Walking with Jesus: Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord C

For Sunday, April 13, 2025

Isaiah 50:4-7, Philippians 2:6-11, Luke 22:14-23:56


Our days of Lent are coming to a close. We've lived through many holy weeks, felt terrible at Jesus’ suffering. We must realize that He died for you, for me. We ask the Lord to help us during the coming days. What is the significance of His message for me? He called you and me. We are called not to serve people’s wants but their needs. We serve others. We see that Jesus loved … we are called to love … to love all we see and even the ones we don’t see but are in need. How am I doing? What do these last days tell me about Jesus’ love, God the Father’s love, and the Spirit’s help in loving?

Two points:

First, it is important that the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus tells us about our God. The paradox of Christianity is not only that Jesus died and rose again, but also — importantly — that after His disgraceful form of death, God raised Him to victory. Think on this: that after Jesus’ seemingly complete failure — His rejection, passion and humiliation — God is showing us what His kingdom is about and that it is our way to salvation. Jesus’ cross is the clearest sign of Christianity and God's love. Without the cross, the resurrection of Christ might give us an understanding of God as triumphant, victorious and in heaven, away from us. But combining the cross with His resurrection, we understand God as totally involved with each of our sufferings and that we live as sinners in a sinful world. This shows us a God who is totally compassionate — a God who forgives — a God who loves us each moment amid the whole struggle of human living. The bottom line is, God does not do away with suffering, but shows us a way through it — Just as Jesus did. Am I asking for God’s help?

Second, look at what Jesus is telling us about our own lives, as He is to be a model of Christian life. Jesus makes this clear so many times in the gospels where he invites us to follow Him and somehow die with Him. Luke makes this clear: “If anyone wishes to to come after Me, they must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me.” [Luke 9:23, emphasis added.] For you and me, this means that our whole spirituality as Christians involves being servants of the Lord dying with Christ. As the great theologian Karl Rahner said so beautifully, “the Christian, every Christian, follows Jesus by dying with Him.” This dying is individual and unique because each of us is a unique individual loved by God. So the crosses and pitfalls and difficulties and hurts that come our way each day are our way to follow Jesus. In doing this, we are accepting God's will for you and me this day. As we meditate on Jesus’ passion and resurrection, take some moments to reflect upon what this tells us about our God. Let us also reflect on what it means in our daily following of Jesus, our model. Does it show us His strength, His love, His acceptance of the horrible punishments, His dying on the cross while looking down on each of us and saying, “I love you?” The tremendous Mystic, Julian of Norwich, had a vision of Jesus on the cross and she noticed the blood flowing from the crown of thorns and hearing Jesus’ words: “… is there any other way I can show you how much I love you?”

The first reading from Isaiah is one of the four servant songs that depict a “servant of the Lord who will bring justice, suffer for others, and ultimately be glorified.” The speaker is experiencing both personal insults and physical attacks. He is beaten; his beard is torn at and spat upon — but in spite of all of this he continues with his call and his mission. He knows that God is with him and that God helps him despite all the abuse. He's confident that God’s love and care are forever. Where do I doubt? What do I need from God today? Do I ask? He loves me that much!

Paul is describing to the Philippians the nature and mission of Jesus — first amid humiliation, and second in Jesus’ exaltation by God. We see Jesus’ humiliation: He does not claim the dignity that is rightfully His. He is in human form and He is equal to God. Reflect on this: Jesus empties himself and takes on the human condition. The entire universe is brought under His leadership. He freely gives up the right to the homage that is His. As I live my life, am I about God loving me and creating me to be love to others? Am I the servant?

Luke’s passion narrative is really a series of individual stories. Together they weave a beautiful tapestry of vibrant, colorful and riveting scenes from the institution of the Lord’s supper to Jesus’ farewell instructions on the way to the cross, followed by the crucifixion and His death and burial. Jesus is led off as a criminal, accepting every human humiliation and dying naked on the cross — saying all along, “I love you … are you loving me?” Jesus, I do need you. Help me to love more.

So I reflect on:

• Can I look closely to discover just what kind of savior Jesus is?
• He was tortured and He has been glorified with the name above all other names. Do I realize He continues to suffer with us?

Sacred Space 2025 states:

“Our praying on the passion can be a most unselfish prayer as we focus not on our own needs, but on the sufferings of our Savior. For a prayer, we can take any of the gospel accounts or the stations of the cross or the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary.

“What was it like as a human being to feel the pain of being crucified? ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.’ Jesus never stopped loving those who crucified him.”