Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday
April 9, 2006

"Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned back..." (Isaiah 50:4-7) "He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Phil 2: 6-11) "His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these things were written about him." (John 12:12-16)

Perhaps the best commentary on the events we recall and celebrate this week, the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, is our own immersion in it. We are not just remembering an historical event nor, as some of us did as children, feeling sorry for Jesus or guilty about what we may have done to cause his suffering. Participating in the story of Jesus' suffering and death necessarily includes our attention to and solidarity with suffering humanity. Dwelling on this mystery apart from Jesus' resurrection (and our own) leaves the experience incomplete if not pointless. We have an opportunity to allow this mystery of life, death, and return of life to permeate our being a little more this year than last.

The prophet, six centuries before Christ, has a vision of the Son of Man one who is willing and open to suffering for the sake of God's people, and yet determined to resist the forces of death. Although he accepts whatever suffering his cosmic role will be, he also "set his face like flint". St. Paul, our earliest witness to the events of Jesus' life and death, says that Jesus was "obedient" to death.

What is this mystery of resistance and acceptance in the face of suffering and death? The gospel tells us that even his disciples, those closest to him in time and space, did not understand all this until after they had time to reflect on what had happened from the perspective of the resurrection. We know that they also underwent their own personal sufferings and death as well. If even they were confused, how much more are we? Mature faith knows there is no easy answer to the meaning of human suffering. It is found in the experience of acceptance and resistance.

I have to do it, you have to do it: today, tomorrow, until the Son of Man comes in glory. The only question really is how we live in Christ, knowing when and how to accept our own passion. As we do, certainly part of this is to avoid inflicting unnecessary confusion and suffering on others. One way of attempting to avoid of suffering is by inflicting it on others, often in the name of our own version of the truth. Instead we will do as Jesus did, comforting our comforters. Perhaps during this sacred week we might spend some time reflecting on the status of our own acceptance and resistance to the experience of suffering.