Palm Sunday

 

The Gospel [Luke 19:28-40] we heard at the beginning of our celebration today told us of Jesus’ festive Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which has been dramatically reenacted in Palm Sunday processions all over the world for centuries – and most recently onscreen in the popular series The Chosen. The rest of the story, which we have just now heard [Luke 22:14-23:56], reveals the ultimate destination of that journey – to the cross and the tomb. We, of course, are the prime beneficiaries of this. It all happened, as we say every Sunday in the Creed, for us and for our salvation.

Thus, it is no accident that the cross in the central symbol of Christianity, because the cross of Jesus is precisely where we meet God in our world, just as the tomb – the eventually empty tomb – shows us where he is taking us.

In a world where suffering and death always seem to have the last word, the death of Jesus was God’s great act of solidarity with us in both our ordinary day-to-day suffering and our final mortality.

In itself, of course, there is not much to be said in favor of suffering. Nor should it be claimed (at least not without qualification) that we are automatically “ennobled” somehow by suffering. One can unfortunately live one’s entire life in anger rooted in resentment, as so much of our politics and public life seem to illustrate. 

Jesus, however, gives us a salutary counterexample, as every word he utters in his passion shows him reaching out to others – to the women of Jerusalem, to his executioners, to the convict being executed along with him – finally commending himself once and for all to his Father. 

So, this week we are invited to accompany Jesus to the cross and to the tomb

- to be consoled as were the women of Jerusalem,

- to be forgiven as were his executioners,

- to be remembered in his kingdom as was the dying criminal,

- and, finally, to be commended to his Father, with whom he now lives forever,

- because, thanks to Jesus’ cross, death no longer has the last word in our world.

Homily for Palm Sunday, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, April 13, 2025.