Palm Sunday Homily 2017
If somebody came from Jesus’ time, in a time machine, to this place right now, and somebody explained that this building is a space for worship and a religious ceremony was taking place—and they saw this symbol of a crucified man—they would think that we’ve lost our minds!!!!
Because this image was the most frightening thing you could imagine in Jesus’ time.
Excruciating pain—“ex cruce” (from the cross) that was seen as the “limit case” of suffering.
Cicero, the great Roman orator, one of the masters of the Latin language, was describing a crucifixion in a letter, and he had to use all sorts of indirect expressions and circumlocutions, because to describe a crucifixion directly, was seen as just TOO HORRIBLE.
It is also why for the first many centuries of Christianity, nobody depicted Jesus on the cross. It was too fresh in the cultural memory of people. “Why in the world”, an ancient person would think, “would you have THAT symbol, with victorious branches and banners on it”? It’d be like coming to a place and seeing an image of a man hanging from a noose.
Christianity turns on the wonderful poetry of the cross. What did they see in this sign? They saw all of human dysfunction placed on him, and we just heard it, didn’t we? Go through the Passion reading, what do you hear?
You hear of stupidity, you hear of hatred, you hear of cruelty, you hear of violence, you hear of institutional injustice.
It’s as though all the darkness of the world came upon him. And he swallows it up, with that phrase: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
What they saw, the first Christians, in that sign, was everything the world can throw at us, now conquered, now swallowed up in the ever greater Divine Mercy.
And that’s why Paul can say “I preach one thing, Christ and him crucified.” Trust me when I tell you, when people heard that, they thought Paul had lost his mind. “That’s what you’re preaching? A crucified criminal? Are you crazy?”
But see, Paul had met the Risen Christ and he knew thereby that the love of God was more powerful than anything that is IN the world.
And you see now, why, when the first Christians held up that Cross, they were doing it as a form of a taunt!
See, the Roman authorities said “If you cross us (pun intended), this is what we’ll do to you. It was a sign of Roman power. It was a sign of the power of the sinful world.
What the first Christians knew in the light of the resurrection was that God’s love had DEFINITIVELY broken that power! And so they taunted the world with the cross.
You know when Paul refers to Jesus as “Lord” and he does it all of the time in his writings: “Ieusus Kyrios” he says Jesus the Lord, and we say “Yeah, sure, that’s a nice spiritual sentiment.”
In his time those were FIGHTING WORDS. Because what people said at that time was “KAESAR KYRIOS” –that’s how one Roman citizen might greet another—“Caesar kyrios” it meant Caesar is the Lord.
“No he’s not!” says Paul. “Ieusus Kyrios”, Jesus is Lord!
Because someone whom Caesar had put to death, God raised from the dead, and therefore Jesus is the true Lord.
How wonderful, by the way, and we just heard it, that Pontius Pilate, Caesar’s local representative, places over the cross of Jesus, the inscription, meant to be his own taunt: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. What a joke!”
But the joke’s on him, wasn’t it? Because Pontius Pilate becomes, thereby, the first great evangelist!!!!
Now listen, what does the world today want us to do with the cross of Jesus?
They want us to make it a little private symbol – a sign of our little hobby, Christianity.
But that is repugnant to the Bible!
Because that sign is meant to be HELD UP to ALL the world, announcing that there is in fact a new Lord, a new King.
What did Jesus himself say? “But when the Son of Man is lifted up” (and he meant that—on the cross!). “When the Son of Man is lifted up—he will draw all people to himself.”
Now, now. That’s the work of the Church and the Church is all of the baptized. That’s called evangelization, isn’t it? The good news, by the way, “euangelion” in Greek, evangelization well, that’s a taunt as well.
Because in ancient times, an evangelist was someone who went ahead, with the good news that Caesar had won a victory. The first Christians would say, “No, no….No, no. Just the opposite: God has won the great victory!”
And so today, and every day of the year, let us hold up the cross of the crucified Jesus—as a challenge to the cruelty, and violence and injustice, and hatred of the world – as a sign that we know that the true Lord – is Jesus.