[stephenkhoo]

01 April, 2012, Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
JOURNEYING WITH JESUS IN HIS PASSION AND RESURRECTION

SCRIPTURE READINGS: MK 11:1-10 (PROCESSION); ISA 50:4-7; PHIL 2:6-11; MK 14:1-15:47 (MASS)

Today marks the beginning of the most solemn week of the Church’s year. Palm Sunday, or otherwise known as Passion Sunday, commemorates the last days of Jesus in Jerusalem where His work and mission of proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom is brought to its fulfillment. Indeed, today, like the contemporaries of Jesus’ time, we welcome with joy the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, which is the symbol of the City of God. We recognize that Jesus is our King and our Saviour. It is for this reason that we are giving Him such a glorious welcome, just as the Jews did 2000 years ago.

But the vital question we need to ask ourselves today is, why are we welcoming Jesus? Are we welcoming Jesus because He can deliver to us all the things that we want from Him? If that is so, then we are just like the Jews in the days of Jesus. They, too, expected Jesus to be their earthly and political Saviour. They had seen Him performing works of wonders, like healing the sick, multiplying the bread and raising the dead. With such powers, they thought that Jesus would be their political liberator, manifesting His power and might.

Of course, the way we regard Jesus is how most of us treat our fellowmen, even our family members. How often do we take for granted our parents and our loved ones? We see them as people who provide us the comforts of life, shelter, food and luxuries. Quite often we treat our friends in that manner too. So long as they are of help to us, they are our friends. But when we do not need them or when they no longer have any use for us, we dump them and forget about them completely. Even in man and woman relationship, how often do we make use of each other to satisfy our lust rather than to deepen our love and intimacy with each other in spirit. The sad reality of life is that we manipulate people for our selfish interests and use them to promote and satisfy our needs. So like the contemporaries of Jesus, we will dump them and Jesus as well, if they do not fulfil our desires.

With such worldly and self-centered expectations, of course they were going to be disappointed by Jesus. For the truth is that the kingship that Jesus brought with Him is a kingship in terms of human lowliness, love and service. Jesus came as a poor king, riding on a donkey; not in glorious splendour. Jesus came to serve and to empty Himself for others. The only power that He knew is the power of love, not of might and strength. The only riches that He knew were to be rich in love and compassion. The only status that he knew was the status of a servant or a slave for others. Precisely, Jesus came into Jerusalem by riding on an ass. It was St Mark’s way of correcting the wrong understanding of Jesus’ Messiahship of the crowd. By coming on a donkey, Jesus was foreshadowing the humiliation of the cross that was to come. Indeed, Jesus did not give them the riches and the glory of the world that they thought He could give as their Messiah. Jesus did not set them free from their occupiers, the Romans, but came to set them free from their sins. Jesus did not give them a political kingdom but the Kingdom of God. Jesus did not give them any territory, for the only kingdom is that of the heart where God dwells in the Holy Spirit. Indeed, Jesus has come to give us a peace and joy that the world cannot give. It is a joy that comes from selfless and humble service, even to the extent of dying to oneself so that others might live. It is a life of kenosis, the total emptying of self, of one’s convenience, pleasure, comfort and security for others.

This theme of Jesus’ kenosis in St Mark is reiterated in the second reading when St Paul wrote about Jesus’ self-emptying. Jesus was a suffering servant but Jesus’ death was more than just an instance of a great heroic example of a good and righteous man who suffered innocently for the good of others. Rather, as the gospel of Mark shows, Jesus’ passion demonstrates the conflict between the power of darkness and light. Indeed, the mocked trial of Jesus was practically carried out through the night. But what is important is that Jesus was ultimately victorious over the power of darkness, as seen in the loud cry at His exaltation on the cross when “Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said, ‘In truth this man was a son of God.’” This triumph of Jesus over sin, evil and death is aptly captured by St Paul when he spoke of the Christus Victor who, precisely in and through His obedient suffering on the cross, brought about His exaltation.So the question is, are we interested to welcome such a king into our lives? For when His fellow Jews came to realize that this was the kingdom that Jesus was offering them, they turned their back on Him a few days later. They welcomed Jesus, but only according to their own selfish expectations. Hence, from the cries of Hosanna, it became the cries of “Crucify him.” Yes, these same people who welcomed Jesus with great triumphant joy became the very people who would reject and condemn Him and deliver Him into the hands of the chief priests and Pilate. What about us? Will we condemn this Jesus whom we so enthusiastically welcome today? Will you honour Him only because He attends to your pursuits of material success and worldly gains? Or will you follow Him to be a servant, rich in love and service? Only when we are ready to empty our lives for others and for the Kingdom, can we then truly be worthy to journey with Jesus in His passion and follow Him even unto death. Are we ready to embrace the cross of our life like Jesus and be obedient to the Father’s will unto death? If we fail to comprehend the meaning of the cross as the key to victory and fullness of life, then we would have missed out the theological intent of this Sunday’s liturgy.

But the good news and promise remain: if we are willing, then eternal life is ours, the life of the resurrection will be ours. If we go through the passion of emptying ourselves, we too will also find the resurrection. Let there be no doubt that eternal life is ours. The joy of conquering ourselves and the world is the greatest liberation anyone can find in this world. When we have conquered ourselves, we have conquered the world. Indeed, this new life of the Resurrection is awaiting us. Life is ours. It is so near. It only takes an act of the will. But first, like Jesus, we must go through the passion. It is through the passion of love that new life is ours. There is no resurrection with the cross; and there is no cross without the resurrection. Resurrection without the cross is escapism; the cross without the resurrection would be a tragedy. For this reason, the Church is inviting us to journey with Jesus right through this Holy Week, those last days with Jesus, so that we can share in His resurrection.

This procession into the Church is a symbolic way of our entry into the Holy City of Jerusalem where we will find death and life. It is to accept Jesus’ final challenge to us all that final salvation is found in Him alone. Like the contemporaries of Jesus, we must decide which side of the battle are we on. If we accept Christ and His message, then we must be ready to be purified and cleansed, the way Jesus cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem after entering the Holy City. So, “let us run to accompany him as he hastens toward his passion, and imitate those who met him then, not by covering his path with garments, olive branches or palms, but by doing all we can to prostrate ourselves before him by being humble and by trying to live as he would wish. Then we shall be able to receive the Word at his coming, and God, whom no limits can contain, will be within us. So let us spread before his feet, not garments or soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves, clothed in his grace, or rather, clothed completely in him. We who have been baptised into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before him. Now that the crimson stains of our sins have been washed away in the saving waters of baptism and we have become white as pure wool, let us present the conqueror of death, not with mere branches of palms but with the real rewards of his victory. Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches as we join today in the children’s holy song: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel.” (St Andrew of Crete) But most of all, to participate in this process means that we want to be identified with Jesus in His message, in His life, in His passion and resurrection. Let us not give up along the way like Judas, Peter and the apostles but let us truly crucify ourselves with Him knowing that “Yahweh comes to my help, so that I am untouched by the insults.” Christ the Suffering Servant is also the Christus Victor.