PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION 

Luke 19:28-40 | Philippians 2:6-11 | Luke 22:14—23:56

Good morning.  Today we’re celebrating Palm Sunday.  It’s the celebration of the Passion of the Lord.  It’s the culmination of all these Sundays we’ve had during Lent that continue to awaken in us an understanding of who God is and what he’s offering us and how it is that he came into the world as a human being and invites us to ponder every single thing that happened to him in his struggle to bring this new world to life.  The world I’m talking about is a world with him.  Intimacy with God is the core of the work of the Passion of Jesus.  He was a human being filled so much with divinity.  It’s impossible to say how this works, but we say that he’s also God.  But his humanity and his divinity, you can see them both struggling, and in this incredible story that we find in St. Luke, this long gospel that almost excludes, by its very nature, a long explanatory homily.  It’s something — I want you to do something unusual, and that’s just to go back and to listen to it over a couple of times and wait for something in it that is there for you. 

Images are so rich in scripture, not so much the words but the images.  If you can imagine, we’re looking at an image of God in the presence of a human being.  So close is this union that it is actually God, and here is God, this awesome, creative force entering into our world and showing us something about who he is and who we are and the intimacy that that difference, in a sense, is designed to become one when we understand this story.  The story is so incredibly important, and this is the one time when the church doesn’t encourage a homily of any kind of length.  Its usual response is that we should all sit in silence and think about what we’ve just listened to, and there’s so much in it that I go back to it.  I’m suggesting that you go back into it and listen to it again and watch for something that seems so perfectly tuned for where you’re struggling right now.  That’s the beauty of inspired scripture.  It’s more than just saying it’s the truth.  It has a way of awakening things that are deep inside of us that are hidden. 

So let’s do this as a — how about a combined homily?  When I do a homily, I have to go back and listen to the readings over and over again and see what is in it that really moves me.  Well, you’re going to be my co-homilists on this Sunday.  You just go back and listen to this story and then wonder about it and feel what I pray is the absolute guarantee of anyone who seeks life through these stories, that you will find that life.  Just as Jesus promises in the midst of all the darkness of this last part of his life, there is life.  There isn’t just destruction.  There is life.  So it’s a perfect way to prepare ourselves for the greatest of all feasts next week, the Feast of the Resurrection, the feast of new life being born inside of us and bursting forth out of a tomb of darkness.  It’s so powerful and beautiful, and the world longs for it so desperately right now as we struggle with the confusion and the darkness that we see all around us.  That darkness can bring light.  The Passion of Jesus proves something about that whole process of giving in to evil, and somehow through that process of knowing that you will conquer it, a new person, a new life is born.  And that’s the heart of the message of scripture: new life, life in light, life in love.  Amen.  The opening prayer: (The prayer is not included.)

My dear brothers and sisters, since the beginning of Lent until now, we have been preparing our hearts by penance and charitable works.  Today we come together to herald with the whole church the beginning of the celebration of our Lord’s Paschal mystery, that is to say his Passion and resurrection, for it was to accomplish this mystery that he entered his own city of Jerusalem.  Therefore with all faith and devotion, let us commemorate the Lord’s entry into the city for our salvation, following in his footsteps, that being made by his grace partakers of the cross, we may have a share also in resurrection and in his life. 

Nourished with these sacred gifts, we humbly beseech you, oh Lord, that just as through the death of your Son you brought us to hope for what we believe, so by his resurrection might lead us to where you call.  And we ask this through Christ, our Lord, amen.