(Palm & Passion Sunday)
March 16, 2008: Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Isaiah 50:4-7 Philippians 2:6-11 Matthew 27:11-54
To the churched and unchurched[1]
gathered in a church not built by human hands[2]
Second reading: Philippians 2:6-11
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ
according to Matthew27:11-54
The governor Pilate
Jesus stood before the governor, Pontius Pilate, who questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he made no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you?” But he did not answer him one word, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
The prisoner Barabbas
Now on the occasion of the feast the governor was accustomed to release to the crowd one prisoner whom they wished. And at that time, they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had assembled, Pilate said to them, “Which one do you want me to release to you, Barabbas, or Jesus called Christ?” For he knew that it was out of envy that they had handed him over. While he was still seated on the bench, his wife sent him a message, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man. I suffered much in a dream today because of him.” The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas but to destroy Jesus. The governor said to them in reply, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They answered, "Barabbas!”Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” But he said, “Why? What evil has he done?” They only shouted the louder, “Let him be crucified!” When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. Look to it yourselves.” And the whole people said in reply, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” Then he released Barabbas to them, but after he had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified.
The Roman soldiers
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus inside the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped off his clothes and threw a scarlet military cloak about him. Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat upon him and took the reed and kept striking him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him off to crucify him.
As they were going out, they met a Cyrenian named Simon; this man they pressed into service to carry his cross And when they came to a place called Golgotha — which means Place of the Skull — they gave Jesus wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he had tasted it, he refused to drink. After they had crucified him, they divided his garments by casting lots; then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And they placed over his head the written charge against him: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left.
The jeering crowds
Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you are the Son of God, and come down from the cross!” Likewise, the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. So he is the king of Israel! Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way.
The death of Jesus
From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “This one is calling for Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge; he soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink. But the rest said, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him.” But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit.
(Here all kneel and pause for a moment).
And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many. The centurion and the men with him who were keeping watch over Jesus feared greatly when they saw the earthquake and all that was happening, and they said, “Truly, this was the Son of God!”
Introduction
Palm Sunday 2008
Palm Sunday starts off Holy Week which recounts the Lord’s Last Supper with his disciples on Holy Thursday, his crucifixion and death on Good Friday and his rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday. On the first day of Lent, February 6, 2008, we received ashes to remind us that we are dust, and unto dust we shall return. On this last Sunday of Lent, March 16, 2008, we receive blessed palms at Mass, some of which will be burned to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2009. The first Palm SundayOn Palm Sunday, Jesus, put an end to his cautious incognito and made a bold and public entry into Jerusalem. That started off an inevitable collision course with the religious and political authorities. Crowds gathered to see this rabbi from Galilee. They shouted and sang Hosanna to the Son of David. They threw their garments on the pathway before him to cushion his ride. They strew his path with palm branches—the symbol of triumph. When the angry Pharisees saw this, they ordered Jesus to put a check on his enthusiastic friends, but he replied, “If I silence them, the stones themselves will cry out in their behalf.” (Lk 19: 28-40)
The Passion
Palm Sunday is also called Passion Sunday. The gospel for Palm Sunday Mass is always announced with the age-old venerable formula The Passion (The Suffering) of our Lord Jesus Christ according to…. The Passion is a long account of the Lord’s sufferings found in all four gospels. It is a blow-by-blow description of his physical sufferings: the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, the parching of his throat and the piercing of his heart by a centurion’s spear. It is also a blow-by-blow description of the Lord’s spiritual sufferings: the jeers of human beings who have lost their humanity, the disappointment of betrayal by one he had chosen, the painful sight of his mother weeping at his side, and, worst of all, the seeming abandonment by God his Father.
Gods who make people suffer
On 9/11 Usama bin Laden and Islamic extremists brought down two towers and three thousand innocent human beings in the name of Allah, Most Merciful. Usama’s God is a terrorist who inspires Islamic extremists to make western infidels suffer. On the occasion of 9/11, Christian preacher Jerry Falwell pointed his finger at pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. He declared that they had helped to make that horrific event happen! Jerry’s God was also a terrorist who used Islamic extremists to make Americans suffer for their immorality.
The day after Christmas, 2004, the worst tsunami in recent memory inundated southeastern Asia, ruthlessly sweeping away 140,000 people. The worst casualties were the living. Along thousands of miles of costal regions people were crying out in various languages and with various gestures of grief, “God, why do you make us suffer so much?” Soon clerics in synagogues, churches and mosques all over the world were offering age-old and worn-out explanations of why humans suffer.
The chief rabbi of Israel said, “This is an expression of God’s great anger upon the world.” An Islamic imam said, “The disaster is a reminder from Allah that he who created the world can also destroy it.” Perhaps evangelist Falwell, on that occasion, pointed his finger again into people’s faces and said, “All you pagans out there helped make this happen.” At the end of the day, the God of those diverse clerics is a terrorist who used a catastrophic tsunami to make people suffer for their immorality or to simply remind them who is in charge.
A strange new God who makes no one suffer!
Into such a god-awful theological world (where gods are terrorists who make immoral sinners suffer or who strut around showing who’s boss comes the Christian’s God who makes no one at all suffer! After eons of angry, jealous and revengeful Greek and Roman gods, who made humans suffers for their bad deeds (and sometimes even for their good ones) a God who makes no one at all suffer is, indeed, a strange new God and a very welcomed relief!
Unlike Jerry Falwell, Bernie Heeran, a retired firefighter whose son Charlie was killed on 9/11, had it down right when he said, “God is no terrorist. God had nothing to do with this [9/11]. He makes no one suffer. He was, in fact, fighting evil that day, like He does every day, and He was inviting us to join Him in the fight.”
A strange new God who Himself suffers!
What’s more, the Christian’s God, who does not make humans suffer, does Himself suffer! That is too incredible to believe! When God entered into our atmosphere in the Incarnation, God lost a heat shield against suffering. God, like us, could now suffer. An early Christian hymn, recorded in today’s second reading from Philippians, declares nothing less than that.
“Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus:
though he was very God, he did not cling
to his equality with God but emptied himself
and took the form of a servant.
He became a human being like the rest of us,
and he became obedient to death,
yes, even to death on a cross.”
(Phil 2: 5-8)
While this God who suffers is “a stumbling block to the Jews and pure nonsense to the Gentiles” (I Cor 1: 23), at the end of the day, He is a very welcomed relief, after eons of gods who were Scot-free of suffering, but who made (and still make) people suffer. Such a God is good news, that is to say, is Gospel! The passion, [the suffering] of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew read this morning is the good news that God Himself suffers!
A strange new God who suffers because we suffer!
What’s more, the Christian’s God is a Father who suffers because we, His children, suffer. Mystic theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin whose voice echoed through the deliberation chambers of Vatican II, writes, “It is thoroughly in accord with the Gospel to regard God across the ages as weeping over the world in ceaseless effort to spare the world its bitter sufferings and to bind up its wounds.” (Divine Milieu) Any other kind of God, Teilhard says, is insufferable. A God, who weeps when His children suffer, is not only sufferable but is, indeed, wonderful good news.
Conclusion
A strange new God who suffers because He Himself suffers!
What’s more, the Father in heaven suffers not only because His children suffer but also because He Himself suffers! He suffers because in the Incarnation He has a dearly beloved Son of his own in whom He is well pleased, but whom men took and nailed to a cross.
Some time ago the news reported that two spokespersons from the War Department drove up to a home, knocked at the door and announced to a father that his marine son (a dearly beloved young man in whom his father was well pleased) had been killed in Iraq. Overwhelmed with rage and grief the father tore out of the house and torched their car. In his heart of hearts, he was crying out at God asking, “You who sit up there Scot-free of all suffering, where were you, and what were you doing when my son’s life was cut short in Iraq?”
After the Incarnation in which God begot an earthly Son, God can now fire back at the grieving father and say, “Just a minute, dear man! I, too, am a Father. I, too, have a Son. What was I doing when your son’s life was cut short in Iraq? I was doing just what you are doing now. I was weeping over a Son of my own in whom I was well-pleased, but whom men took and nailed to a cross.”
[1]] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
[2] Acts of the Apostles 17:24
March 16, 2008: Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Isaiah 50:4-7 Philippians 2:6-11 Matthew 27:11-54
To the churched and unchurched[1]
gathered in a church not built by human hands[2]
Second reading: Philippians 2:6-11
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ
according to Matthew27:11-54
The governor Pilate
Jesus stood before the governor, Pontius Pilate, who questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You say so.” And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he made no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you?” But he did not answer him one word, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
The prisoner Barabbas
Now on the occasion of the feast the governor was accustomed to release to the crowd one prisoner whom they wished. And at that time, they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had assembled, Pilate said to them, “Which one do you want me to release to you, Barabbas, or Jesus called Christ?” For he knew that it was out of envy that they had handed him over. While he was still seated on the bench, his wife sent him a message, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man. I suffered much in a dream today because of him.” The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas but to destroy Jesus. The governor said to them in reply, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They answered, "Barabbas!”Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” But he said, “Why? What evil has he done?” They only shouted the louder, “Let him be crucified!” When Pilate saw that he was not succeeding at all, but that a riot was breaking out instead, he took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. Look to it yourselves.” And the whole people said in reply, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” Then he released Barabbas to them, but after he had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified.
The Roman soldiers
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus inside the praetorium and gathered the whole cohort around him. They stripped off his clothes and threw a scarlet military cloak about him. Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat upon him and took the reed and kept striking him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him off to crucify him.
As they were going out, they met a Cyrenian named Simon; this man they pressed into service to carry his cross And when they came to a place called Golgotha — which means Place of the Skull — they gave Jesus wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he had tasted it, he refused to drink. After they had crucified him, they divided his garments by casting lots; then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And they placed over his head the written charge against him: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and the other on his left.
The jeering crowds
Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you are the Son of God, and come down from the cross!” Likewise, the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. So he is the king of Israel! Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way.
The death of Jesus
From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “This one is calling for Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge; he soaked it in wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink. But the rest said, “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him.” But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit.
(Here all kneel and pause for a moment).
And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many. The centurion and the men with him who were keeping watch over Jesus feared greatly when they saw the earthquake and all that was happening, and they said, “Truly, this was the Son of God!”
Introduction
Palm Sunday 2008
Palm Sunday starts off Holy Week which recounts the Lord’s Last Supper with his disciples on Holy Thursday, his crucifixion and death on Good Friday and his rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday. On the first day of Lent, February 6, 2008, we received ashes to remind us that we are dust, and unto dust we shall return. On this last Sunday of Lent, March 16, 2008, we receive blessed palms at Mass, some of which will be burned to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2009. The first Palm SundayOn Palm Sunday, Jesus, put an end to his cautious incognito and made a bold and public entry into Jerusalem. That started off an inevitable collision course with the religious and political authorities. Crowds gathered to see this rabbi from Galilee. They shouted and sang Hosanna to the Son of David. They threw their garments on the pathway before him to cushion his ride. They strew his path with palm branches—the symbol of triumph. When the angry Pharisees saw this, they ordered Jesus to put a check on his enthusiastic friends, but he replied, “If I silence them, the stones themselves will cry out in their behalf.” (Lk 19: 28-40)
The Passion
Palm Sunday is also called Passion Sunday. The gospel for Palm Sunday Mass is always announced with the age-old venerable formula The Passion (The Suffering) of our Lord Jesus Christ according to…. The Passion is a long account of the Lord’s sufferings found in all four gospels. It is a blow-by-blow description of his physical sufferings: the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, the parching of his throat and the piercing of his heart by a centurion’s spear. It is also a blow-by-blow description of the Lord’s spiritual sufferings: the jeers of human beings who have lost their humanity, the disappointment of betrayal by one he had chosen, the painful sight of his mother weeping at his side, and, worst of all, the seeming abandonment by God his Father.
Gods who make people suffer
On 9/11 Usama bin Laden and Islamic extremists brought down two towers and three thousand innocent human beings in the name of Allah, Most Merciful. Usama’s God is a terrorist who inspires Islamic extremists to make western infidels suffer. On the occasion of 9/11, Christian preacher Jerry Falwell pointed his finger at pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. He declared that they had helped to make that horrific event happen! Jerry’s God was also a terrorist who used Islamic extremists to make Americans suffer for their immorality.
The day after Christmas, 2004, the worst tsunami in recent memory inundated southeastern Asia, ruthlessly sweeping away 140,000 people. The worst casualties were the living. Along thousands of miles of costal regions people were crying out in various languages and with various gestures of grief, “God, why do you make us suffer so much?” Soon clerics in synagogues, churches and mosques all over the world were offering age-old and worn-out explanations of why humans suffer.
The chief rabbi of Israel said, “This is an expression of God’s great anger upon the world.” An Islamic imam said, “The disaster is a reminder from Allah that he who created the world can also destroy it.” Perhaps evangelist Falwell, on that occasion, pointed his finger again into people’s faces and said, “All you pagans out there helped make this happen.” At the end of the day, the God of those diverse clerics is a terrorist who used a catastrophic tsunami to make people suffer for their immorality or to simply remind them who is in charge.
A strange new God who makes no one suffer!
Into such a god-awful theological world (where gods are terrorists who make immoral sinners suffer or who strut around showing who’s boss comes the Christian’s God who makes no one at all suffer! After eons of angry, jealous and revengeful Greek and Roman gods, who made humans suffers for their bad deeds (and sometimes even for their good ones) a God who makes no one at all suffer is, indeed, a strange new God and a very welcomed relief!
Unlike Jerry Falwell, Bernie Heeran, a retired firefighter whose son Charlie was killed on 9/11, had it down right when he said, “God is no terrorist. God had nothing to do with this [9/11]. He makes no one suffer. He was, in fact, fighting evil that day, like He does every day, and He was inviting us to join Him in the fight.”
A strange new God who Himself suffers!
What’s more, the Christian’s God, who does not make humans suffer, does Himself suffer! That is too incredible to believe! When God entered into our atmosphere in the Incarnation, God lost a heat shield against suffering. God, like us, could now suffer. An early Christian hymn, recorded in today’s second reading from Philippians, declares nothing less than that.
“Have this mind in you which was in Christ Jesus:
though he was very God, he did not cling
to his equality with God but emptied himself
and took the form of a servant.
He became a human being like the rest of us,
and he became obedient to death,
yes, even to death on a cross.”
(Phil 2: 5-8)
While this God who suffers is “a stumbling block to the Jews and pure nonsense to the Gentiles” (I Cor 1: 23), at the end of the day, He is a very welcomed relief, after eons of gods who were Scot-free of suffering, but who made (and still make) people suffer. Such a God is good news, that is to say, is Gospel! The passion, [the suffering] of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew read this morning is the good news that God Himself suffers!
A strange new God who suffers because we suffer!
What’s more, the Christian’s God is a Father who suffers because we, His children, suffer. Mystic theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin whose voice echoed through the deliberation chambers of Vatican II, writes, “It is thoroughly in accord with the Gospel to regard God across the ages as weeping over the world in ceaseless effort to spare the world its bitter sufferings and to bind up its wounds.” (Divine Milieu) Any other kind of God, Teilhard says, is insufferable. A God, who weeps when His children suffer, is not only sufferable but is, indeed, wonderful good news.
Conclusion
A strange new God who suffers because He Himself suffers!
What’s more, the Father in heaven suffers not only because His children suffer but also because He Himself suffers! He suffers because in the Incarnation He has a dearly beloved Son of his own in whom He is well pleased, but whom men took and nailed to a cross.
Some time ago the news reported that two spokespersons from the War Department drove up to a home, knocked at the door and announced to a father that his marine son (a dearly beloved young man in whom his father was well pleased) had been killed in Iraq. Overwhelmed with rage and grief the father tore out of the house and torched their car. In his heart of hearts, he was crying out at God asking, “You who sit up there Scot-free of all suffering, where were you, and what were you doing when my son’s life was cut short in Iraq?”
After the Incarnation in which God begot an earthly Son, God can now fire back at the grieving father and say, “Just a minute, dear man! I, too, am a Father. I, too, have a Son. What was I doing when your son’s life was cut short in Iraq? I was doing just what you are doing now. I was weeping over a Son of my own in whom I was well-pleased, but whom men took and nailed to a cross.”
[1]] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
[2] Acts of the Apostles 17:24
