Today we have two readings from the Gospel of Mark. Palm Sunday is only day in the liturgical cycle with this special feature. But it is not only that. The narrative of the Lord’s Passion is particularly long, and it is recommended that the homily be kept as brief as possible.
The word “proximity” can help us get into the spirit of the Passion. In a recent homily, a link was made that closeness to the sacred is salvific. It may explain the surge of people coming for the services during these most holy days of the Christian calendar. If staying near to Jesus saves, then it is what we ought to do.
The Gospel at the beginning describes Jesus making His triumphant entry into His city, reclaiming the capital, not as a lordly sovereign but rather as a lowly servant, not riding on a steed of war but rather on a beast of burden. Our King is not only meek, but He is soon to be humiliated.
This is the Passion of the Lord and this is the “proximity” we are invited to. Follow Him closely so that we can more deeply appreciate our salvation.
But what have we done?
We have domesticated the Cross, tamed it and turned this compelling badge of belief into an anaemic accessory of adornment. This is inevitable as we have embraced a therapeutic mentality that seems to cling to the crutches of “feeling good”. In a sense, we have reduced “being good” to “feeling good” or therapy. As a result we banish the discomfort that naturally arises from being good or we attempt to eliminate the struggles that comes with the cultivation of moral excellence.
We have forgotten that every endeavour that leads to the Good must somehow involve the Cross. An example to illustrate this is something we all have experienced before: a baby’s teething problem. The pain which is indicative of growth is a good which we, in our fear of suffering will try to eradicate. The basic principle we apply to everything good in which there is pain involved is that we try to get rid of the pain. It means that we want the end result without going through the process of growing. Like the itch which signals that a wound is healing. We want to do away with the itch because we find it difficult to endure the slow progress of healing. In short, banish the process, just jump to the result. We carry this mindset into our religious practices.
But Holy Week requires that we submit to the process. Keep close to Jesus.
The suffering which Jesus undergoes will be excruciating. In the Garden, Jesus begs His Father if He could be spared, not the torture but rather the torment associated with crucifixion. The Cross is one of the most intense instrument of execution fashioned by man. It is designed to inflict optimal bodily harm not in the shortest possible time but stretched to the longest conceivable duration.
The etymology of the word “excruciating” actually brings us back to the cross or the “crux” or “ex cruciare (crucis)”. The taunts, the torments and the tortures are not restricted to Calvary. The cross starts from the get-go. The trial before Pilate with the jeering of the mob, the relentless scourging at the pillar with the soldiers capping a night of tyranny when they fashion a laurel of thorns to mockingly crown Him. The mounting climb must wind through a blood-thirsty swarm of Jerusalem. In the end, the One who survives the disfiguring ascent to Golgotha will be stripped naked and nailed to the Cross.
The next time when we lament that our agony is "excruciating", remember that we are comparing ourselves to the One who hangs on the Tree who is to be shamed by His denudation and as He breathes His last, the loosening bowel leaves nothing to the imagination. The point is that everything is intended for the utter humiliation of He who dies on the Cross.
This entire week, at least until the morning of Holy Saturday is to be filled with the pangs of death. Instead of running away because death is discomfiting, we linger, we stay as we embrace the proximity of redemption.
The nearness to Jesus is NOT a detached indifference on our part. “Not” is the operative word here. We cannot remain uncommitted from our side because we have safely established that salvation history is fundamentally a chronicle of Divine condescension. God called Saul whereas Jesus chose Levi. In other words, God wants to save and He calls out to us, time and again.
We also read of the woman with the haemorrhage who reached out to Jesus to touch the fringe of His cloak. We accept the need to be near to God and even though it might not feel like it, we are like Paul who had mistakenly thought that killing the early Christians was the right way to keep close to God. In the case of Matthew, he readily walked away from his lucrative livelihood at the invitation of the Saviour, which begs the question why. The wealth he had amassed could not fill the emptiness of his hunger for God.
Proximity to the Saviour is our salvation. So, if you are here after an absence, now is a good chance to come nearer to the Redeemer. To cherish Him, we keep a close watch, follow and stay with Him. The liturgy is not designed to make us “feel good”. What we may have done is to reduce it to a love-fest, a kind of therapeutic Woodstock or self-absorbed carnival that “celebrates” God’s care for us. But it cannot be simply a one-sided love to feed our narcissistic appetite to feel good.
It is true that He died for us, but the gate of Jerusalem represents His entrance into the darkness of our fallen world. He enters to triumphantly shine upon it the Light of His grace. If we have not the strength to follow Him in this final act of salvation, at least, stay alert to await Him. Mindful that the palms we held up for blessing earlier are but soulless symbols. We spread not our outer garments but lay for Him the inner garments of our souls graced by the Sacrament of Baptism. Like every process that leads to the good, we are not in control. But, even if you do not feel good, we are certain that salvation is near. To fully grasp His resurrection, we first need to accompany Christ to His death for we will never rise from the dead if we dare not follow Him into the tomb. Echoing His footsteps, we are made partakers of the Cross so that we may also share in His resurrection and His life.
