Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

Today's Readings

Luke 22:14-23:56

Luke's Gospel presents two important moments in the story of Jesus' final days in the readings for today's Mass. At the start of Mass, as a way to set the stage for the assembly's procession with palms, we hear of Christ's entry into Jerusalem at the start of Holy Week. It's indeed a grand entrance. Jesus is popular, acclaimed, adored and showered with flattery. The second moment -- in fact a very long, difficult set of moments -- is the whole Passion story and it supplants the usually shorter selection from the Gospels we read at this point in the Sunday Mass. We sense a different mood from the crowd. Jesus is still under their gaze, but this is attention of outrage and excoriation.

Down the centuries, preachers have noticed how fickle the people are. At one moment (maybe because they're excited by the pomp of the entrance? or hopeful that this messiah will give them something that they actually want?) the crowd adores Jesus. Later on, they despise him. Preachers will suggest that we need to be aware of how fickle we can be, how pulled into the wave of un-reflected upon emotion. We get caught up in hero worship or, on the flip side, shaming and expelling.

Maybe we ought to try not to be caught up in the crowd. Maybe we should struggle to stay ourselves, be aware of our own responses. That's why the character of the "Good Thief" is important. Given the name "Dismas" by tradition he is, in a sense, the first saint. He learns from the mouth of Jesus himself that he will be in paradise, a place imminent death is about to bring him to. Dismas is a rough and tumble character. And yes, he's done some wrong but he still abides by a code of honor and tries to be decent in the end. In fact, he is very decent and almost heroically compassionate.

I like to imagine that whatever criminal activity that got him into such deep trouble was being perpetrated on that afternoon of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Dismas is distracted for a moment from whatever act of pilfering or petty violence by the cheers of the crowd hailing Jesus. Little does he know that the man who distracted him from that distance would provide him with the most important of distractions ever: his salvation. Dismas wasn't part of the crowd. He avoided it, and that made an entirety of difference. 

Rev. Joel Warden, c.o., PhD 

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies