THE PASSION THAT CAUSED HIS PASSION
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Mk 14:1-15:47
Who killed Jesus? The Sanhedrin? No. The Roman colonizers? No. Neither the Sanhedrin nor the Roman colonial power killed Jesus. Did not Jesus said that He had the power to lay down His life and the power to raise it up again (cf. Jn 10:18)?
What killed Jesus? His open conflict with the scribes and the Pharisees? His teachings and mingling with the tax collectors and the sinners in public? His claim of who He was? While these proposed answers are not totally wrong, they do not hit the core response.
Love, not hatred, killed Jesus. He was passionately in loved with the Father. His love for the Father did not stop at anything, including death.
I remember a song, which goes, “Too much love can kill you.” This was what happened to Jesus. He was too much in loved with the Father. He faced and endured death for love of the Father. Nothing and no one could diminish His love for the Father. He was on fire with love for the Father. He was the Father’s passionate lover.
More than just “Palm Sunday”. Today is also referred to in the liturgy as “Passion Sunday”. Commonly this reference is explained by the reading of the Lord’s passion in the Gospel today. A deeper reflection, however, highlights the fact that it was His passionate love for the Father that caused Jesus His passion on the cross.
It is this kind of passion that we must learn from Jesus and copy in our lives. We must be passionate lovers of God and one another. Our love for God and one another must be truly passionate that it will never not stop at anything, including death. The fire of our love for God and one another may bring us the fire of suffering but it is the same fire that will warm us up again just when our enemies think we are nothing but cold meat. Let us be inflamed with love for God and one another.
Mk 14:1-15:47
Who killed Jesus? The Sanhedrin? No. The Roman colonizers? No. Neither the Sanhedrin nor the Roman colonial power killed Jesus. Did not Jesus said that He had the power to lay down His life and the power to raise it up again (cf. Jn 10:18)?
What killed Jesus? His open conflict with the scribes and the Pharisees? His teachings and mingling with the tax collectors and the sinners in public? His claim of who He was? While these proposed answers are not totally wrong, they do not hit the core response.
Love, not hatred, killed Jesus. He was passionately in loved with the Father. His love for the Father did not stop at anything, including death.
I remember a song, which goes, “Too much love can kill you.” This was what happened to Jesus. He was too much in loved with the Father. He faced and endured death for love of the Father. Nothing and no one could diminish His love for the Father. He was on fire with love for the Father. He was the Father’s passionate lover.
More than just “Palm Sunday”. Today is also referred to in the liturgy as “Passion Sunday”. Commonly this reference is explained by the reading of the Lord’s passion in the Gospel today. A deeper reflection, however, highlights the fact that it was His passionate love for the Father that caused Jesus His passion on the cross.
It is this kind of passion that we must learn from Jesus and copy in our lives. We must be passionate lovers of God and one another. Our love for God and one another must be truly passionate that it will never not stop at anything, including death. The fire of our love for God and one another may bring us the fire of suffering but it is the same fire that will warm us up again just when our enemies think we are nothing but cold meat. Let us be inflamed with love for God and one another.
Love for God can kill us. But the same love is returned to us in the form of Easter glory. Love cannot die because love, true love, is God Himself. “Deus caritas est” (1 Jn 4:16), our present Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, reminds us eloquently in his first Encyclical Letter.
Let us not be mere palm branches for God. Let us be passionate lovers of God instead. Commemorating Palm Sunday must never be reduced to mere waving and blessing of palm branches. Palm Sunday must highlight the Lord’s Passion – His kind of loving, not merely the kind of suffering He endured – and embolden us with childlike faith to allow our selves be caught up into the Lord’s passionate love.
Palm branches wither. But passionate love endures.
Let us not be mere palm branches for God. Let us be passionate lovers of God instead. Commemorating Palm Sunday must never be reduced to mere waving and blessing of palm branches. Palm Sunday must highlight the Lord’s Passion – His kind of loving, not merely the kind of suffering He endured – and embolden us with childlike faith to allow our selves be caught up into the Lord’s passionate love.
Palm branches wither. But passionate love endures.
posted by Fr. Bobby @ 3:00 PM
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