Palm Branches and the Cross Go Together
Simone Riva - The beginning of Holy Week, with Palm Sunday, challenges us every year to consider the image that each of us has of the Savior. The acclamation that welcomes Jesus, in fact, will soon take on quite different connotations. “What is really in the hearts of those who acclaim Christ as King of Israel? They certainly had their own idea of the Messiah, an idea of how the King promised by the prophets and long awaited should act.
It is no coincidence that a few days later, the crowd in Jerusalem, instead of acclaiming Jesus, will shout to Pilate: 'Crucify him!'. And the disciples themselves, as well as others who had seen and heard him, were left speechless and bewildered. Most of them had, in fact, been disappointed by the way Jesus had decided to present himself as the Messiah and King of Israel. This is precisely the crux of today's feast, also for us” (Benedict XVI).
Throughout his life, Christ bore the expectations of many. The Gospel accounts show that the Lord was largely unconcerned with these worldly expectations; instead, he was deeply committed to awakening his listeners to the true expectation: the fulfillment of life.
The disappointment that characterized the final days of Jesus' life, and which drove Judas to betrayal, stemmed from the failure to earnestly accept the life proposal that the Son of God came to offer. It is about the possibility of being able to embrace all of one's humanity without censure, including illnesses, to live daily life with an unprecedented openness to wonder, to make peace with one's past even if it is marked by unheard-of wounds, to be looked at with merciful eyes that allow for continuous recovery, to learn to take risks in relation to one's own and others' freedom without depending on the outcome of one's attempts.
Too little for those who expected salvation from political liberation. Too complicated for those who were used to 'getting by'. Too abstract for those who had made health and the accumulation of goods their new idols. Or perhaps, simply, too human for everyone.
The week that is about to begin represents the great descent of Christ into the most intimate part of our humanity, where the impulses, fears, hopes, disappointments, light, and darkness of the human life that He chose to assume fully, meet.
The Palm Sunday celebration, commemorating Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, thus also unmasks our image of the Messiah, just as it did on that day. The path is marked, the decision is made, and so “Jesus climbs the cross to descend into our suffering. He experiences our worst states of mind: failure, rejection by everyone, betrayal by those who love him and even abandonment by God.
He experiences in his flesh our most lacerating contradictions, and so he redeems them, he transforms them. His love draws near to our frailties, it reaches the places where we feel the most ashamed. And now we know we are not alone: God is with us in every wound, in every fear: no evil, no sin has the last word. God wins, but the palm of victory passes through the wood of the cross. That is why palms and the cross go together” (Pope Francis).
The author has not reviewed the text translations.
