Palm Sunday

How Christ loved us to His death
The Philippine Star 03/20/2005

GOD'S WORD TODAY By Jesus V. Fernandez, S.J. The curtain is raised today on the drama of Jesus’ Passion and Death with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The faithful wave blessed palms singing "Hosanna to the Son of David" and little girls in white with flower wreaths around their heads scatter flower petals on the path of the procession. Jesus, proclaimed king by the crowd, enters the city where He would suffer and die, a martyr to His divine royal title. Later He would be questioned if He is King of the Jews and He says, I am. In mockery they would put on His head a crown of thorns. Why such a note of triumph as we enter Holy Week with all its sorrowful mysteries? For us in the third millennium, well past the 20th century is the Passion and Death of Christ just an event of long ago, commemorated traditionally as a matter of custom in a Christian nation? Perhaps Holy Week for us may be one extended vacation time, an occasion to places of resort like Boracay and relax along the beaches. Or the Passion of Christ does not specially affect us; we’re just going with the current. How could we possibly think of it as vitally altering our situation especially now in the Philippines when Abu Sayyaf is out to do its terrorism? Did the Passion even make any great difference to the people who were living at the time of the crucifixion? Even if we were disposed to acknowledge that this life can be understood as something like a coming together of the divine and human in Christ, is this not just an isolated instance, a sport that history has thrown up and that becomes less and less important as it recedes into the past? At any rate it is very hard to see how it could be a "saving" event for people today. Confining ourselves to the last few hours of Christ’s life, we may say that the principal "moment" in the drama of the Passion were the agony in the garden, the betrayal and arrest; the trial and scourging; the crucifixion; the burial. We cannot separate Christ’s life from His death on the Cross. For the most part, these incidents in the Passion story and the sayings which they contain (such as the "Seven Words from the Cross") present in an intensified form the same aspects of Christ as we found presented in the earlier series of incidents taken from his whole career. Again we are presented with a human figure seen in depth, so that the divine presence and action in Him may become perceptible. Perhaps two motifs are especially prominent. One is obedience; this comes out strongly in the agony in the garden, which stands at the beginning of the drama of the Passion. And the other motif is absolute self-giving, and this is how Jesus manifests the essential activity of God on the human level. To express the matter briefly, the work of Christ, finished on the cross, as a victory over all the powers that enslave man, and so a deliverance from them. And perhaps it should be added that this victory is always to be understood as God’s victory. This indicates the central place which the Cross has in Christian faith and also to emphasize that the Cross must be seen as the whole work of Christ as revelation of the unfailing love of God for mankind. The example of Christ should be able to move us into obedience. It holds up to us Christ’s life as a model of human existence. The complete self-giving Christ is continuous with the absolute self giving of God. Perfect self-giving love of Christ, understood as the new sacrifice brings God's constant self-giving love to His creation, hence His creatures. Here the absolute self-giving which is of the essence of God, has appeared in history in the work of Jesus Christ, and this is a work on behalf of man, a work of grace. This is about the surest way which lays hold on the human race, empowers a change of direction, brings the dynamic activity of God into the midst of human society, its families, communities and governments. We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You, because by Your holy Cross, You redeem the world. How You have loved us to Your death. Gather all your people and hold them to Your heart. Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Matthew 26:14-27.66 or 27:11-54.