Homily for Palm Sunday, April 10, 2022. Gospel of St. Luke 19:28-40. Theme: What Kind of Savior Do You Expect?
The Triumphant Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday is such an intriguing event that reveals the fickle nature of the human heart. The crowd went from literally giving Him a King’s welcome, to screaming out for his execution just a few days later on Good Friday. However, I think we have to be careful about pointing fingers and judging that crowd. After all, we have the advantage of hindsight. We know who Christ really was and we know how the whole story ended!
But for a moment let’s try and put ourselves in their place. For centuries, the Jewish people had passed on prophecies about the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Anointed One. They told and retold hopeful stories of how he would be a mighty Warrior, a national Hero, a powerful King. He was supposed to be their Rescuer and Liberator who would victoriously eject the cruel Roman oppressors from the Promised Land. That crowd of people looked forward to the day when the Christ would bring to Israel all that they had been praying for and imagined. It was to be the best and happiest time of their lives as a nation, as God’s people.
But when they learned that Jesus of Nazareth, whom many thought might be the Christ, had been taken prisoner and tortured by the enemy, all their hopes for him as the Hero-King were trashed. Turns out He wasn’t their hoped-for Promised One after all. Or to put it better, turns out he wasn’t the kind of Messiah, the kind of Liberating Savior, that they had wanted, that they were expecting.
You see, their idea of liberation and their expectations for happiness were limited to worldly success and political nationalism.
For centuries, their leaders had been reading and interpreting the Scriptures about the Messiah in a way that they thought best. They were searching the Scriptures for what they wanted to see in them. They were praying to God for what they wanted to happen in their nation, rather than asking that his Kingdom come, whatever that might look like.
It’s so very easy for us to judge and condemn the screaming crowd of Jerusalem. And yet…before we point that finger at them…we have to stop and examine our own attitudes towards Jesus and how he acts in our lives. We have to ask ourselves quite honestly if we also read and interpret God's Word in our favor, seeing in it only what we want to see, and ignoring the things that we prefer not to hear. Do we really mean it when we pray in the Our Father for God’s will to be done in our lives?
Let’s each ask ourselves: Have I ever shaken a fist at God, like the people in that crowd, because he wasn’t acting like the kind of Savior I expected and wanted Him to be in my life? Have I grumbled about Him because he was not carrying out the plans I intended, the hopes I set my heart on? Do I trust him enough to be at peace in every circumstance, and especially regarding those that are out of my control, knowing that he has me safely in the palm of his hand, in the recesses of his heart?
As we celebrate Palm Sunday and proceed further into Holy Week, let’s pray for the grace to be faithful to Christ during these most special days of the year and, of course, for all our lives.
Let’s thank Jesus for the most precious Gift of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist, which he gave us on that first Holy Thursday, and through which we remain united with him and with one another.
Let’s venerate the holy and life-giving Cross of Jesus in our hearts, as well as in our liturgy on Good Friday with devotion and confidence, remembering that through the holy cross he has set free from our sins.
And let’s ask the gloriously Risen Christ to bless us with a special Easter gift of trust in him, so that we might remain faithful to him and allow God to just be God in our lives no matter what that might look like, no matter how things may seem, confident that in the end all things will work out for our good, even if we don’t see it that way right now.
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