2020/04/05 — Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday) — Year A

Gospel of the Entry into Jerusalem — Matthew 21:1-11
First Reading — Isaiah 50:4-7
Second Reading — Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel — Matthew 26:14-27:66

I blogged about the Mass readings for this Sunday three years ago. Certainly there is more that could be said about them, and many speakers and writers have done so. But I'd like to base this post on the gospel passage about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which is read at the blessing of palms at the beginning of Mass. One preliminary note: as the citations show, this passage is from the beginning of Chapter 21 of Matthew's Gospel. There are five chapters between it and the passion narrative. In other words, a lot took place in the meantime. There was the cleansing of the temple, followed by many parables and other teaching, and the anointing of Jesus at Bethany. You might want to check it out between now and Holy Thursday.

When the crowds acclaim Jesus as "Son of David," they are recognizing him as the Messiah, since the belief in a Messiah rested on the Old Testament promises that a descendant of David would rule over Israel forever. Te crowds were right that Jesus is the Messiah, but they probably held the general belief that the Messiah would be a political-military ruler who would end the Roman occupation and restore the independence of the Jewish people. As we know, Messiahship did not include military or political rule.

Many preachers lament what they see as the fickleness of the crowd: on Palm Sunday we hear, "Hosanna in the highest," and on Good Friday the shout is "Crucify him!" But when we pay close attention to the closing lines of this passage we hear, "The whole city was shaken and asked, 'Who is this?' And the crowds replied, 'This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.'" Neither the Palm Sunday crowd nor the Good Friday crowd was the whole population of Jerusalem. It is possible that some of the former were part of the latter, but we have no reason to believe that all (or even many) of those who shouted "Hosanna" were there in front of Pontius Pilate.

Still, it is worthwhile for us to be reminded that our faith should be constant and steady. It is certainly not wrong to have moments of great enthusiasm for the Lord in our joy at being saved by his merciful grace. But that enthusiasm should continue into our daily lives as a steady commitment to living according to his call. God's grace should strengthen us to resist the temptation to go along with the crowds who would deny Jesus or depart from the way of love which he teaches.