As we celebrate this Palm Sunday, we get to hear the complete narrative of our Lords Passion. The words very often touch us in a way that lets us relate to some of those present. If we are honest with ourselves, the failures of so many of those present may ring true in our own self-analysis. The betrayal of Judas, Peters denial, and the Pilates pandering to those in the Jewish hierarchy whom he knew were in the wrong out of sheer jealousy and malice, because it was easier than sticking to his convictions. Yet in the midst of all this failure, there is an illumination that comes from our Lords unwavering adherence to the will of the Father, from His gift to us of His body and blood through that first Eucharist, and ultimately from His giving all that he had by laying down his very life to pay the price for our salvation. Yes, in the midst of all of the faults and evil that humanity brought together on that day, there was still a blinding radiance of love and sacrifice from the only one capable of giving so much, and of so completely emptying of himself that there was absolutely nothing left to give.
When we hear of the failures of love that came together to set in place the tools of destruction that were needed to sacrifice one who was both God and man, we should indeed contemplate our own role in this, because we were there amongst the jeering crowd as surely as we are present in the here and now. You see for our Lord the timeline of this universe flows a bit differently than it does for us, He sees the past, present, and future as completely one. The sins that we commit or have committed yesterday, today, or tomorrow were all on full display to Him as he emptied himself on our behalf so that we could be joined to Him in heaven one day. Nothing was, is, or will be omitted in the timeless accounting of the price that was paid.
Yet, despite the gravity of the realization of our own culpability and presence on that day when our Lord gave so much of Himself, we have also a reason to rejoice. If we allow it, our sins have been addressed, purchased and ultimately cleansed by the one who was born into this world for that specific purpose. Our lives have been given new life through the Eucharist that He has provided us with so that we might have life within us. Our being has been blessed by His teaching that we have before us in scripture to guide us and to steer our lives in such a way that they lead on a path home to Him who loved us so much that He endured the suffering of a brutal passion of endurance and forbearance to carry the very instrument of His physical death to that hill upon which He was crucified. We are cleansed by the willing acceptance of suffering that He endured on the cross, and so that our sins would be washed away in the flood of blood and water that flowed from His side in a torrent that reaches to all men and women everywhere and in all times if they simply choose to accept being loved so much that such a gift of overwhelming tenderness, self-sacrifice, and love will become part of the fiber of their beings if they simply humbly submit and allow it to manifest within them. This is the magnitude of what was given to us that day so long ago, and that we still struggle to infuse into ourselves to this day.
The gift of the Cross is an enigma in the sense that it is the greatest gift ever given, and yet is one that is so often refused simply because we cannot find it within ourselves to bear that much love being given to us so unselfishly. Our human inclination defies all logic and natural choice to sometimes refuse this, and yet it is a gift that is always unrelentingly there and will never depart from us right up until the moment we draw our last breath. The love, and the call to draw close to the one who gave all for us on that hill will be waiting for us to draw it in, so that we can be drawn home to our Lord.
The Deacons Bench 