Palm Sunday

Phil. 2:5-11 * Matt. 27:1-54

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus


In a rather unhappy conversation with a man who aspired to be a priest, I asked the question, “What is it that you want?” He answered me, “I want to be a priest; in fact, I want to be a bishop.” He even said, “Isn’t it right to want to get to the top of your field?” I told him that he should forget the whole idea of Holy Orders for himself. I said I would not help him with it at all. I went on to explain to him that this is not about ambition. Every priest, including the Archbishop, is forever a deacon, that is, a servant. He said that he had never heard that before. Had he not read what Saint Paul tells us? “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” In fact, that is for everyone.


The passage we heard in the Epistle appointed for Palm Sunday, the great Christological passage in Philippians, has been the subject of very important, indeed necessary, theological writing and teaching since the earliest times. In no uncertain terms it teaches us that Jesus Christ is equal to God, that is, by His very nature He is God; as the Creed says, “Light of Light, very God of very God, of one substance (homousion) with the Father.” And, just as St. John tells us that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” St. Paul tells us that this Person, equal to God, was “found in fashion (σχῆμα) as a man.” This passage tells us what John told us: “And the Word was God…and the Word was made flesh.”


And, it goes on to tell how He emptied Himself, which means that He humbled Himself. He remained equal to God, and is equal to the Father as God, but nonetheless took upon Him the form of a servant. And, as a servant He “went about doing good, healing all who were oppressed of the devil. (Acts 10: 38)” Above all, in that role of a servant He was “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”


“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Important as the theological meaning to this whole passage is, the Apostle wrote it for a pastoral reason that included that same call Jesus had made to everyone who would be one of His disciples:


“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt. 16:24-26)”


As we begin Holy Week, we need to hear this call. When I consider the damage that has been done to the Continuing Church, I know that much of that damage was from men who wanted to slice off a portion of the Church in order to rule over something. They were not servants in their hearts.


When the Lord told His disciples that He was going to the cross before entering into glory by His resurrection, it was the same St. Peter, who had only just said his great confession, who took the Lord aside and tried to talk Him out of it. One minute earlier, Peter was told that he was blessed, because flesh and blood had not revealed to him that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The Father had revealed this to him. Jesus then gave a new meaning to Simon’s nickname, Peter, the Rock upon which Christ would build His Church (a special calling that Peter would later fulfill in the early chapters of the Book of Acts). But, now Jesus corrects Peter for speaking the devil’s words.

“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (vss.21-24)”


Well, that only goes to show that Peter was not yet ready, and he would not be ready until he had seen the risen Lord, and until he was filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. He had not yet learned to have the mind of Jesus in him. He had not yet learned the meaning of the cross.


And, we see that ignorance of that way, the way of Christ’s cross, made even this blessed man a mouthpiece of Satan; this same man who had been given the most important of revelations directly by God the Father. He had been given the revelation of Christ’s glory, but he needed to learn the way of Christ’s cross. Jesus resists Peter’s words, of dissuasion from the cross, in a way that is reminiscent of the temptations after His forty day fast in the wilderness.


Whatever your personal opinion may be of Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, it does show the real horror to which the Lord submitted Himself. It is consistent with Scripture and informed by archaeology and history. Roman “justice” was that cruel. The soldiers did get their fun by crowning the Lord with thorns, beating Him and mocking Him after a near fatal scourging that would have killed a weaker man. The theory of Biblical interpretation upon which the movie was based seems to have gone over the heads of many critics, especially over the heads of those who thought it portrayed the Lord as weak or helpless.


From the first scene in Gethsemane, the devil is trying to talk the Lord into refusing the death of the cross, and the burden of carrying the full weight of human sin. It shows a contest, a wrestling match, between the Lord and Satan. When the Lord, in the garden, says to the Father, “not my will, but thine be done,” the moon goes behind a cloud. If the Lord is willing to submit Himself to the power of evil men, then the devil is going to make sure it is as painful as possible, to tempt Him. Recall the words that were flung at Him when He was on the cross:


“Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. (Matt. 27:40-42)”

In fact, the movie was all about Christus Rex, or Christus Victor, that is, that on the cross Jesus was still in complete control as King of kings, and by His death Jesus won the victory.

Listen to the words Jesus spoke:
“Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? (Matt. 26:51-54)

And this:
“Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John 10:17,18)”


Why did Jesus make His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? What is the real reason for His words? “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt… O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. (Matt. 26:39,42)” We know from other occasions that Christ spoke prayers so that others could learn from them, saying when He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, “And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 11:42)”


This is all about why the Lord would so willingly fulfill the Scriptures about the Suffering Servant of YHVH (Isaiah 52:13-53:12): Because without Christ’s cross the will of God is not possible. That gracious will by which we, lost in sin and death, could be saved. “If it be possible,” said Jesus in the Garden. If what be possible? If it were possible that we could be forgiven, that the sins of the world could be taken away—for they could not be taken away unless Jesus gave Himself as the Lamb of God. His prayer in the Garden was not a moment of fear (he expressed no fear, but only sorrow). He did not pray to be spared: In fact, the effect of His words was very much the opposite: “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt… thy will be done.”

He willingly drank the cup of sorrow. And, about that prayer in Gethsemane, He said it for our sake. We need to know that only by His cross, only by His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, was the curse and burden of sin carried away; and that it could not be carried away by any other means. Could God forgive and justify sinners without the cross? No; for He would then be neither just nor holy (Rom. 3:26). Could God then destroy the human race? No, “for God so loved the world…” For our sakes, Jesus submitted to the will of the Father who loved us, Who gave His own Son for us (“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom. 8:32”).


Jesus was Christus Rex on the tree. And he was Christus Victor by His death. In all of this, He also shows us the way to live. If the One Who is equal to God could “humble Himself to behold the things which are in heaven in earth (Psalm 113: 6),” so much so that He “took upon Him the form of a servant,” just who is any one of us? Are you too good to be a servant? Am I? Is anyone here willing to claim a station, in this world, greater than that of God the Son? He became a servant, the Suffering Servant.


Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

PALM SUNDAY

Phil. 2:5-11

Matt. 27:1-54

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus

In a rather unhappy conversation with a man who aspired to be a priest, I asked the question, “What is it that you want?” He answered me, “I want to be a priest; in fact, I want to be a bishop.” He even said, “Isn’t it right to want to get to the top of your field?” I told him that he should forget the whole idea of Holy Orders for himself. I said I would not help him with it at all. I went on to explain to him that this is not about ambition. Every priest, including the Archbishop, is forever a deacon, that is, a servant. He said that he had never heard that before. Had he not read what Saint Paul tells us? “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” In fact, that is for everyone.

The passage we heard in the Epistle appointed for Palm Sunday, the great Christological passage in Philippians, has been the subject of very important, indeed necessary, theological writing and teaching since the earliest times. In no uncertain terms it teaches us that Jesus Christ is equal to God, that is, by His very nature He is God; as the Creed says, “Light of Light, very God of very God, of one substance (homousion)  with the Father.” And, just as St. John tells us that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” St. Paul tells us that this Person, equal to God, was “found in fashion (σχῆμα) as a man.” This passage tells us what John told us: “And the Word was God…and the Word was made flesh.”

          And, it goes on to tell how He emptied Himself, which means that He humbled Himself. He remained equal to God, and is equal to the Father as God, but nonetheless took upon Him the form of a servant. And, as a servant He “went about doing good, healing all who were oppressed of the devil. (Acts 10: 38)” Above all, in that role of a servant He was “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

          “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Important as the theological meaning to this whole passage is, the Apostle wrote it for a pastoral reason that included that same call Jesus had made to everyone who would be one of His disciples:

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt. 16:24-26)” 

As we begin Holy Week, we need to hear this call. When I consider the damage that has been done to the Continuing Church, I know that much of that damage was from men who wanted to slice off a portion of the Church in order to rule over something. They were not servants in their hearts.

When the Lord told His disciples that He was going to the cross before entering into glory by His resurrection, it was the same St. Peter, who had only just said his great confession, who took the Lord aside and tried to talk Him out of it. One minute earlier, Peter was told that he was blessed, because flesh and blood had not revealed to him that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The Father had revealed this to him. Jesus then gave a new meaning to Simon’s nickname, Peter, the Rock upon which Christ would build His Church (a special calling that Peter would later fulfill in the early chapters of the Book of Acts). But, now Jesus corrects Peter for speaking the devil’s words.

“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (vss.21-24)”

Well, that only goes to show that Peter was not yet ready, and he would not be ready until he had seen the risen Lord, and until he was filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. He had not yet learned to have the mind of Jesus in him. He had not yet learned the meaning of the cross.

          And, we see that ignorance of that way, the way of Christ’s cross, made even this blessed man a mouthpiece of Satan; this same man who had been given the most important of revelations directly by God the Father. He had been given the revelation of Christ’s glory, but he needed to learn the way of Christ’s cross. Jesus resists Peter’s words, of dissuasion from the cross, in a way that is reminiscent of the temptations after His forty day fast in the wilderness.

          Whatever your personal opinion may be of Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, it does show the real horror to which the Lord submitted Himself. It is consistent with Scripture and informed by archeology and history. Roman “justice” was that cruel. The soldiers did get their fun by crowning the Lord with thorns, beating Him and mocking Him after a near fatal scourging that would have killed a weaker man. The theory of Biblical interpretation upon which the movie was based seems to have gone over the heads of many critics, especially over the heads of those who thought it portrayed the Lord as weak or helpless.

          From the first scene in Gethsemane, the devil is trying to talk the Lord into refusing the death of the cross, and the burden of carrying the full weight of human sin. It shows a contest, a wrestling match, between the Lord and Satan. When the Lord, in the garden, says to the Father, “not my will, but thine be done,” the moon goes behind a cloud. If the Lord is willing to submit Himself to the power of evil men, then the devil is going to make sure it is as painful as possible, to tempt Him. Recall the words that were flung at Him when He was on the cross:

“Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. (Matt. 27:40-42)”

In fact, the movie was all about Christus Rex, or Christus Victor, that is, that on the cross Jesus was still in complete control as King of kings, and by His death Jesus won the victory.

            Listen to the words Jesus spoke:

“Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? (Matt. 26:51-54)

And this:

“Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John 10:17,18)”

Why did Jesus make His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? What is the real reason for His words? “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt… O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. (Matt. 26:39,42)” We know from other occasions that Christ spoke prayers so that others could learn from them, saying when He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, “And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 11:42)”

This is all about why the Lord would so willingly fulfill the Scriptures about the Suffering Servant of YHVH (Isaiah 52:13-53:12): Because without Christ’s cross the will of God is not possible. That gracious will by which we, lost in sin and death, could be saved. “If it be possible,” said Jesus in the Garden. If what be possible? If it were possible that we could be forgiven, that the sins of the world could be taken away—for they could not be taken away unless Jesus gave Himself as the Lamb of God. His prayer in the Garden was not a moment of fear (he expressed no fear, but only sorrow). He did not pray to be spared: In fact, the effect of His words was very much the opposite: “nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt… thy will be done.”

He willingly drank the cup of sorrow. And, about that prayer in Gethsemane, He said it for our sakes. We need to know that only by His cross, only by His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, was the curse and burden of sin carried away; and that it could not be carried away by any other means. Could God forgive and justify sinners without the cross? No; for He would then be neither just nor holy (Rom. 3:26). Could God then destroy the human race? No, “for God so loved the world…” For our sakes, Jesus submitted to the will of the Father who loved us, Who gave His own Son for us (“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom. 8:32”).

Jesus was Christus Rex on the tree. And he was Christus Victor by His death. In all of this, He also shows us the way to live. If the One Who is equal to God could “humble Himself to behold the things which are in heaven in earth (Psalm 113: 6),” so much so that He “took upon Him the form of a servant,” just who is any one of us? Are you too good to be a servant? Am I? Is anyone here willing to claim a station, in this world, greater than that of God the Son? He became a servant, the Suffering Servant.


Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

PALM SUNDAY

This is a re-run from last year.




We enter into the drama of the Gospel this week. No more powerful expression of the feeling of this week has ever been produced than the opening chorus of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. The very sound of it evokes deep emotion, as music paints a picture of something beyond suffering. It is the willingness of love to embrace suffering, to own it, and in so doing to give the great gift of charity. It is our sorrow at Christ’s pain and death, but a sorrow of gratitude producing in us the love we could not have without His sorrow, His gift to us. The heart of the drama, as Bach put it into music, as Grunewold painted it, as countless poets have hymned it, and as Mel Gibson put it on the screen, is not the drama of a tragic figure whose life is wrongly taken in a Kafkaesque trial, a mockery of justice. It is the drama of the One Who loved us unto death, and gave that life which no man could take from Him.

This strikes us in our hearts and moves us to love Him, and it awakens our consciences from their slumber. Not because we feel guilty, though it is popular to say that our sins crucified Him. But in truth, our sins had no power over Him. In answer to the question, "Why did He have to suffer and die?" we answer that He had to have done nothing. Indeed, He owed us nothing. He did not die because He had to, or because we made Him do so. Pilate had no power over Him, the priests and Sanhedrin had no power over Him, the soldiers of Rome who beat, mocked and crucified Him, had no power over Him.

Hear the words Christ had spoken a while before ascending to Jerusalem:

"Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father (John 10: 17, 18)."

Remember, as we will read on Friday the Gospel of John, that when they came to arrest Him, they all fell backward, and could not stand up until He spoke again and allowed them to do so. And, as St. Matthew tells us, He spoke these words to Peter:

"Put up thy sword into his place...thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be (Mat. 26: 53, 54)?"

The One Who prayed in the Garden, "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt" and said "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down His life for His friends" would show greater love than is possible for human strength, as He would die for His friends and His enemies. "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8)." He set His face as a flint; His face was set toward Jerusalem. No man could make Him go there; no man could send Him to the cross.

So our consciences are stricken, and our hearts afflicted, by something more profound than guilt; we are brought low, and moved, by this true drama, to gratitude, to give thanks with tears, moved to love, all of which restores to us hope, and faith, and charity for all. Our consciences are cleansed by His death, and made new. They are made active; they stir to holy living. No longer is our life a matter of rules for the sake of rules, laws for the sake of laws. The Law is written on our hearts by the Holy Ghost along with the deepest recognition that we could not give enough thanks to our Redeemer had we a thousand tongues to sing, and that we will never stop giving thanks for eternity, unto ages of ages, or world without end. It is now personal. "We love Him because He first loved us."

We are moved beyond the power of words to tell, not because the cross of Christ makes us guilty in forcing Him to bear our sins; but, rather, because the cross removes our guilt, we are moved to gratitude and to love. It is because He "bore our sins in His body on the Tree (I Peter 2:24)." "He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bare the sin of the many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Isa. 53: 12)." This was the Divine plan, about which we had no say, in which we had no input. Like life itself, it is the free gift of the Triune God to creatures dependent upon His grace, grace to live, and now grace to be restored to His favor. Think upon the words we have read from that famous passage of St. Paul to the Philippians, that He "was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

What can that mean if not that the death of the cross was the Divine plan? This is a profound mystery. We can understand the principle that the death of the One Who was without sin, Who never deserved the wages of sin, reverses death and brings eternal life. That His death is, therefore, the sacrifice offered to God by the Righteous One of Himself for all sinners is plain enough as a theological principle, and is itself demonstration of the love of God for the fallen children of Adam. But, the death of the cross, the death of severe pain and humiliation, involving the worst physical suffering man can feel, coupled with all of the shame and torment of cruel mocking and scourging. Why was this the Divine plan? What does each stripe mean? What means the piercing of thorns and nails, the contempt and anger, the beating over the head with a reed? Why the derision of heartless enemies added to the pain of crucifixion? What is all of this about?

The answer, as is written in the First Epistle of Saint Peter, is that He “bore our own sins in His body on the tree.” We are proud, are we not, of our minds? Can we not out think all creatures on earth? But, how does God view the vain and selfish use of our minds? He crowns our proud intellects with thorns. We are proud, are we not, of the work of our hands? Have we not made things greater than the Tower of Babel itself? But, what thinks the righteous God of the selfishness with which we labor? Our hands deserve the piercing of nails. We are proud, are we not, of how we walk before God and men? We suppose that we are not like other men, and are just humble enough to render proud thanks as we pray thus to ourselves, "God, I thank thee." But, in the eyes of God our own standard of righteousness tends to self-flattery. What says He of our walk, but that nails should be driven through our feet?

But, I think I only scratch the surface of this mystery. Certainly, nothing that happened to the Son of God was an accident. He allowed it all, so it all has meaning, and the mystery is more profound than I can say, of what it means that "He bore our own sins in His body on the tree." The cross shows us the Divine sentence upon our sins, and yet, remember, that we had no power to crucify Him.

On this Palm Sunday, let us look at the determination with which He fulfilled His mission. Nothing could keep Him from the purpose for which He came as a Man, and took upon Himself our nature. In the movie The Passion of the Christ, the "bad" thief, the one who does not fear God even while dying, is filled with anger at the sight of the Lord embracing His cross. "Fool!" he yells, "Why do you embrace your cross?!" Christ entered Jerusalem, unmoved by the praise of the crowds, for He had not come to be their King, not yet. He had come to be priest and sacrifice. The great drama of this coming week, the drama Bach expressed so powerfully through music, the drama we feel this day, and which will break our hearts on Thursday night and Friday, is the drama of His love, which produces our love, our thanks; and that afflicts our hearts with both pain and comfort at once. We, though undeserving, are loved.

Palm Sunday

We enter into drama of the Gospel this week. No more powerful expression of the feeling of this week has ever been produced than the opening chorus of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. The very sound of it evokes deep emotion, as music paints a picture of something beyond suffering. It is the willingness of love to embrace suffering, to own it, and in so doing to give the great gift of charity. It is our sorrow at Christ’s pain and death, but a sorrow of gratitude producing in us the love we could not have without His sorrow, His gift to us. The heart of the drama, as Bach put it into music, as Grunewold painted it, as countless poets have hymned it, and as Mel Gibson put it on the screen, is not the drama of a tragic figure whose life is wrongly taken in a Kafkaesque trial, a mockery of justice. It is the drama of the One Who loved us unto death, and gave that life which no man could take from Him.

This strikes us in our hearts and moves us to love Him, and it awakens our consciences from their slumber. Not because we feel guilty, though it is popular to say that our sins crucified Him. But in truth, our sins had no power over Him. In answer to the question, "Why did He have to suffer and die?" we answer that He had to have done nothing. Indeed, He owed us nothing. He did not die because He had to, or because we made Him do so. Pilate had no power over Him, the priests and Sanhedrin had no power over Him, the soldiers of Rome who beat, mocked and crucified Him, had no power over Him.

Hear the words Christ had spoken a while before ascending to Jerusalem:
"Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father (John 10: 17, 18)."

Remember, as we will read on Friday the Gospel of John, that when they came to arrest Him, they all fell backward, and could not stand up until He spoke again and allowed them to do so. And, as St. Matthew tells us, He spoke these words to Peter:

"Put up thy sword into his place...thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be (Mat. 26: 53, 54)?"

The One Who prayed in the Garden, "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt" and said "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down His life for His friends" would show greater love than is possible for human strength, as He would die for His friends and His enemies. "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8)." He set His face as a flint; His face was set toward Jerusalem. No man could make Him go there; no man could send Him to the cross.

So our consciences are stricken, and our hearts afflicted, by something more profound than guilt; we are brought low, and moved, by this true drama, to gratitude, to give thanks with tears, moved to love, all of which restores to us hope, and faith, and charity for all. Our consciences are cleansed by His death, and made new. They are made active, they stir to holy living. No longer is our life a matter of rules for the sake of rules, laws for the sake of laws. The Law is written on our hearts by the Holy Ghost along with the deepest recognition that we could not give enough thanks to our Redeemer had we a thousand tongues to sing, and that we will never stop giving thanks for eternity, unto ages of ages, or world without end. It is now personal. "We love Him because He first loved us."

We are moved beyond the power of words to tell, not because the cross of Christ makes us guilty in forcing Him to bear our sins; but, rather, because the cross removes our guilt, we are moved to gratitude and to love. It is because He bore our sins in His body on the Tree. "He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bare the sin of the many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Isa. 53: 12)." This was the Divine plan, about which we had no say, in which we had no input. Like life itself, it is the free gift of the Triune God to creatures dependent upon His grace, grace to live, and now grace to be restored to His favor. Think upon the words we have read from that famous passage of St. Paul to the Philippians, that He "was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

What can that mean if not that the death of the cross was the Divine plan? This is a profound mystery. We can understand the principle that the death of the One Who was without sin, Who never deserved the wages of sin, reverses death and brings eternal life. That His death is, therefore, the sacrifice offered to God by the Righteous One of Himself for all sinners is plain enough as a theological principle, and is itself demonstration of the love of God for the fallen children of Adam. But, the death of the cross, the death of severe pain and humiliation, involving the worst physical suffering man can feel, coupled with all of the shame and torment of cruel mocking and scourging. Why was this the Divine plan? What does each stripe mean? What means the piercing of thorns and nails, the contempt and anger, the beating over the head with a reed? Why the derision of heartless enemies added to the pain of crucifixion? What is all of this about?

The answer, as is written in the First Epistle of Saint Peter, is that He “bore our own sins in His body on the tree.” We are proud, are we not, of our minds? Can we not out think all creatures on earth? But, how does God view the vain and selfish use of our minds? He crowns our proud intellects with thorns. We are proud, are we not, of the work of our hands? Have we not made things greater than the Tower of Babel itself? But, what thinks the righteous God of the selfishness with which we labor? Our hands deserve the piercing of nails. We are proud, are we not, of how we walk before God and men? We suppose that we are not like other men, and are just humble enough to render proud thanks as we pray thus to ourselves, "God, I thank thee." But, in the eyes of God our own standard of righteousness tends to self-flattery. What says He of our walk, but that nails should be driven through our feet?

But, I think I only scratch the surface of this mystery. Certainly, nothing that happened to the Son of God was an accident. He allowed it all, so it all has meaning, and the mystery is more profound than I can say, of what it means that "He bore our own sins in His body on the tree." The cross shows us the Divine sentence upon our sins, and yet, remember, that we had no power to crucify Him.

On this Palm Sunday, let us look at the determination with which He fulfilled His mission. Nothing could keep Him from the purpose for which He came as a Man, and took upon Himself our nature. In the movie The Passion of the Christ, the "bad" thief, the one who does not fear God even while dying, is filled with anger at the sight of the Lord embracing His cross. "Fool!" he yells, "Why do you embrace your cross?!" Christ entered Jerusalem, unmoved by the praise of the crowds, for He had not come to be their King, not yet. He had come to be priest and sacrifice. The great drama of this coming week, the drama Bach expressed so powerfully through music, the drama we feel this day, and which will break our hearts on Thursday night and Friday, is the drama of His love, which produces our love, our thanks; and that afflicts our hearts with both pain and comfort at once. We, though undeserving, are loved.

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The Collect: Palm Sunday

The Prayer, Latin

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui humano generi ad imitandum humilitatis exemplum, Salvatorem nostrum carnem sumere, et crucem subire fecisti: concede propitius; ut et patientiae ipsius habere documenta, et resurrectionis consortia mereamur.

The Prayer, since 1662 (slightly altered from 1549)

Almighty and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love toward mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility; Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Commentary

Cranmer preserved the ancient prayer from the Sarum Missal, originally from the fifth century Gelasian Sacramentary. It may be noted that he did rearrange clauses in his translation, in order to make better English of it, but without disturbing the content at all. The result is a singularly happy combination of rich content and truly satisfying form.

It should be noted that, though the day is called Palm Sunday, the entry to Jerusalem and the palms are mentioned only in the traditional introductory ceremonies, used in part or in full in most of our churches, and that the Mass itself does not mention the entry nor the palms, either in the prayers or in the readings. The Mass is very strictly of the Passion of Our Lord.

Meditation

“So God loved the world
that he gave his only-begotten Son …”

Salvation begins in the heart of God.
Before the very foundation of the world,
before the first sin has been committed,
before you and I are born,
or even dreamed of upon this earth,
he loves us with an everlasting love.
Out of that love he determines, before the need arises,
to speak the everlasting Word
. . into the body of a teenage girl
brought out in due time from her own mother’s womb.
The Word becomes flesh and dwells among us.
He is our God and He is our Brother
. . and He takes the weight of our sins upon Him,
and with them is nailed to the Holy Cross,
. . and with them is put to death.

O what love!
O what humility!
that He should give Himself whole and entire
. . for those who have denied Him!
that He should willingly taste the penalty
. . that we have earned!
Who crucified Him?
I crucified Him,
and He yet loves me.

May we be filled with His heart.
May we be transformed into His image.
May His love flow through us and
. . from us into this suffering world.
May our mind be as His,
. . and His humility lived out within us.
May we follow Him in His death and in his rising
to the fullness of life
. . both here and in the world to come.