HOLY WEEK 1998 - LOVE SO AMAZING
Preacher: Father James Murray SSC
PALM SUNDAY - LOW MASS Let Jesus be Jesus
"Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." (Zechariah ix. 9.)
"You find there, a colt, that has never been ridden; loose him, and bring him to me" (Mark xi. 2.)
If you know anything about donkeys, it is that they are obstinate, disobedient, and lovable.
But, if you are going to lead a great procession, donkeys are the last thing you would choose to ride on. Yet, on our dear Lord's triumphant day, when he rode into Jerusalem, it was a young colt, not even broken in, that he chose to ride.
I think the disciples, who knew the scriptures and had watched the prophecies being fulfilled, were mightily disappointed. Certainly Judas was. He had already got upset by what he saw as a waste when, only the day before, a woman had come in to the dear Jesus and broken open a cruse of ointment, of spikenard. Very costly!
There was a certain lack of generosity in Judas from Kerioth, a town where zealots planned terrorist acts against the Roman army of occupation. But he was still hopeful that Jesus would now proclaim the kingdom. He was very excited that day, though the choice of a miserable little donkey seemed a mistake to him. He would have liked our dear Lord to ride in on a warhorse, a charger snorting at the nostrils, then the hated Romans could be overthrown, and Jesus could ascend the throne of Israel.
Judas did not know that the kingdom was not of this world, or that the throne would be a cross. He did not know that the crown jewels would be rough, iron nails or that the crown would be a crown of thorns. He did not understand that the sceptre would be a reed, or the regal robe smeared with the blood of Jesus.
He did not know. And he did not want to know.
Of course, sometimes we are the same. We await the vindication of a Palm Sunday when the hosannas will ring true and God will prove himself the way we want.
We know that the world around us, even if it is not antagonistic, just does not care. Why, it has even taken our solemnities and turned them from holy days into holidays, begun selling hot cross buns even before Lent begins, let alone Holy Week, and filled the windows of the city with chocolate Easter eggs and absurd bunny rabbits &emdash; a contemporary mockery almost as offensive as spitting, as the hierarchy of faith in Jerusalem would do to our dear Lord.
But, if the whole city around us greeted the dear Jesus the way they did in Jerusalem so long ago, we would be glad to admit on such a day that we belonged to him. No more hiding it, and no more counterfeit cries of welcome so easily turned to 'crucify'.
So we have to be careful, you and I, not to imagine that we are better than Judas and never think his thoughts or share his disappointments or fail in generosity to our Lord.
It is very important that our recollection of the first Palm Sunday be vivid and real, incised in our memories and our lives so sharply that we do not fall into the trap Judas fell into : of not wanting Jesus to be Jesus, to be our saviour, but simply doing what we want, our will instead of his, obstinate and pigheaded, like a donkey not yet broken in, if you will forgive the animal image.
Perhaps there is some sickness which assails us daily in our bodies or our minds, a relationship which has turned sour. We are broken-hearted though we try to keep it to ourselves. Should we not let Jesus be Jesus to us, our saviour? Or we are scarred by loneliness, except when we join the crowd and wave our palm with others greeting Jesus. He is saviour of the lonely, he is the divine companion. Let Jesus be Jesus to you, a saviour.
Or perhaps you are very successful. You have everything you want. The economy has not hurt you. It has rewarded you. It is easy to be complacent and only wave the palms because the Jesus you see is successful too, coming into the city triumphant, victorious. But you have forgotten the donkey, the sign of humility. For anyone who rides on a donkey, especially one not yet broken in, is a threat to no one. Let Jesus be Jesus to you, a saviour.
Many years ago I was a gaol-chaplain. There was a young man whose father had been murdered, who often came to the vicarage pouring his heart out. It was a heart full of anger. He raged against the man who had killed his father and he knew that every day the man convicted of his death saw me in Pentridge Gaol. There was only one day the angry boy awaited, the day of this man's release. It was his intention to wait outside the gaol and do to him what he had done to his father.
If ever anyone needed Jesus to be Jesus, it was this young man. But until then the name of Jesus was just a swear word to him.
He came to church occasionally, a spectator watching the liturgy like a shadow play. It just happened that he was there on Palm Sunday. The sermon was about forgiveness, about how beautiful it is, and how God in Jesus Christ is our forgiveness.
The angry boy rose up and stormed out of the church. "I don't want to be forgiven," he cried out. "Jesus!" he blasphemed. "Jesus!".
He was like those who do not believe in confession or think it is something for others to go to. They forget that confession does not only cleanse the individual person, but every confession cleanses the church and helps to make it holy. Those who resist the sacrament of penance are denying themselves the ultimate liberation and the chance to bring joy to the dear Jesus, because there is more happiness in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
But sometimes we ourselves do not want Jesus to come, certainly not if he only comes humble and sitting on a donkey. We do not want a Jesus who seems helpless, with the world at his feet, but refuses to take advantage of it.
Of course, the dear Jesus sees the world with all its pains and sorrow and hatreds rather differently from us. When he comes in sight of Jerusalem what does he do? Shout with victorious arrogance that the city will be his? What does he do? Gather a fighting force to overthrow the Romans? Enlist the people for a revolution?.
You will remember what he does when he sees the city from the mount of olives. "As he came near, he saw the city, and wept over it." Luke xix. 41.
Jesus could not be Jesus to Jerusalem. As Saint John has it, "He came unto his own home, and his own home did not receive him."
But we receive him. Jesus is Jesus to us. We know the palms will wither, and the olive branches die. But our saviour will save us from death. He will never die. He is resurrection, and he is life.
But we begin Holy Week knowing that Jesus weeps over the city in which we live, and over all cities. Sometimes he has to weep over us for our lack of faith, for our wrong expectations, but we have this wonderful opportunity to make yet another Holy Week the holiest yet.
How proud the dear Jesus is that you are here today. He sees you with your palm, he hears your cry,"Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." But he longs to have your company all this week. Like the unbroken donkey, he asks your humble service, your obedience, your love.
Let Jesus be Jesus to you, a saviour, and let Jesus in you be a saviour at home, where you work, with the neighbours. Let Jesus find you ready and forgiving, healing the wounds you may have caused, and accepting the burdens you may have to carry, physical suffering or mental anguish or a broken heart or a disappointed hope.
When Jesus entered the holy city, the whole city came out to meet him, but by Black Friday the palms were withered and dead, the olive branches limp and useless.
Black Friday? Black Friday? No, it was Good Friday.
And if you and I keep Holy Week holy, and let Jesus be Jesus to us, the real Jesus, the ultimate saviour, the catholic Christ held up to the world for all to see, then the unbroken donkey will not have ridden in vain.
"When fishes flew and forests walked, and figs grew upon thorn, some moment when the moon was blood, then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry, and ears like errant wings, the devil's walking parody on all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth, of ancient, crooked will; starve, scourge, deride me : I am dumb, I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour; one far, fierce hour and sweet: there was a shout about my ears, and palms before my feet."
