted the Kingdom of God against the kingdom of force, fear, greed and exploitation.
The liturgy for today is quite dramatic for we have two processions, Jesus entering Jerusalem at Passover, a tinderbox time when people celebrated their deliverance from the past Egyptian empire. They also not so secretly hoped to be delivered from the present Roman Empire. Protests were inevitable, and so at each Passover the Roman governor – Pilate in the time of Jesus, road up to Jerusalem from the Imperial capital on the coast at the head of a 600 plus cohort of Imperial Calvary and troops to reinforce the local riot squad.
Try to picture it – Pilate’s procession. Arriving from the west where Rome and Imperial power was. Jesus’ procession, significantly entered the city from the east. A counter- procession. Whereas Pilate road into the city on a warhorse, Jesus came into the city on a donkey. Jesus quite consciously planned the contrast that way. Very much mindful of the Prophet Zechariah, who speaks of a King of Peace on a donkey who will banish the warhorse and battle from the land. Can you get a sense of what is going on here? Can you picture this?
What is going on is that in this public drama the gauntlet has been thrown down and the contrast is clear. Jesus verses Pilate. Nonviolence of the Kingdom of God verses the violence of the Empire. That was the contrast. Two arrivals. Two entrances. Two processions. Two ways of life. Two choices represented by these two processions on Palm Sunday.
In the passion and death of Jesus, God is rejected and humiliated. God suffers and dies, just as every human being experiences. God has allowed Himself to be broken in order that we might understand the fragile, impermanent nature of our lives. As we will gather throughout this Holy Week and the Gospel unfolds, we see the brokenness that we both suffer and inflict can be healed in the love of God: love that is humble and sincere, a love centered in gratitude and selflessness.
We come to realize as we meditate on the passion, that Jesus is not crucified because of wild viciousness, or sadistic brutality, or naked hate. Jesus is still crucified in the civilized places of self-interest, bigotry, indifference, fear and half-truths --- vices we all share, the very vices which crucify human beings today. The Cross symbolizes the very worst we fail to see in ourselves – that part of us we try to justify in order to rationalize the crucifixions we execute.
As we journey with Jesus this Holy Week, may we realize the Crosses we have sanctioned and how we can transform them into experiences of resurrection by taking them up in the same spirit of Jesus’ humble and selfless compassion.
Lastly, on this day we commemorate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem from the east on a donkey, Pilate came from the west on a warhorse. It is this day where you and I are also confronted with choice. Which entrance should we take? Which procession should we follow? We have the days of the Triduum before us to contemplate our choice.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom Adrians, Pastor Christ the King