Palm Sunday

Bishop Peter Muhich
Homily from the Televised Mass, NewsCenter1
Palm Sunday, April 2, 2023

On this Palm Sunday, this year, we read from Matthew’s Gospel, as we’ve been reading from Matthew pretty much every Sunday of this liturgical year that started with Advent. Matthew’s passion has some unique characteristics. I’ll mention a couple. Of course, all the accounts of the Passion of the Lord in the four Gospels agree on many details.

We should note that great kings and conquerors and emperors in the ancient world always enter their capital city riding on stallions. Jesus Christ, the king of kings, the conqueror of sin and death, the emperor of the universe through whom all things were made, rides into his capital city on a donkey, the most humble beast of burden that he could possibly have ridden into town. Showing us once again in this prophetic action that humble service and sacrifice is the logic of God’s divine love. Jesus has come to save us and we see this same theme taken up on our first reading from Isaiah in the section on the suffering servant where Jesus, of course, fulfills the prophecy that through this servant who suffers many will be saved. 

Christianity turns the world’s instincts upside down. The logic of divine love is a completely different way of life from how we often live in the fallen world. We would like to be on those stallions. We would like to be free from suffering, but God in his infinite love for us enters in and serves us by taking upon the burden that we should bear. Here in that second reading in that famous passage from Philippians chapter two, that Jesus Christ, even though he was in the form of God, emptied himself in the incarnation not only that became a slave, a servant to all, even dying on a cross. The greatest is the one who serves in God’s kingdom. 

Then we read from Matthew’s passion, just now. The passion accounts of Jesus’ suffering and death and resurrection would have been the most ancient parts of the Gospels that were put together by the early church. People wanted to proclaim, those who had come to know Jesus, what he had done in order to save us. 

Again, the greatest is the one who serves. You’ll notice in Matthew’s account of the passion that Jesus remains silent after the last supper. He says very little after the garden following the supper. And some could read that as perhaps as disappointment or despair. That he is sad because he’s resigned to the fact that he will suffer a cruel fate, but that’s not it. His silence here is a sign of confidence in God’s providential plan unfolding. And Saint Matthew, because he’s a Jewish Christian, gives us lots of ways of understanding that Jesus fulfills the prophecies of the Old Testament.

Now, he and his silence is giving us an indication that he trusts his father. Remember, I’ve talked about this in different homilies that as Christians as followers of Christ we don’t believe in fate. Things just happen to us then we become victims of them. We don’t believe in luck. Somehow sometimes life smiles on us, but it’s just a matter of luck. We believe in providence – that God providentially cares for us. We see that in Jesus and his trust in the Gospel of Matthew in this account of his suffering and death. He trusts his father that all will unfold as it should unfold.

My question for all of us as we mark this Palm Sunday this year, is can we trust in God’s providential care and love for us in our passion narratives? We all have them. I’m sure there’s something that you’re struggling with in your life today. Maybe it’s an illness, a serious illness. Maybe it’s a serious illness of a loved one. Maybe it’s a broken relationship. Maybe it’s an old struggle to forgive someone. Whatever causes you suffering in your life, can you trust that God is entering in there in Christ’s suffering and death to bring about a resurrection. Maybe not a quick freedom from suffering but a victory over the forces of darkness in our world that pull us down and get us to think in this upside down way. 

Know the Lord is with us. The church proclaims this every time it celebrates the Eucharist, but especially during this holiest of weeks. That Christ who came among us as the one who serves, as the suffering servant, as the one who entered the holy city on a beast of burden humbly. That he submitted himself to unfair condemnation, in a terrible suffering and death, is truly the victor over sin and death in the world. 

Jesus Christ is Lord. Not all those world leaders riding on their stallions or whatever motorcades they ride in today. But Jesus the one who gave himself completely for us, he truly is Lord, and we can trust him, especially in our own passion narratives when life is difficult for us. That he suffered for us, and is risen for us, and is with us until we make our way, all the way, into the kingdom of heaven.