Sunday 24 March 2024– Palm Sunday (Year B) - The Passion of our Lord from St. Mark
Mass Readings: Is 50:4-7 Ps 22: 7-8, 16-17a, 18-19, 22-23 Phil 2:6-11 Mk 14:1-15:47.
Key Verse to Meditate: "Abba!
Father! All things are possible for Thee; remove this cup from Me; yet not what
I will, but what Thou wilt" (Mk 14:36).
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus,
Today, we begin Holy Week with the celebration of Palm Sunday. Palm
Sunday presents Jesus as a man condemned to die on the cross for you and me. It
is also a commemoration of Jesus entering Jerusalem, being proclaimed as King
and Messiah to complete the work of salvation. It serves as a reminder of the
celebration of the Paschal mystery of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection.
Jesus stands before us as a suffering human person abandoned by everyone. It
was not triumphal in the total sense because, humanly speaking, at the end of
the week, Jesus will be killed. But triumphal in the divine sense, due to the fulfilment
of the prophecies of old about the death and resurrection of our Saviour. Jesus’
final hour of glory and victory has arrived. Jesus’ glory and victory lie in
his self-giving and shedding of blood on the Cross for the salvation of the
world.
Jesus, the Suffering Servant of God
The liturgy of the word of God today, especially the passion
reading from the gospel of St. Mark, focuses on Jesus as the suffering servant
of God, who fulfilled the plan of God through his suffering and death on the
cross. The entire passion narrative could be outlined as follows: It begins in
Bethany. The gospel indicates that it was two days before the Passover and the
festival of Unleavened Bread (Mk 14:1). On the first day of this story, we find
Jesus in the house of Simon the Leper. I am not sure how Jesus was in the house
of a leper, due to purity concerns. Coming into contact with an impure person
like a leper, one cannot enter the temple for worship or sacrifice. Now in
Simon’s house, an unidentified woman in Mark arrives with an alabaster jar of very
costly ointment of nard (Mk 14:3), anointing Jesus' head. Jesus responds by
saying that she had prepared his body for burial, initiating the final part of
his story before his death. This suffering and death were foretold by the
prophets and forewarned by Jesus himself to his disciples. The next part deals
with the preparation for the Last Supper.
"My Time has Come"
Though the focus of the passion reading, or narrative is to examine
the way in which the salvific plan of God is fulfilled in the passion of
Christ, the narrative itself is filled with numerous details, involving
different individuals, setbacks, denials, and betrayals. For example, the
narrative tells us that Jesus was crucified at nine in the morning (Mk 15:25).
The evangelist also notes that Jesus breathed his last at 3 o'clock in the
afternoon (Mk 15:34). We also find that around noon, darkness came over the
whole land until three in the afternoon (Mk 15:33).
Judas, 'One of the Twelve'
One of the prominent figures that we encounter in the passion
narrative is the character and role of Judas. Before the Last Supper, we are
already told of Judas' evil plan to betray Jesus. Many of the details found in
the other Gospels regarding Judas are missing in Mark. It is interesting to
note that Judas in today’s passion reading is referred to as 'one of the
twelve' (Mk 14:10; 43). What is even more surprising is that when Jesus broke
the news about Judas' betrayal, he indirectly mentioned Judas by saying,
"It is one of the twelve” (Mk 14:20) who is going to betray him. What we
understand from these notes is that Judas was considered a close disciple of
Christ until the last minute. He was called by Christ and therefore was an
apostle of the Lord. He was a good man, like many others. He was called just
like the others. I don’t know if he ever understood the person and teachings of
Christ. He betrayed Jesus and received a promise of money (Mk 14:10-11).
The Betrayal of Judas
The factor common to all the Gospels is the prophecy of Jesus about
the betrayal of Judas and the denial of Peter: "Get up, let us be going.
See, my betrayer is at hand." (Mk 14:42). The final warning of Jesus
regarding Judas remains a mystery for us to understand: "For the Son of
Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is
betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born."
(Mk 14:21).
The Betrayal and the Denial -
Difference
Even Peter would deny Jesus
three times, as foretold by Jesus (Mk 14:66-72). Yes, he denied Jesus three
times. The cock crew twice, and Peter had already realized that he had denied
Jesus three times, but he showed true repentance: "And he broke down and
wept." (Mk 14:72). He somehow had hope in Jesus’ forgiveness and mercy.
But for Judas, the only hope was the rope to hang himself: "Throwing down
the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged
himself." (Mt 27:5). In his case, despair overpowered repentance. We will
never clarify the mystery of Judas, nor that of remorse, which alone cannot
change anything. Judas Iscariot will no longer be anyone's
"accomplice".
The Betrayer
In the passion narrative, some details are worth noting. In the
fourth Gospel, St. John indicates that after receiving the morsel of bread,
when Judas went out, it was dark (Jn 13:30), indicating the power of evil and
the bad status of Judas' soul. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus even addresses
Judas, calling him ‘friend’ at the time of his betrayal: "Jesus said to
him, 'Friend, do what you are here to do.' Then they came and laid hands on
Jesus and arrested him." (Mt 26:50). Perhaps it was a last chance that
Jesus gave him to change his mind, reminding him that he was still his friend.
Jesus did not address any other disciple so intimately. Finally, lured by
money, even the Saviour was betrayed. A kiss, supposed to indicate relationship,
intimacy, and respect, was misused and, for the first time in the world,
indicated the person of Jesus: "So when he came, he went up to him at once
and said, 'Rabbi!' and kissed him. Then they laid hands on him and arrested
him." (Mk 14:45).
As in the other gospel texts, Jesus already foretold the last
supper guests about the betrayer: "Truly I tell you, one of you will
betray me, one who is eating with me." (Mk 14:18). But what shocked the
hearers were the following sentence: "For the Son of Man goes as it is
written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It
would have been better for that one not to have been born." (Mk 14:21).
Even in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus senses the presence of Judas coming to
betray him: "Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand."
(Mk 14:42). But in the gospel of Luke, Jesus would at least question him
boldly, which should have troubled the heart of Judas: "Judas, is it with
a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?" (Lk 22:48).
Jesus and the chief priests, the
Scribes, and the Elders
After the arrest, the next part of the passion narrative deals with
the ill-treatment of Jesus at the hands of the chief priests, the scribes, and
the elders: "Immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the
twelve, arrived; and with him there was a crowd with swords and clubs, from the
chief priests, the scribes, and the elders" (Mk 14:43). Even after
arresting him, they took Jesus to the Sanhedrin: "They took Jesus to the
high priest; and all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes were
assembled" (Mk 14:53). Jesus could convince the simple people, non-Jews,
but not the people elected and chosen by God. What a mystery? What a Jewish
religious system against the Saviour who came at the end of times. Their
so-called false knowledge of Scripture and adherence to religion put Jesus to
death: "Some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to strike him,
saying to him, 'Prophesy!' The guards also took him over and beat him" (Mk
14:65).
Jesus and Pilate
After the denial of Peter section, we see that it was the high
priest; and all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes who handed over
Jesus to Pilate, asking him to authorise his crucifixion. Pilate was a coward
and brainless human person, a power mongered man. Though he knew that Jesus was
innocently accused by the religious leaders, yet to please them and to keep his
position safe, he delivered Jesus to be crucified: For he realized that it was
out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over (Mk 15:10). The
soldiers then lead Jesus to Calvary and crucify him there.
My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?
The cry of Jesus from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34), a greatest expression of the feeling of
abandonment and loneliness, must lead us to trust God at all times. The
presence of some loyal disciples of Christ is also noted here: There were also
women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome (Mk 15:40). One faith
filled proclamation of the centurion is enough to console ourselves at the end
of the reading of the passion narration: Now when the centurion, who stood
facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly
this man was God's Son!" (Mk 15:39).
Jesus is indeed a king who surprises
A humble king whom we have yet to learn to know, to love, to
contemplate. He is a king who kneels down and begins to wash the feet of the
twelve disciples. He came down to die for us on the Cross so that we can go up
with him to live forever in God’s presence. He is a king who enters Jerusalem
not with a royal chariot, but with a donkey on loan (Zech 9:9). He has not come
to win glory (Mt 12:19) but to win the hearts of sinners with humility,
poverty, and patience. He is a king who, between the betrayal of Judas and the
announcement of Peter's denial, gives all of himself in the broken bread and in
the chalice of the new covenant. At the place of Golgotha, he was stripped of
all his clothes. Yes, He is a king who strips himself of his clothes amidst the
stunned looks of those present. He is a king without a throne and without a sceptre,
naked and unrecognizable, hanging on a cross. He is also a fragile and
defenseless king like any man. When Peter defended him in the garden, he simply
told him that God could always send legions of angels to protect him. But he
wanted to fulfil God’s will as goes the saying in Ps 39:7-9. He is a king who
dies in complete solitude, as all those infected with coronavirus died. He is a
king who needs a sign to be recognized. The inscription placed on the Cross of
Jesus reads, 'This is Jesus, the king of the Jews'. Jesus is king, but he is a
king completely different from the expectations of his disciples.
Greatness of Jesus' love
This is undoubtedly one of the most mysterious and stupendous
traits of the Cross: Jesus shares abandonment, solitude, poverty, and death
with all the crucifixes of history. Jesus does not save us from death, but in
death, he saves us by radically sharing our poverty and fragility. This is the
greatness of Jesus' love. His weakness is the brightest sign of the power of
his love. Dear friends, the Palm Sunday readings have summarized Jesus' life in
one reading. And we go from joy to sadness, from tranquillity to confusion,
from serenity to anguish. Only the final is missing, so we'll have to wait
until next Sunday. We will live three days in which we will retrace what we
heard today but much more intensely, and finally, on Sunday, we will celebrate!
Points for Personal Reflection
What does the passion of Christ mean to me personally? As I
celebrate the passion of Christ on this great Palm Sunday, what kind of
attitude would I like to carry home and put into practice? Does the suffering
of Jesus and the passion narrative touch my life? How does it affect my
knowledge and love of Jesus? Like the centurion, looking at the way Jesus has
died for our salvation, can we also say with faith, "Truly this man was
God's Son!" Raising the spiritual palms of our souls, may we look at Jesus
our King and say, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the
Lord"!
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