HOMILY FOR PALM SUNDAY YEAR A. (5)

HOMILY FOR PALM SUNDAY YEAR A.

THEME: Died to Save the Killer.

BY: Fr. Uchenna Onyejiuwa.

First reading, Is 50:4-7; second reading, Phil 2:6-11; gospel, Matt 26:14-27:66.

Beloved friends and brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Holy Mother Church celebrates the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and His glorious passion. It is a celebration that ushers us into the Holy Week, the week that definitively defined man’s ultimate destiny and relationship with his creator. It is the week of critical and extraordinary happenings, that brought about the conclusion and the accomplishment of Christ’s existential mission. This week is of capital significance in the life of the Church and in our own individual lives as members of the Church.

By His triumphant entry today into Jerusalem, Christ fulfils O.T. prophecy as recorded in Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice, rejoice, people of zion! Shout for joy you people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you! He comes triumphant and victorious, but humble and riding on a donkey – on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Apart from depicting honour and respect, the palm branches also symbolise Christian martyrs and their triumph over death. This is reflected in the scriptural passage of Rev. 7:9: “… the white-clad multitude stand before the throne and lamb holding palm branches.” So the palm branches, unknown to the crowd, don’t only represent honour and respect but also Christ’s victory over death. Even without knowing it, the crowd revealed something that went beyond their understanding. The blessed branches are now considered by the Church as sacramentals, to be preserved until the next Ash Wednesday when they will be burnt and rubbed on our faces, marking a new season of lent. Also, the colour of today’s celebration is deep scarlet red (the colour of blood), indicating the supreme redemptive sacrifice of Christ accomplished in this triumphant entry into the great city of Jerusalem. And it is on that note that we enter into the Passion segment of our celebration today.

This aspect of our celebration was given an initial introduction in the first reading of today taken from Isaiah’s third servant song (Is 50:4-11), which talks about the suffering servant who must stoop to conquer, who must suffer defeat to be victorious. This servant offers us a new path to victory against the existing Greco-Roman accepted path at the time, (Si vis pacem, para bellum). He says: “For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away. I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my beard; I did not cover my face against insult and spittle.” He relies only on the help that comes from the Lord. And it is in the Passion narrative that we find the meaning and fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy; Christ is the suffering servant, (Eloi Eloi, lama sabachthani). In it (the Passion) we find ourselves in a dramatically different ambience compared to the hosannas that ushered us into this celebration; the very crowd that chanted the hosannas became the same crowd whose thunderous echo of ‘crucifige eum’ denied Jesus justice and fair hearing and thus had Pailet hand him over for crucifixion. It is a tale of treachery, love and apparent contradictions; the spectacular and strikingly exceptional part being that He (Christ) died to save all, including his executioners.

RELATED: HOMILY FOR PALM SUNDAY YEAR A

This is what St. Paul expresses in his letter to the Romans: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rm 5:7-8). On the cross, He prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). Today, popular wisdom demands that you work out your own immanent, horizontal salvation without caring much for the ignorant, often impossible masses. Doing so (i.e. caring for them) will only slow you down and in some cases, they drag you to their level. So run as fast as you can, if possible, take the little they have and use them to your advantage, to aid your worldly horizontal liberation and salvation. This is often intellectualized in the statement that not everyone can be saved and the smartest thing will be to take the resources of many and save the greedy few. This is the unfortunate philosophy of our age and the reason why lasting peace will remain a mirage on our continent. A direct opposite of what Christ did for humanity, dying for us even while we were still sinners. Such an attitude, especially on the part of Christians, makes a mockery of our faith and crucifies Jesus again and again. We must, therefore, resist it and be responsive to the demands of our calling, living above such ungodly, selfish philosophy and emulating the way of the Master.

Beloved friends, it’s high time we called a spade a spade. If we say we believe in and follow Jesus we must obey what He commands and abide by His teaching, shunning all forms of hypocrisy. Jesus, through His humility and obedience to the Father, reverses the disobedience of Adam, atones for our sins and saves us from misery and damnation. This kenotic humility is what St. Paul is extolling in the second reading of today and invites us implicitly to emulate Him by living a simple selfless life. A lot of things have gone wrong in our world and many believers have gone astray. Christ is inviting us, His faithful, today to help in recreating the damaged face of the earth and correct the wrong of those who have come before us. Let us not let Him down. And it is on this note that St. Andrew of Crete in his famous address called on us to a deeper understanding of this celebration by inviting us to spread ourselves under Christ’s feet on this day instead of coats or lifeless branches of trees which will delight the eye only for a few hours and wither away. May the grace we acquire through our active participation in the Paschal Triduum of this Holy Week help us become responsible and committed followers of Christ who will never echo like the crowd, when the going gets tough, crucify him. Peace be with you.

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