Readings:
Luke 19:28-40
Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm 22:8-9, 17-20, 23-24
Philippians 2:6-11
Luke 22:14 – 23:56
Reversal, subversion and the triumph of dignity
By Kiegan Irish, Animator for Eastern and Northern Ontario
Palm Sunday confronts us with contradictions and reversals. The emotional tenor of the Easter narrative is reaching its height. The people line the streets “spreading their cloaks on the road” before Jesus as he enters the city (Lk 19:36). “The whole multitude of disciples… praise God joyfully” (Lk 19:37) using words that have entered the liturgy of communion—Hosanna, “blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Lk 19:38).
Today, these words appear to us in a new light, as we know these same crowds will soon turn on Jesus, crying out for Pilate to “Crucify him” (Lk 23:21)! We are swept along in the intensity and drama of this episode, the reversal of the elation of the Palm Sunday welcome into the tragedy of Good Friday is visible only in retrospect.
But beneath this tragic reversal, God is playing a steady melody. The Gospel aptly titles the Palm Sunday episode “Jesus’s Triumphal Entry.” The triumphal entry for the Romans was a great act of political theatre intended to whip up support for the return of conquering armies and generals. Jesus subverts this tradition, arriving not on a conquering warhorse but on a borrowed colt, and not on the winds of Roman victories but on the path to the ultimate Roman humiliation and defeat.
Jesus will reverse the significance of the crucifixion from the symbol of defeat and death to the ultimate symbol of victory over death. As Paul writes, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” when he “emptied himself” even to the point of “death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5-8). Jesus provides us with the blueprint of Christian life and discipleship: not to lord over others, but to serve.
And it is in walking the path to death and humiliation that the final victory is won. In humbling ourselves, we enter the kingdom of God. The cross becomes a throne.
Like Jesus in Roman-occupied Judea, we too live in a world full of darkness and suffering. Consider our sisters and brothers in Peru whose lands and waters have been poisoned by the excesses of the mining industry.
Jesus’s example shows us that hope is created out of times of darkness and suffering. Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada’s partner in Peru, the Institut Bartolomé de Las Casas (IBC), works to equip local communities with the knowledge and capacity to stand up for their rights, against the incursion of the forces of extractive industry.
Out of apparent defeat at the hands of an uncaring global economy, the IBC has snatched a victory by helping the church come to understand that a deep ecological debt is owed to the people in Peru and throughout the Global South.
As Christ himself reversed the Roman values of conquest and violent domination in the triumphal entry and the cross, let us join with partners like IBC and the people they serve in reversing our own imperial values of economic growth above ecology and human dignity.
