Palm Sunday

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And he answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marveled greatly.
(St. Matthew 27. 19)
 
There is a good deal of quiet that is meant to surround us as a response to the Passion and Crucifixion of the Son of God during Holy Week. Holy Week has been set aside from the time of the early Church to ponder our Lord’s suffering in quiet stillness. If we approach this time with the quiet concentration that it commands, we will, no doubt, find that it assaults and confounds our human reason, as it wrenches our hearts from the fulfillment of their usual desires. But if we sustain the stillness, and with a silent mind ponder the unfolding drama of Holy Week, a reassuring blanket of divine quiet might begin to warm the soul this week, enveloping it with the Word that desires to be made flesh in us so that we might journey with Jesus from death to new life.

In the lections for today, we already begin to observe the truth that will emerge from the trial, arrest, and condemnation of Jesus Christ. There is a lot of commotion. Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judaea, wants a different kind of quiet than what we are in search of. He is more than a little bit irritated by the chaos and confusion caused by Jesus of Nazareth’s entry into Jerusalem on what should have been just another Friday afternoon in a relatively insignificant outpost of Caesar’s Empire. He seems to be what one might imagine a Roman governor should be in one of the provinces of Augustus Caesar’s expansive Empire -prudent, Stoical, but firm. He does not seem to be impressed by the religion of the local Jewish Aristocracy, which has stirred up the people of Jerusalem against this Jesus of Nazareth. He is commissioned with enforcing the Pax Romana –the peace of Octavian, that has successfully brought law, order, and prosperity to the then civilized world. Earthly calm and peace comprise his vocation. The chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: and when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. (St. Matthew xxvii. 1) The Jews have told Pilate, according to St. Luke that they had found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ a King. (St. Luke xxiii. 2) Pilate needs just cause. He asks Jesus, Art thou the King of the Jews? (Ibid, 11) Jesus answers, So you say. (Ibid, 12) Pilate is wholly skeptical.  If the accused has not violated the law or given just cause for unrest, he is bound by Roman Law to release him. So, he will aim at reestablishing order. In the service of Roman Law, he will allow the Jews to judge Christ themselves, or send Him to Herod. (St. Matthew xxvii. 14) Needless to say, none of this works. To complicate matters, another kind of deafening quiet and silence is found in this Jesus of Nazareth. It will be so unsettling that Pilate marvels greatly. (Ibid, 14) For Pilate knows that out of envy the Jews have delivered Jesus up. And their jealousy threatens the Pax Romana. The city’s peace must be maintained. Caesar’s rule cannot be questioned. Pilate’s wife will tell him to have nothing do with that just man (St. Matthew xxvii. 19) and in a sense, he will try to do just that. But the crowd will demand that Barabbas be released and Jesus crucified. Pilate demands quiet and then finds himself drawn into the noisome conflict: Why, what evil hath he done?(Ibid, 23) Pilate will exclaim. The Jews are not interested in facts. When a people hates a man they will invent all manner of exaggerated malicious lies to destroy him. They want blood. Let Him be crucified, they cry. So, in response to that determined envy that promises only to breed further chaos and anarchy, we shall 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 Pax Romana is asserted. The Jews will confess: His blood be on us, and on our children. (Ibid, 25) 

Pilate will believe that he has rid the world of Jesus Christ for political expedience. The Jews’ hatred of Him will be quenched. Even the disappearance of His Apostles into hiding seems promising for the silence and stillness of the Roman Peace. The problem seems to have been solved quickly and satisfactorily. The greater silence and stillness in Christ’s heart that ensure His obedience to the Father have not, as yet, startled and triggered others into consciousness of what is really happening. From the firm core or His established determination, His mission and meaning have not yet found fertile ground in men’s souls. So, the external chaos of this week will drive them into the world of madness, fear, and desperation. Then saith Jesus unto them, 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) God’s own Good Shepherd and Sacrificial Lamb, it would appear, is rejected on a number of different levels, and for a variety of reasons. Men always find ample justification for doing away with and killing Jesus Christ.

But for a few others, the solid quiet of the dying Son of God will begin to move the ground of their souls. From the still and silent center of His obedience to the Father, this Jesus of Nazareth will begin to turn a world full of lunatics on its head. Christ the Word will be heard and heeded, slowly, even imperceptibly, by those who have chosen to believe and to follow. Even now as the world and its words assault and kill the human Jesus, the Word of God persists and endures in order to speak from the quiet of His dying heart. For this Word made flesh –this Jesus Christ is always dying to Himself and coming alive to the Father for the world. He did not cease to do so, especially when He will be most tempted to through His earthly suffering and death. He came from God and He will return to God. But not before He willingly offers himself to God and man by laying down His life in death so that all might live.

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’s silence and stillness in suffering and death are the centrifugal points around which His mission of service is perfected. Here, He does not desperately pry into the secrets of His Father’s will and plan. He is content to humbly obey. Rather, He prefers to die so that the Father’s will might be realized in Him for all other men. He will become the new Man, the Second Adam, who once again is happily free because, in silence and stillness, He joyfully obeys and fulfills the Father’s desire. He knows that only from that quiet center of His heart can He die to Himself so that the Father’s plan and purpose will emerge into new life.

This week, I pray, that each of us shall make time to travel with Jesus up to His Cross. The world around us is certainly stirred up. But the Word of God in Jesus Christ looks at us with the same quiet determination to share with us the merits of His obedience to the Father. Pilate marveled, the world around us marvels, but we must remain constant and determined. We are going up to the Cross, together, come what may. If we should become sick on our journey up to Jesus’ Cross, so be it. We have opportunity to gather together each day of this Holy Week to do what the Church has always done, especially during times of plague, pestilence, and warfare. To be sure, we are not throwing caution to the wind. Rather, we take our precautions and come together to partake of that food and medicine that, of all things, is sure to see us through this life and on to the next with healthy souls. The Body and Blood of Jesus are far more powerful than any disease or threat…if only we believe.

On this Palm Sunday, we hear Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Next, we hear, Crucify Him, Crucify Him. In the quiet of today, let us remember that 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. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53. 4-6)
Some years back Fulton Sheen described the fear that prevented Pilate from believing Jesus. He wrote: 

“The terror of Tiberius [Caesar] seemed more real to Pilate than the denying of justice to Christ. But in the end, those who fear men rather than God lose that which they hoped men would preserve for them. Pilate was later deposed by the Roman Emperor on a complaint by the Jews — another instance of men being punished by the very instruments in which they confided.”

The terror of this so-called pandemic seems more real to most men than denying justice to Jesus or giving Him His due. What is due to Him is our obedience and faith and love. We are called to do what He has asked us to do. We are called to come together, to give thanks, break bread and pour out wine. We believe that in the quiet of this Holy Communion we shall eat His Body and drink His Blood. We believe that we need His Body and His Blood more than bodily health and earthly cures. We believe that from His quiet stillness, He lovingly longs to give this to us as the only medicine that can cure us of what most ails us. What most ails us is sin. And if we are not cured of that, then we shall be so sick that we might very well go right into Hell, Chinese Flu or not. No Cross, No Crown. 
 
Amen.
©wjsmartin  

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