Palm Sunday 2024

When Pilate was set down upon the judgment-seat, his wife sent
Unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man:
For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of
Him.
(St. Matthew 27. 19)
 
Holy Week has been set aside from the time of the early Church to ponder our Lord’s suffering in silence. Holy Week takes us to the one moment in history that judges all others. Holy Week takes us to the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Following Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, he said: All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. (St. Matthew 26.31) Jesus prophesies His silent and lonely death on the Cross. His own Jewish people will demand His death on the Cross. The Romans will facilitate it. His Apostles will abandon Him in fear and cowardice. Peter will deny Him and repent. Judas Iscariot will betray Him and hang himself.

Today, we remember that Jesus Christ predicted what the Jews, the Romans, and even His friends would do to Him. Today, we remember that Jesus Christ would willingly accept their unjust sentencing in order to save us. The envious malice of the Jewish Establishment will not stop Jesus from doing what He must do for us. The political expedience of the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, will not deter Him. The fearful, cowardly, and weak affection of His closest friends and His Mother will not shake Him. The mysterious energy, wisdom, and will of God the Father in the human flesh of Jesus Christ must persist to the end. Christ has come down from Heaven to do the Father’s will for us men and for our salvation. (Nicene Creed) His Mission for us would be seen through to the end. Christ was intent on fulfilling what would be fraught with supreme significance for mankind until the end of time. His Cross would be the place of His sacrifice for us.  

In the face of what leads to Jesus Christ’s Cross and sacrifice for us, we find the Master’s silence. To it, Pilate marveled greatly. (St. Matthew xxvii. 14) Pilate’s wife sent word to her husband, have nothing do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.(ibid, 19) Pilate knows that there is no just cause for Jesus’ trial or punishment. His conscience is stirred, for he finds no evil or crime in the defendant. Why, what evil hath he done? (Ibid, 23) Let Him be crucified, the crowd demands. Pilate, who was want to release a prisoner unto the people at the feast, acquiesced. In response to the passionate envy that threatens further anarchy, we read that, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see you to it. (Ibid, 24) The Jews will confess: His blood be on us, and on our children. (Ibid, 25)

Jesus Christ accepts Man’s judgment on Him. He is rejected by virtuous pagans, righteous Jews, and His own Disciples. Jesus Christ will surrender to the unjust, unearned, and undeserved justice of fallen man. Let them do their worst. Jesus Christ is not only Master of Himself, He is also their Master as well. (The Christian Year in the Times) The Divine Providence, which is to say the Divine way, truth, and life made flesh, must continue to be Himself. Christ has a work to do, come what may. He embraces Divine Permission to do what He must to save us all. His sacrifice will be conditioned and caused by Man’s arrogance, enmity, envy, and bitterness. So be it. He will do what He must to save us. In all humility, with courage, and through faith, hope, and love, Christ will suffer and die. His sacrifice and suffering, as painful as they will be, will be well worth His good work for us.

Today, in silence, as we contemplate the trial of Jesus Christ, we cannot help but be sore amazed at what His suffering and sacrifice will mean for us. The aid of all creatures has been denied Him. He is alone with the Father. He and the Father, through the Spirit, will effect our salvation. His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane commences His final work for us. There, He comes to know the nature of evil as the source of ongoing suffering and sorrow. There, He comes to know how evil, freely willed by friend and foe alike, forever divides Man from God and Man from Man. There, evil has one last go at Him, and He feels the sense of its looming nothingness and darkness. He does not fear death. Rather, He must bear and endure the nothingness and darkness of sin, and the desolation of all men who have been and will be destroyed by it. Jesus Christ, God’s Word and Will made flesh, must be emptied, made poor in spirit, to save us by God’s Grace alone. O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. (St. Matthew xxvi. 39)

This morning, with St. Paul, we remember that though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2. 6-8) Jesus Christ empties Himself of all Divinity, in order that pure human powerlessness might be placed back in the hands of God the Father, the Creator and Redeemer of Mankind. He will not desperately grasp onto, clutch, or seize His Divine Power in the hour of His human impotence. Rather, He will obey, fear, and follow the Father as Man, found in the form of a servant, in human form, humbled, for us men and for our salvation. (idem) He will become the New Man, the Second Adam, who will be the servant of the Father because God’s will and Word alone suffice to save us.

This week, I pray, that each of us shall discover that Jesus Christ brings us into His suffering and sacrifice in order to give us new life. In Jesus Christ, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2. 22, 23), let us begin to see the Word of God’s Wisdom and Love in the power of His suffering and sacrificed flesh. Christ is a servant of God alone. Curiously enough, I believe that we shall begin to see how suffering, sacrifice, and death are being made into something new and good. For, as we approach Christ and His Cross, we do well to remember that He dies for us on a Friday that is forever called Good. On Good Friday, what threatens to be judged by Fallen Man as tragic, is made Good by the only one who can make it so. And while we can never say that He did not suffer pain and utter humiliation at the hands of sinful men, we must also say that He endured it all in perfect compliance and purposeful acceptance with the Father’s will for our salvation. Jesus Christ has accepted the truth of the age-old maxim, no pain, no gain, no Cross, no Crown.

On this Palm Sunday, we sing Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. And without a beat, we find our joy turned to malice, as we, with the Ancient Jews, cry Crucify Him. Crucify Him. Let him be crucified. Fallen Man is a mess. We are a schizophrenic mess. Once again, in this Holy Week, we can be silent and still to learn how to see and know what God in Jesus Christ does for us.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53. 4,5)
 
This Holy Week, let us listen to the silent Word of God’s Wisdom and Love that reveals power and life in the heart of our dying Lord. Let us listen as God’s Word of Wisdom and Love makes innocent sacrifice and suffering the occasion for His persistent pursuit of our salvation. Let us listen to the God’s Word of Wisdom and Love that calls us into sacrifice and suffering. Let us be determined to be embraced by that Wisdom and Love which offers Himself to God and to us in that simultaneous knot of fire that purges away all sin, pride, envy, and cruelty. Let us be determined to find the forgiveness of sins in the One who gave Himself for us absolutely and completely as Man to God and God to Man.

The Cross is the center of the world’s redemption. The Cross is the new Tree of Life, which blossomed first on Calvary, whose fruit has strength to induce all men to partake of God’s Glory. (The Christian Year in the Times, 1930) On the Cross, the pure and perfect Son of God made flesh, Jesus Christ, makes us right with God the Father once again. There alone, through the good work of Jesus Christ for us, on Good Friday, in His sacrifice, suffering, and death, we should begin to find the forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness of sins is Christ’s chief end and purpose. Sacrifice, suffering, and death are Christ’s means to obtain it for us. For no other reason than love for us and our salvation, Jesus Christ becomes the forgiveness of sins. In becoming the forgiveness of sins, Jesus Christ crowns a life of giving Himself back to the Father, to do His will, come what may, against all opposition to it. In becoming the forgiveness of sins, Jesus Christ becomes the fruit of the new Tree of Life, food for our glorious immortality.

Amen.
©wjsmartin