“Get up! Let us go! My betrayer is at hand.” Today’s liturgy is a liturgy of contrast. We read how Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly riding on a donkey as a king, and how five days later he is carrying the tool of his death, the Cross. We read how Jesus entered Jerusalem to loud acclamations of ‘Hosannas’ and yet five days later the crowd would call for his death ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ “Who is this?” the question asked by the crowd is also the same question that we have to ask ourselves, ‘Who is Jesus to me?’ If we fix or place Jesus into some predetermined mould, and if we are disappointed by what he’s not, we, like the crowd will also call out for his blood. “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The Lord’s invitation is clear today, he is telling you and me to “‘Get up! Let us go!’” He is calling us out of our spiritual slumber, spiritual pride and spiritual apathy to follow him. Jesus’ love for each and everyone of us is not achieved through some lovey-dovey message nor some feel good victorious moments, but Jesus’ love for us is accomplished through the willing of himself into the Father’s will, into the Passion he is to undertake for you and me. Jesus loves us to the end; he is passionate for each and every one of us. “‘Get up! Let us go!’” but where are we now? Am I part of the mindless crowd that just follows around? The presumptuous priests and scornful scribes? Peter and the band of sleepy disciples? Pontius Pilate who declared that he has nothing to do with Jesus after his wife’s dream? Or are we the donkey that Jesus rode on? “‘Get up! Let us go!’” but where shall we go? Jesus reminds us that to follow him has it cost, for he said “My betrayer is at hand”. To follow Jesus is to be a sign of contradiction and to be counter-cultural. It means making a difference because Jesus had made a difference in our lives. It means being ready at all times to deny ourselves, pick up the Cross and follow him daily. It means that we become Christo-tokos, Christ-bearer to all we meet, serve and love. It means being radical and doing the most radical thing in our lives so much so that people will call us crazy. What is this radical thing? “To listen like a disciple… (make) no resistance… to those who struck me…” shown by Christ so beautifully and captured in today’s Philippians’ Canticle “His state was divine, yet Christ did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave and became as men are; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death on the cross.” “A medieval legend draws our eyes to the dark stripes of hair that appear on a donkey’s back: one down the spine, and the other across the shoulders. It encourages us to see this cross as a gift from the Lord, to recall the day that its ancestor willingly bore the Son of David to the place where he would take up his cross for us.” We too have been marked by the Cross of Christ Crucified through baptism and confirmation, and this mark bestows the responsibility of being Christ-bearer to all. This Cross enables us to know that he is with us, and that he has called us, empower us to walk our lives in faith and humility and ultimately to lay down not our palms, not our garments but our lives for him, and for one another. We live because HE lives, and because HE lives in our lives, we live for others, so that they might have life in HIM. Rise, let us be on our way. Salvation is close at hand. (Homily given at Holy Cross Church for Passion Sunday - 13 April 2014)
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 15:52:13 +0000
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