Palm Sunday

Date: Palm Sunday: April 9, 2006
Readings: Isaiah 50: 4-7 Psalm 22:2, 8-9, 17-20, 23-24
Response: "My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me!"
Philippians 2: 6-11 Mark 11:1-10

The reading from Isaiah is taken from one of the Suffering Servant Songs. In this part, Isaiah uses a form of prefigure which describes the torment the Anointed One, the Messiah, will go through when they decide to kill Him.
The Messiah is given the words, which prove His worth. He listens to the Father's words and speaks only what He has been told. He does the Father's will in all things and is repaid by His detractors with defilement, including, spitting at and buffeting His Holy Face. He was punished by the whip for doing what is right.
Do we do the Father's will for us always? When our faith is subject to ridicule and rejection? When the trend is to forget God's commands and do what's pleasurable? As followers of Christ, we are asked to do as He did, when convenient or inconvenient. Live as He did and receive a like reward.
With the tumult around us in Print and Electronic media regarding NEW discoveries allegedly proving the Gospels to be a Church plot to ensnare us all.
The Gospel of Judas??? This book circulated after it was written in the fourth century. It was given no credence by those close to the alleged source and totally by Christians and Church Fathers as a Gnostic pseudepegripha ( false books).. Surviving Groups of Gnostics, such as the Hollywood Scientology adherents, grasp anything, purported to be a revelation to foist their theology on the unsuspecting who also believe in their prurient lifestyles . “The Divinci Code”, “Left Behind” and many such forms of fictions grab the attention of a sympathetic media and non-religious types amass fortunes from gullible public ready to read and believe any drivel coming within earshot of their itching ears
The twenty-second Psalm begins as though the Psalmist has been rebuffed by God. WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME?
Christ is said to have wailed this while hanging on the cross in His last breathing moments. However, we must read on to the final verses of the psalm to note the redeeming contrast intended. This is one reason why we should not pluck verses out of the context of the writer's thought. Reading the first couple of verses of this Psalm implies God would abandon His only Son. If so, what about us? We should know by our Christian faith, no matter what, God does not abandon us.
We abandon Him from time to time, but, never the other way around.











The wonderful prayer of Paul in his letter to his favorite community should be one we wish to recall, in our memory, for many occasions.
Imagine, if you will, the Word made flesh, through Whom all things were made, debasing Himself and taking on our mortal nature. WHY? So He could be the sacrificial Lamb we need to perfect our nature and become like Him, divine.
How can this be?
The Greek word translated "justification", is better translated "divinized". Therefore, the justification Christ gives us by His life death and resurrection, is His own divine nature. That is why, as His brothers and sisters, we are equal heirs with Him if we also do the Father's will.


There is a strange interlude here in Mark. Although the same theme is related in the other Gospels, giving it credence as something Jesus did and said, since a colt of an ass was a means of transportation for many people, it is unlikely one, for His use, would be tethered where Jesus told His disciples, unless it was prearranged by His followers.
The entrance of a dignitary on an ass was a sign of His coming in peace.
Had He come on a horse or riding in a chariot, the people would expect He was coming as a warlike person.
What the people really wanted and expected was a leader like David, who would start a rebellion against the Romans and free them from the slavery they were enduring. However, Jesus came as a Lamb to be sacrificed, to be the Pascal sacrifice for the salvation of the world.
In our world, we are enjoined, by God, to follow in our master's footsteps to be ready to give our lives, if necessary, for the sake of others.
As we enter into the realm of the twenty-first Century, let our hearts be open to the word of God. Read, ingest and study the Scriptures with an eye to becoming the Christian we were intended to be since the dawn of time! His word is clear. However, if we read it and interpret it in only the literal sense, we may miss the probable intent of the Writer and the Holy Spirit, Who cannot deceive.