A Tale of Two Gospels

On Palm Sunday the Church places before us the tale of two gospels.

The first gospel, proclaimed at the beginning of Mass, tells of Jesus’ royal entry into Jerusalem – as kingly an entry as anyone could want.  Here Jesus is welcomed with open arms, with palm branches waving in the air, and the chant of the peoples ringing out in the streets, “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”  Jesus is welcomed as a victor and challenger of Roman authority – the palms being an ancient sign of military victory.  But there was a disturbing indication that he would not be a military power – for he was seated on a lowly donkey.  

The second gospel details Jesus’ passion.  We have just recounted it.  It tells the devastating tale of his betrayal, abandonment and death.  This is no glossy, sugar-coated story.  Here the very Son of God is stripped, beaten, and mocked.  He bleeds.  He dies.  Rather than a flight from the suffering and violence of the world, instead the Savior immerses himself in it.  He becomes the suffering servant who ‘does not turn away his face’ from insult and spitting, whose beard is torn loose from his flesh. 

Blessed Guerric of Igny explores further the paradox of these two events recounted in today’s gospels:

If today’s procession and passion are considered together, in the one Jesus appears as sublime and glorious, in the other as lowly and suffering.  The procession makes us think of the honor reserved for a king, whereas the passion shows us the punishment due a thief. 

In the procession the people meet Jesus with palm branches, in the passion they slap him in the face and strike his head with a rod. 

In the one they extol him with praises, in the other they heap insults upon him. 

In the one they compete to lay their clothes in his path, in the other he is stripped of his own clothes.

In the one he is mounted on an ass and accorded every mark of honor; in the other he hangs on the wood of the cross, torn by whips, pierced with wounds, and abandoned by his own. 

Today is a Sunday of juxtaposition.  In this way we begin the week that the Church refers to as ‘holy’.  We begin the countdown to the solemn events that closed the life of our savior.  At this Mass we commemorate the glorious welcome of Jesus in our midst and our devastating betrayal of him into the hands of sinners.  It is not the Jews who are to be held responsible for this but rather all of us who share in this betrayal, because we all walk the path of sin and disobedience.  It is for our sake that the king proclaimed in the royal procession is tortured and put to death.  It is for our sake that the king proclaimed by the marvelous procession into Jerusalem is made to suffer humiliation and sadistic cruelty.  Today’s liturgy reveals to us the scandal of God’s striking abandonment of his royal and divine prerogative.  Here is on display a divinity that does not hesitate to turn upside down every expectation.  To us, the fickle people, Jesus reveals himself as the king, lauded as the Messiah on Sunday and put to death as a criminal on Friday.  Yet Jesus comes forth nonetheless, knowing the miscarriage of justice that will snuff out his life.  He enters triumphant into the city of Jerusalem, treading underfoot the palms laid in his path by those praising his coming…soon to be trod underfoot himself by our own voices, yelling, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’  This Sunday lays bare the opposing extremes present in every human heart.  We welcome the Savior, yet we cannot bear his coming.  We open our hearts, yet we betray in the next breath.  The words of Saint Paul resonate here: “O wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body doomed to death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  If anything this phrase encapsulates our attitude this Sunday.

What is left for us to do on this Palm Sunday?  Pope Benedict relates a closing thought in this regard:

Before Christ – the Fathers said – we must spread out our lives, ourselves, in an attitude of gratitude and adoration.  As we conclude, let us listen once again to the words of one of these early Fathers, Saint Andrew, Bishop of Crete: “So it is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours.  ... so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet ... let us offer not palm branches but the prizes of victory to the conqueror of death.  Today let us too give voice with the children to that sacred chant, as we wave the spiritual branches of our soul: ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel’” (PG 97, 994).  Amen!