For Sunday
Palm / Passion
Collect
Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
The entrance into Holy Week is the culmination of a journey and also the beginning of a new journey into the heart of the empire’s occupation. We come here having heard a prophetic prediction of his passion and death, having learned of the humble character of Jesus’s messianic vision. So when we hear the evidence of a plan, of something profound coming together, we aren’t so much surprised, are we, as we are desirous of participating, of following Jesus into this next stage of the journey.
Jesus knows things. Not just what Rome, Herod’s soldiers, and the Temple leaders will do over the next few days, but where to find a colt and how to make it available to them. It’s a strange thing to know, really. But he does. And when it is there and the disciples are able to secure it, is there truly any wonder of what will follow? Just listen.
In the days to come, we will read of the event in the Temple and the teaching there the next day: actions that will secure Jesus’s death warrant alongside the immense popularity of his teaching. We will see the preparation of the disciples, the Passover and Last Supper, the Garden, the betrayal, arrest, and condemnation, and then, in the end, the crucifixion.
We must enter into the story with understanding — for the goodness of God and the righteousness of Jesus — for the hope in Jesus’s Way of Love and the compassion necessary to embody it — for the evil of empire and it’s predilection for cruelty — that we may see the absurdity of thinking this has so little to do with us or the opposite: that this is a reflection on humanity as a whole. This sham trial of an innocent man was no more necessary than it was essential — and yet it was entirely predictable. And it reflects the humble way of Jesus. It is the vision of God’s dream that we received because of the hubris of pathetic men. And yet, God’s glory shines through it.