March 28,  2010

The Sunday of the Passion
also called
Palm Sunday
 Year C

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49

Click here for sermons from previous weeks

The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY (Retired)

Lent is drawing to a close, and once again we find ourselves beginning Holy Week. Those who attend church services every day this week will hear or see the reading of the Passion of Christ four times, once from each of the four Gospels. We will, once again, experience, as the Twelve and the other followers of Jesus did, transcendent joy and hope and the depths of desolation and despair. And, perhaps, some of us will wonder why the Church asks us to go through all these emotions again, year after year. Don't we know the story well enough by now? Why do we need to participate again, every year, in the joyful, triumphant hope of the palm parade, the shocking betrayal of Thursday night right after the warm intimacy of the Last Supper, and the horrors of hearing the details of the passion and crucifixion?

As you might expect, the answer is not simple. Yes, we certainly do know the story by now, at least in its broad outlines. But every year, we learn more about what it all means. Every year, we come to a different perspective on these events and what they mean for us. Every year, we begin to understand more of what St. Paul meant in the letter to the church in Philippi, which we read from last Sunday, and will read from again today: I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings...I have not yet reached that goal, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. We read that last Sunday. And today, we heard Paul say, Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus....

Finally, let us recall from the reading at the liturgy of the palms, the reason Jesus told the disciples to give if anyone should ask why they were taking the donkey: The Master has need of it.

The mind that was in Christ Jesus, and that Paul prays so ardently that will be in us, too, is clear. At the Last Supper, as we will hear on Thursday evening, Jesus said: I come not to do my own will, but to do the will of my Father who sent me.

Christ Jesus has made us his own, as St. Paul just reminded us. And so we are called to do his will, that is, the Father's will: to bring all peoples of the earth back to knowing, loving and obeying God, and to help Jesus secure the salvation of all...or, as we will pray later, Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. God wants us to help all people to know Jesus Christ and the power of the resurrection, which we will celebrate next Sunday, Easter Day. The Master has need of us to spread the word, to work for the spread of the Kingdom. And our reward will be to enjoy forever the love and intimacy of living the life of Christ with him, in the Kingdom we are called to help him form in the minds and hearts of everyone we know, everyone we meet or influence, in this life.

That, then, is why we are called each year by the Church, the Body of Christ on earth, to give our attention again, and to experience again, the events of this week. We are called to rejoice at the coming of Christ, to rejoice in the hope that the Kingdom will be re-established with him at its head. We are called again to intimacy with him, to sharing in his thinking and feeling, his great hopes and joys, at the last supper he ate on earth. We are called to agonize with him and sorrow at the power of sin and fear and ambition in this world, and at the way so many people, like Judas, are tricked into thinking that good can come about without Jesus being involved in it. We are called to watch in horror as the power of sin makes good people do hideous, terrible things to the innocent, thinking all along that they are doing right. We are called to feel the desolation of a world without God's presence, a world where hope has been destroyed and there seems nothing more to live for. And we are called, too, to think on these things and see how they fit into our own lives.

And then...and then...comes Easter, and we will then be called to see the power of God and the strength that faith in God gives, to accomplish what is not otherwise possible. But that's the story for next week, and that story will have to wait, while we work to understand and learn from the lessons this week holds for us.

So...we are called, this week, to walk with Jesus the Way of the Cross. It begins with the Way of Palms, so we have already begun the walk. Let us walk it with our full attention, giving ourselves as fully as Jesus did to what we can learn from it, and how we can use what we learn to do the work God has given to each of us...the building of the Kingdom.

Amen.

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