Rev. Fr. C. Joseph
Counsellor, St. Joseph’s College, Jakhama
Palm or Passion Sunday always is a day that invokes mixed emotions in me. It is the last Sunday of the Lenten Season and in modern times has become a juxtaposition of two events, the Triumphant Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem where he according to all four Gospels was greeted by crowds of people who lined the street with palms as Jesus riding on a donkey processed from Bethany and Bethphage where he had been staying with Lazarus into Jerusalem and the narrative of the Passion. As such it is a roller coaster ride in our experience of walking with Jesus in the most difficult times.
This particular occasion is the Sunday where the disciples of Jesus are confronted with the reality that our earthy expectations of him do not meet the reality of his condensation to walk among us fully Divine yet fully Human but one too well acquainted with suffering, rejection and shame. He shatters our expectations that he will bless any particular political or social ideology that we allow to take pre-eminence over him, even those that invoke his name. Thus our liturgy brings us to this strange day where in a sense we are confronted with celebrating the entrance of the King and in the next breath cursing him and betraying him to those who torture and crucify him. Palm Sunday at Messiah is effort to explore the mysterious paradox at the heart of faith: what does it mean that God suffers? How strength is made perfect in weakness? How is Jesus different from other spiritual teachers or prophets who challenged the authorities with a message of love and forgiveness? At Messiah we use drama and ritual to encounter this paradox.
After people arrive they gather around a simple table with palm fronds and water. They are greeted by the priest who blesses the Palms with the water. We hear the story of how Jesus entered Jerusalem like a king. The palm branches are handed out and we sing. As we sing, we walk around the inside the church until we end up at our chairs. After that, we hear a very different story, the story of how Jesus was arrested, convicted, and killed by the powers of this world. But what does it mean? Why do it just before Easter?
One of the chief paradoxes of the Christian faith is that the power of God is expressed through the utter weakness of the Crucified, broken, and dead Jesus. It was only by submitting to this awful fate that Jesus could destroy death and bring eternal life to God’s people. It might feel strange to hold palm branches and sing happy songs in church one minute only to contemplate suffering and death later in the same service, but this juxtaposition is the heart of the Christian message. God does not ask us to triumph over bad things through effort and force, but rather through self-sacrifice and trust in a loving God. Only by holding the tensions together do we begin the fathom the amazing thing that God has done–a profound reversal, cosmic Judo that makes all those who are oppressed jump for joy. As Jesus’s mother Mary sang about his future, “Casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”
