Brief synopsis of the readings: Palm Sunday gives us several readings and writing a brief synopsis proved particularly challenging. Our first reading comes from Mark’s Gospel and is read outside the church before mass begins. It describes Jesus and his disciples journeying to Jerusalem. Jesus sent two disciples ahead to get a colt and bring it back. Jesus mounted the colt and rode it to Jerusalem while others spread their cloaks on the road and waved palms. They cried out “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Once mass begins we read from Isaiah that the Lord has given him a well trained tongue. This allows him to preach the truth despite being beaten and spit on. The Gospel also comes from Mark and picks up when the chief priests and scribes begin to plot a way to have Jesus executed. When Jesus was at Bethany a woman came to him at dinner and poured oil over Jesus head. Some thought it was a waste of money but Jesus praised her. Judas then left and went to the chief priests offering to turn in Jesus for a price. At the same time Jesus and his disciples procured a room to celebrate Passover. Once the meal began Jesus predicted that he would be betrayed by one of them. Jesus then took the unleavened bread from the Passover, blessed it, and told them that this bread is his body. Likewise he took the cup of wine, blessed it, and told them this was his blood. After the meal they went to the Mount of Olives and Jesus told Peter that Peter would deny he knew Jesus before morning. Jesus then left his disciples while he went to pray, asking God to “[t]ake this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.” Returning to his disciples he found they had all fallen asleep; he woke them and said his betrayer was at hand. Judas then arrived with a crowd and identified Jesus who was then arrested. Jesus was then taken to the high priest where several people testified against him. The crowd then demanded that he be put to death. Meanwhile, in the courtyard, a few people identified Peter as a follower of Jesus but Peter bitterly denied that he knew Jesus. At that point a rooster crowed. Jesus was then turned over to the Roman Governor Pilate. Pilate had no grudge against Jesus but the crowd was so insistent that Jesus be crucified that he gave the order. Jesus was then beaten and led to the place of Golgotha where he was crucified between two revolutionaries. After only a few hours Jesus died. His body was given to Joseph of Arimathea who buried Jesus in a tomb.

These are long readings and it is customary to give a shorter homily to compensate. It’s not as easy as it looks as there is much to discuss here. Most Christians are already familiar with these events, in no small part because of all the passion plays we’ve seen. And, of course, there is the 1965 film The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Given that, it can be difficult to see these events anew each year but I think it’s possible. This year I’m struck by all the pageantry. Of all the major faiths it’s really only Christianity that believes that God became human, was killed and then rose from the dead. As I alluded to last week, why did he have to die, and why did it have to be so painful, humiliating, and desolate?

I doubt we can fully explain this and part of belief requires us to live with the mystery. But the drama of the resurrection requires drama leading to the death. Had Jesus died of old age or drowning, Easter wouldn’t be so dramatic. In a sense it needed to be violent.

When God made the decision to give us free will he not only cast his lot with Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit but with all the evil we can create. God cast his lot with Cain’s murder of Abel, the enslavement in Egypt and the conquest of Israel by the Babylonians, Greeks and Romans. And two thousand years later I’m not certain we’ve fully plumbed the depths of our capacity for sin, evil, and the horrible things we can do to each other. We’ve come to recognize words like Shoah, ethnic cleansing, and weapons of mass destruction.

And while our capacity for evil may exceed our worst imaginations, it does not exceed God’s love. Many people who were raised Christian have horrid memories of seeing recreations of Jesus’ crucifixion and were made to believe that it was the direct result of our treatment of our siblings or our lies to our teachers. OK I’m exaggerating but many former believers point to these memories to explain why they no longer believe.

And it misses the point. At the heart of these events lies the truth that God’s love can outflank the worst of what we can do. The Christian reformer Martin Luther spoke to this. There are any number of quotations and I couldn’t find consensus of the wording but here’s the his point: “Be a sinner and sin boldly but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.” Obviously this doesn’t encourage people to sin but it does give some insight that no matter what we do, God’s love will conquer all.

I’ll obviously speak more about this next week when we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection but the events of Palm Sunday and Holy Week should make us more aware of the suffering we see. It should lead us to compassion, not to shame or fear. It should also not lead to search out scapegoats (like the Jews). The truth is that the blood of Jesus is on the hands of many people: Judas, the crowd that called for his death, the Roman soldiers, Pilate, etc. Blaming anyone today only pushes the envelope of the evil we can cause.

But the passion and death of Jesus points to the fact that we are made worthy of Jesus’ sacrifice, with all of the pain, loneliness and desolation.

Let us recognize that in ourselves and each other.