Palm Sunday
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The scope of what we revisit today is sprawling and dreadful. In one hour we walk with Jesus in procession into Jerusalem and then we watch him submit to torture and murder at the hands of the state. Some of the hardest things to revisit each year are all the opportunities that Jesus chose not to take / in order that he might turn things around. Jesus could have stopped Judas before he betrayed him.
Later on before the High Priest and then before Pilate, Jesus, of course, could have come to his own defense. He could have befriended Pilate by engaging him in a philosophical discourse about God and God’s Truth. It seemed that Pilate wanted an intellectual sparring match with Jesus, and such a conversation could have answered Pilate’s need for more information. Such a conversation might have led Pilate eventually to heed his wife’s words of warning. Jesus could have gotten out of facing torture and death merely by doing a little something to turn the tide.
But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.
Jesus could have worked some kind of miracle to summon angels to carry him away. He could have succumbed to all the temptations that undoubtedly assailed him. Remember that novel and movie called “The Last Temptation of Christ?” Author Nikos Kazantzakis explored various ways Jesus might have made things different. Better. If you remember the flap about the movie, you’ll recall that the Last Temptation included political power and a “normal” life with Mary Magdalene as husband and wife, father and mother.
But no, he chose freely not to use his power this one last time, not even to live the way it seems he could have lived.
Why?
I think the only possible answer to this question is that Jesus knew himself and understood exactly why he was here. He had no need to look good before others, to defend himself, or to live a genteel life as a sage and an elder or as a loving husband and father. He lived out his mission, and it was everything.
And so he submitted to torture and death. Even his cry of abandonment from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was torturously uttered in alignment with his mission. For even then he was teaching us. At that moment he showed us that it’s all right to be nakedly honest with God. That cry, by the way, is the first verse of Psalm 22. That psalm begins in dereliction but ends in hope, and that is certainly the path we too often follow at various times in our lives. That is the path toward resurrection, and it goes right through the valley of the shadow of death.
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So—taking our inspiration from Jesus, do we know ourselves and do we understand why we’re here? Do we understand what our mission is? It’s hard to come to grips with these questions all our lives long, from the time we’re very young until the time we die.
It’s helpful as we muddle through, looking for answers, not to close off our inner lives to ourselves, not to be so preoccupied or busy with “things” that we neglect the guidance that comes from the Holy Spirit, delivered within our minds and hearts. It’s the Spirit of God who helps us discern our direction and our calls in life.
Listen to the words of the late Irish poet and priest John O’Donohue, who says: “When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for / visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.” [John O’Donohue, Beauty: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope, p. 39.]
The fact that Jesus knew himself and lived from that knowledge kept him in the closest communion with his Father. We too may walk through our own challenges and joys with greater assurance if we allow the inner whispers of the Holy Spirit to come up to the surface where we can hear them. We can do that by spending more time in quiet, by keeping out distractions like the sound of the television, and by getting away for a walk now and then, and certainly by asking God to speak a little louder when we’re having trouble hearing.
And no matter our specific missions in this life, one fact remains about our deepest identities. We are all called to live, move, and have our being centered in the truth that we are God’s children, and we are not left alone. We come from the Father, and will return to the Father. And we are here to love and to be loved. Teacher, student, nurse, artist, deacon, administrator, or person in retirement, each of us is God’s child. We are here to love and to be loved, and to invite God to help us heal from various wounds we suffer throughout our lives.
As we contemplate the events of Jesus’ passion and death this coming week, let’s remember who we are—creatures totally dependent on God for everything and redeemed by the life and death of Jesus. Thank God we are not alone and that we have a God and friend who loved us so much that he accomplished his mission, even when that meant giving up simple pleasures we take for granted. Instead, he endured disgrace, agony, and torture, and gave it all for us.
Amen.
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