14 April 2019
Palm Sunday, Year C
One of the difficulties in hearing the Passion account each
year is that we already know how the story ends: Jesus rises from the dead,
appears to his disciples, and gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit. Our challenge is to recognize the Passion as
an ongoing event—even today in the lives of his faithful people. As
much as we know how Jesus’ Passion story turns out, we don’t know how the
unexpected and stressful events of our lives today will turn out. The uncertainty of the Passion is very much a part of our lives of faith
today.
Someone is laid off from his job; how is he going to pay the
bills next month? Another finds out that
she has terminal cancer; what’s going to happen with her family? What will death be like? A 25-year-old is killed in a car accident; how
does that affect my own expectations and hopes of living a long and happy life? Somebody is ridiculed because they dared to challenge
their neighbors to starting acting like a Christian: there’s nothing like crucifixion
by gossip. The unexpected, unthinkable
happens in life. But what gets us
through the unknown and the chaos is faith.
In that one line of scripture: “My God, my God, why have you
abandoned me?” Jesus reveals the depth of his abandonment. But in the same breath, he reveals his
complete fidelity and trust in God the Father.
In the end, that fidelity to the Father’s will is the strength which
carries him through. And so it can be
with us.
We may not know the end of the story of our own
sufferings. But we believe in God’s
promise that he’ll always be with us.
And with that we can find some peace in the assurance that on the other
end of our sufferings, God is there. The Passion isn’t just passion about
sufferings. It’s also about being
passionate in faith, in love, and in hope.
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