Palm Sunday – Year B
March 24, 2024
Gospel Lectionary Text
John 12:12-16
12:12 The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
12:13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord-- the King of Israel!"
12:14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written:
12:15 "Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt!"
12:16 His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.
Context
Welcome to Palm Sunday, Jesus’ celebrated entry into Jerusalem. What feels like a party turns out to be something of a parody. About 150 years earlier, Judas “The Hammer” Maccabeus had led the Israeli victory over the Syrian occupation. The crowds celebrated by waving palm branches.
Clearly, the crowd in this week’s text is hoping for something similar. Who can blame them? They’ve suffered unmercifully. That’s why they are shouting Hosanna, which literally means, “save us!” It doesn’t take long for Jesus to disappoint their expectations for a triumphant, hammer-like Messiah. In a few days time, shouts of “Hosanna!” will be replaced by calls to “Crucify Him!”
Of course, this is where the parody hits home for us. We all have ideas about what salvation should look like. Can we really count ourselves a part of the first cry without admitting we’re part of the second?
Question
In what ways does Palm Sunday cause you to reconsider how you understand victory, power and salvation?
Reflections
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
City Psalm
by Denise Levertov
The killings continue, each second
pain and misfortune extend themselves
in the genetic chain, injustice is done knowingly,
and the air bears the dust of decayed hopes,
yet breathing those fumes, walking the thronged
pavements among crippled llives, jackhammers
raging, a parking lot painfully agleam in the May sun,
I have seen not behind but within,
within the dull grief, blown grit,
hideous concrete façades, another grief,
a gleam as of dew, an abode of mercy,
have heard not behind but within noise
a humming that drifted into a quiet smile.
Nothing was changed, all was revealed otherwise;
not that horror was not, not that the killings did not continue;
not that I thought there was to be no more despair,
but that as if transparent all disclosed
an otherness that was blesséd, that was bliss,
I saw Paradise in the dust of the street.
Prayer
Coming soon.
