April 10 - Palm Sunday
(Lk 19:28-40;Is 50:4-7; Phil 2:6-11; Lk 22:14—23:56)
“Time to show, not just tell”
In this, the longest Gospel reading of the year, we recall the entire Passion of our Lord, from the Last Supper, the arrest of Jesus, the trial, the crucifixion, all the way to the burial in the tomb. In this narrative Jesus shows by example what he has been teaching for the past three years. He had taught that we should appeal to God in prayer. But Jesus in the garden shows us that even our most passionate prayers should acknowledge the supremacy of God's will over our own. He had taught Simon Peter to forgive 77 times (essentially, without limit). But in the Passion narrative he shows that unlimited forgiveness by saying “forgive them for they know not what they do!” referring to those who were crucifying him. He had taught about the law of love, but in his Passion he shows what it means to love by enduring beatings, humiliation, and giving his life for us while we were still sinners. At the very end Jesus shows what it means to put one's entire faith in God when he commends his soul into the hands of his (and our) heavenly father.
The practice of having the congregation speak the lines of the crowd at the reading of the Passion reminds us that we are not innocent bystanders in this drama. Through our sins we participated in the arrest, condemnation, crucifixion and death of Jesus. But Jesus did not come to condemn us for this but to save us from the consequences of our sins.
During Passion Week, Christ shows by his actions what it means to be a Christian.