3/28 - Passion Sunday

Today we begin the Holy Week, a day of fleeting triumph when Jesus enters the great city of Jerusalem. Next Sunday is another day of triumph, of lasting triumph, the resurrection. In between is a strange mixture of joy and pain, of sorrow and fear known to all of us human beings. We sometimes wish life was a bowl of cherries, but we know only too well that reality is often, for many, the exact opposite. We may talk as much as we like about joy and adventure, contentment and peace, but only a fool believes that Christians have the recipe for a trouble-free life. We don't. Common sense tells us that human life - yours and mine - is complex, confusing and challenging.

This week we will listen to the Passion Narrative. How can we not hear the account of Jesus’ Passion and not be moved by it? Recently I heard of someone asking a young person “What would you think of someone who didn’t cry while watching the movie The Passion of the Christ?” The young person responded, “He or she would be evil.” That young person was so moved by watching the movie that he could not understand why anybody could not be moved by watching the film. The Passion of Jesus moves us. It moves us because Jesus suffered. Someone innocent suffers willingly to save the humankind. But that someone should have had the best of life as he was the son of the Living God.

Jesus fulfils the longing of Israel as he enters the city of Jerusalem, not as a sword wielding conqueror, but a humble king riding a donkey. He is clearly the Messiah who comes in the guise of a servant, the servant of God and of man, and goes to his passion. He is the great 'patient", who suffers all the pain of humanity.

He had spoken clearly of this to his disciples: 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me' (Mt 16:24).  Jesus never promised honor and success. The Gospels make this clear. He had always warned his friends that this was to be his path, and that the final victory would be achieved through the passion and the cross. All this holds true for us too. Let us ask for the grace to follow Jesus faithfully, not in words but in deeds.  Let us also ask for the patience to carry our own cross, not to refuse it or set it aside, but rather, in looking to him, to take it up and to carry it daily.

Jesus did not shy away from his suffering. His was a literal cross and he showed us how to deal with it; take hold of it with both hands, grab it and wrestle with it. Jesus did not accept his cross. That is a passive attitude. Jesus took his cross, embraced it because it was his Father's will for our salvation.
Holy Week begins as it ends, in triumph, to remind us that suffering is a journey with a goal, not a winding road that leads nowhere. The end of the journey is resurrection, a new kind of existence.
The bleak finality of death is muted as in Christ we will breathe our last to the sun rise of Eternal Life. Have a spiritually enriching Holy Week and a grace filled Easter.