Palm-Passion Sunday March 16, 2008

Gospel of the Procession - Matthew 21:1-11 From the ridge of the Mount of Olives one can look directly across the Kidron Valley at the Temple of Jerusalem and the city behind it. Some wonder why Jesus didn’t ride a horse instead of a donkey. Donkeys were less expensive, harder working, and easier to care for than horses. Jesus had probably never ridden a horse in his life. It is doubtful that anyone in Bethphage even owned one. Certainly a horse seems more regal to us, but it doesn’t appear that people in the crowd thought less of Jesus because of his mount. Those more knowledgeable of scripture prophesies may have recalled Zechariah 9:9, “Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you, a just savior is he, meek and riding on an ass.” The time of confrontation had come. Many of the people, perhaps most of the apostles, saw the moment as political, believing that the Messiah would inaugurate a new era of Jewish independence and freedom from Rome. It was for that reason James and John (Mark 10:35) had approached Jesus asking for the places of honor in that kingdom…and for the same reason the other apostles had gotten upset with them for doing so. It was for that reason that the apostles had argued among themselves who was the greatest (Mark 9:33-34). It was likely for that reason Judas betrayed Jesus when he realized that the kingdom was not going to be anything like what he had imagined. It gives us pause to consider why we follow Jesus. Is it for personal gain, bestowal of favors in this world, or something more profound which enables us to follow him as our king no matter what the personal cost?

Reading 1, Isaiah 50:4-7 This is the third of the four “Servant of the Lord” oracles in Isaiah which Christians interpret as a prefiguring of Jesus. Isaiah prophesied in Judah in the late 8th century B.C. during the takeover of the northern kingdom of Israel by Assyria. His warnings to his fellow countrymen, as with most prophets, were generally disregarded. “I thought I had toiled in vain”, Isaiah remarks (Isaiah 49:4). In verses following today’s reading (50:10-11), God reproves people for not listening to and following his Servant.

Reading II, Philippians 2:6-11 In this text, possibly a hymn of the day quoted by Paul in his letter, we have a beautiful statement of the double nature of Jesus as both God and man. The Second Person of the Trinity, while retaining his divine nature, “emptied himself” of the marvelous qualities and abilities attached to that divine nature (all-knowing, omnipresent, all powerful, etc.) and took on our human nature, as we hear in Eucharistic Prayer IV, “a man like us in all things but sin”. In this total self-giving, Jesus both expresses the depth of God’s love for us and calls us to glory with him by a similar detachment of self out of love for God and others.

Gospel reading of the passion: Matthew 26:14-27:66 Due to the length of the reading, I have not provided commentary.