Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion - Year A
Commentary of the day
Pope Francis
Homily of 24/03/2013 (trans. © copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
« Hosanna ! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord ! Blessed is the coming kingdom! » (Mk 11,9f)
Jesus enters Jerusalem. The crowd of disciples accompanies him in festive mood... The crowds acclaim him as King. And he does not deny it, he does not tell them to be silent (Lk 19,39-40). But what kind of a King is Jesus? Let us take a look at him: he is riding on a donkey, he is not accompanied by a court, he is not surrounded by an army as a symbol of power. He is received by humble people, simple folk who have the sense to see something more in Jesus; they have that sense of the faith which says: “Here is the Saviour.”
Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honours reserved to earthly kings... he enters to be scourged, insulted and abused... He enters to receive a crown of thorns, a staff, a purple robe: his kingship becomes an object of derision. He enters to climb Calvary, carrying his burden of wood... to die on the Cross. And it is precisely here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross!... Why the Cross? Because Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including the sin of all of us, and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God.
Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money... Love of power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation! And – as each one of us knows and is aware - our personal sins: our failures in love and respect towards God, towards our neighbour and towards the whole of creation. Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the Cross. Christ’s Cross embraced with love never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved and of doing a little of what he did on the day of his death.
Matthew 21:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
Philippians 2:6-11
Matthew 26:14-27:66
Bethphage is a small town on the Mount of Olives, the hill in front of the Temple of Jerusalem. Jesus' ride is short but important. He travels over the crest of the Mount of Olives, down past the Garden of Gethsemane, through the Kidron Valley and up to the gates of Jerusalem. The crowd becomes increasingly excited because Jesus' actions are the fulfillment of a prophesy of Zechariah: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Zech 9:9).
The crowds proclaim that Jesus is the son of David, the son of a king. Not only is he the humble king promised by Zechariah; he is proclaimed to be the Prophet-like-Moses promised in Deuteronomy (18:15). The crowds cry out: "Hosanna", which originally meant "rescue us" or "save us" and gradually came to be a word of praise and jubilation. Pope Benedict also explains that: "By the time of Jesus, the word had also acquired Messianic overtones. In the Hosanna acclamation, then, we find an expression of the complex emotions of the pilgrims accompanying Jesus and of his disciples: joyful praise of God at the moment of the processional entry, hope that the hour of the Messiah had arrived, and at the same time a prayer that the Davidic kingship and hence God's kingship over Israel would be reestablished" (Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2, 7).
The first reading emphasizes the humility of Jesus, the Son of David and the Servant of the Lord. Jesus is the one who sets his face like flint, determined to undo the curse of Adam. Jesus will give his back to the scourge and not raise his arms to shield his face from the vicious blows of the Passion.
Throughout Jesus' passion, Psalm 22 is his prayer. It is thirty-one verses long and moves from a questioning cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (22:1), to a song of praise, "In the midst of the congregation I will praise you" (22:22). It is a psalm that looks forward to the day when all the nations shall turn to the Lord and worship before him. "For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations" (22:27). It is the psalm that accompanies Jesus in his humble and obedient death on the Cross. It is the psalm that Jesus will pray as he is nailed to the Cross and watches the soldiers divide his garments and cast lots for his clothing (Psalm 22:18; Matthew 27:35).
The Cross, however, is not the last word. It is actually a new beginning. It is the beginning of a new, redeemed humanity. The Old Adam introduced sin and death into the world through his disobedience; the New Adam, Jesus Christ, introduces grace and life into the world through his obedience. The path to new life is that path marked out for us by Jesus: humble self-emptying and self-giving, filial obedience to God's word, daily acceptance of the Cross, death to sin, unwavering hope and trust in the Lord, rising to new life in Christ, glorification of the Father. If we die with Christ, we shall rise with him to glory (2 Timothy 2:11).