Palm Sunday seems like liturgical whiplash to me. We move from the highest highs to the lowest lows in a matter of minutes. We move from Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the crowds shouting out "Hosanna, save us!" to Jesus's tragic exit with a crowd shouting out "Crucify him, crucify him!"
One of the things I love about Palm Sunday is the way we so fully embody this story. Unlike any other day of the year we take the story and we make it our own by acting it out. We embody the triumphal procession. We gather palm or other branches, we shout "Hosanna", and we process around. And we embody the tragic exit. We don't just listen to the Passion, but we take on the parts. We speak the words and make them our own. It is one of the most powerful experiences of the year to take on a role in the Passion Play. To be Jesus and hear Judas betray you. To be Peter and deny Jesus. To be Pilate and fail to stand up for what is right. To be the Chief Priest and put Jesus's death into motion. Or to be the crowd and cement it.
One of the great tragedies of history is that we Christians, we who follow the one who experienced the Passion, have weaponized the Passion to justify violence against others, to force others to experience suffering like Jesus. It is a tragedy that is counter to everything we know from the teachings of Jesus throughout the Gospels, and from his very own words on the cross when he asks for forgiveness for those committing the crimes against him. We are meant to follow Jesus, not join Pilate. God's love, God's grace, and God's mercy are abundant and Jesus wants to draw us closer to those. The Passion is meant to draw us in and to reflect the ways that we have embodied different characters at different times in our lives.
Probably most of us have embodied every part of this story at some moment in our lives. The Passion is meant to bring up to us the ways that we can be Judas and betray Jesus for our own gain. Or the way that we can deny Jesus like Peter despite all our protests that we are faithful and loyal to the end. The Passion is meant to bring up to us the ways we can be like the Chief Priests, people of deep faith and commitment and care, and yet also full of fear and turn on one of our own. Or how we can be like the crowd and turn on the very one we were cheering just days before. Or how we can be like Pilate and go along with the crowd, to go along with the flow of evil because it is easier than doing what is right. Or the ways we can be like the bystanders who taunt him in the ways that we can taunt and demean and malign those who are suffering.
This embodiment is not just how we have fallen short by acting in a similar manner of the many failures of this event. There are also characters who do the right thing. We can probably embody them, too. Like the centurion who recognizes and speaks out loud the truth, "Truly this Man was God's son." Or like Simon of Cyrene who helped carry Jesus's cross. Or like the thief who recognized his own responsibility for the wrong he had done, but begs for Jesus to carry him into the Kingdom.
And yes, the Passion is also meant to bring up for us the ways that we are like Jesus in the story. He does invite us to take up our cross, after all. He literally invited us to join in this particular story. Embodying the Passion story over the years has drawn me into the deep pain and isolation and loneliness and rejection that Jesus felt when betrayed and abandoned by his friends.
A few years ago I was assigned Jesus and my brother was assigned Peter. I didn't realize he had been assigned that role and was shocked when I heard his voice say, "I do not know him." I had never felt the deep rejection that Jesus felt so accutely as when I heard my brother's voice speak those words. In reflecting later on that moment, I felt that Jesus was in solidatiry with me and all the ways I had felt rejection in my life as well. He knows what that pain is like and he comforts me in it.
Who are you in the story right now? Take this week to reflect on that, to imagine yourself in these different roles. Maybe you'll find several. Maybe you'll find yourselves in the shoes of one of the many characters who have fallen short. Or maybe you'll find yourselves wearing the shoes of someone who has done right. Or maybe like me, you'll look down at your shoes and see that they are mismatched as you see yourself in several characters at once. The Passion is meant to draw us into a deep self reflection on the ways that we have fallen short, the ways that we have suffered, and the ways that we have done the right thing, and to draw us more and more towards that right, that right that is the light of Christ that we will celebrate come Easter morning.
This week, this most holy of all weeks, is a time to go deep into the mysteries of the Passion so that we fully know the joy of the Resurrection.
AMEN
