Palm Sunday
Today we begin our celebration of Holy Week, the most solemn week of the year. Today is "Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion." Our celebration began differently today with the procession into church to re-enact Jesus' jubilant procession into Jerusalem, and their distribution of palms to the congregation.
By the time of the reading of Mark's Passion, the jubilation had disappeared as we recalled the last days of Jesus of Nazarath.
The gospel rotates over the three-year cycle. This year, it is Mark's turn. The shortest of the four canonical gospels, most biblical scholars regard Mark as the oldest of the four and a primary source for much of the material contained in Luke and Matthew. Since Mark's 'passion account' is the earliest of all four gospels, it is the least embellished, the most stark. For example, whereas Luke presents Jesus dying as a pious Jew, with the psalmist's words of confident resignation on his lips, ('Father, into your hands I commend my spirit'), Mark presents a far more stark picture, with the victim uttering the cry of dereliction: "My God, My God, why have your abandoned me?"
What happed between these two gospel readings, today, the 'Psalm Gospel' of jubilation and the Passion account of Mark? Did the crowd do a complete turnaround?
I don't think so. I think there was one kind of people outside of the city of Jerusalem and another kind inside.
The processional gospel began with the words, "When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem..." So, it seems that all this jubilation occurred outside of the city. These outsiders were excited about Jesus as the long-expected saviour riding into the City of David on a colt as predicted by the prophet Zechariah.
Jesus seems to know what he is doing and what lies ahead by the way he controls the situation by telling his disciples that he needs a colt. Jesus is going to Jerusalem and knows what is going to happen there, the same thing that had happened to prophets before him.
People spread cloaks and branches on the road as had been for kings before Jesus. The people were anticipating the arrival of David's Kingdom; they see Jesus as linked to the glorious moment when the David-like messiah would come
This all ends during the passion narrative when the crowds shouted to Pilate for Jesus' death: "Crucify him!" These were a different kind of people, for this gospel reading begins with, "the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way to arrest him by treachery and put him to death." The crowd inside Jerusalem certainly isn't the same crowd that was outside.
It seems to be the outsiders who are the ones excited about Jesus. Think of their life-long desperation. They are the gospel "highway and by-way" people, those who never get special places at table, invitations to upper-crust banquets, or places of honor in the temple and synagogue. They have already experienced or heard about how welcome their lot is with Jesus. Finally, there is someone from God to tell them they are not forgotten; indeed, God loves them. Jesus, the one with authority, has recognized them, healed their afflictions, and forgiven their sins. They know too that Jesus is a Galilean, an outsider, one of their own, raised up by God.
Are we part of the outsiders who are seeking Jesus or are we with the insiders still trying to control him?
Although the gospel passion has an evil crowd, we must read the passion story to find out that God sent his only Son to die for everyone's sins; yes, and even for the sins of the crowd that put him to death. And we will be assured of this when we come back for Easter Mass next weekend to celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead, something that no one else ever did.