Sunday, March 29, 2025: REFLECTION FOR Palm Sunday

by Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv, Pax Christi USA Bishop President

Matthew 21:1-11 (37) 

21  When they got close to Jerusalem and arrived Most of the crowd spread their outer garments on the road, while others were cutting down branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. 9  Moreover, the crowds going ahead of him and those following him kept shouting: “Save, we pray, the Son of David!i Blessed is the one who comes in Jehovah’s name!j Save him, we pray, in the heights above!”

10  And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar, saying: “Who is this?” 11  The crowds kept saying: “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazʹa·reth of Galʹi·lee!”

12  Jesus entered the temple and threw out all those selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.m 13  And he said to them: “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a cave of robbers.” 14  Also, blind and lame people came to him in the temple, and he cured them.

15  When the chief priests and the scribes saw the marvelous things he did and the boys who were shouting in the temple, “Save, we pray, the Son of David!” they became indignant 16  and said to him: “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them: “Yes. Did you never read this, ‘Out of the mouth of children and infants, you have brought forth praise’?” 17  And leaving them behind, he went out of the city to Bethʹa·ny and spent the night there.s

23  The next day he went into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him while he was teaching and said: “By what authority do you do these things? And who gave you this authority?”z 24  In reply Jesus said to them: “I will also ask you one thing. If you tell me, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things: 25  The baptism by John, from what source was it? From heaven or from men?”* But they began to reason among themselves, saying: “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe him?’a 26  But if we say, ‘From men,’ we have the crowd to fear, for they all regard John as a prophet.”b 27  So they answered Jesus: “We do not know.” He, in turn, said to them: “Neither am I telling you by what authority I do these things.

28  “What do you think? A man had two children. Going up to the first, he said, ‘Child, go work today in the vineyard.’ 29  In answer this one said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward, he felt regret and went out. 30  Approaching the second, he said the same. This one replied, ‘I will, Sir,’ but did not go out. 31  Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said: “The first.” 

Jesus said to them: “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going ahead of you into the Kingdom of God.c 32  For John came to you in a way of righteousness, but you did not believe him. However, the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even when you saw this, you did not feel regret afterward so as to believe him.

42  Jesus said to them: “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone that the builders rejected, this has become the chief cornerstone.

45  When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his illustrations, they knew that he was speaking about them.p 46  Although they wanted to seize* him, they feared the crowds, because these regarded him as a prophet.

Reflection: 

On Palm Sunday  we hear two gospels proclaimed. The first describes Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week in which he will lay down his life. It is this reading, describing the crowds in Jerusalem waving the palm branches which gives today its most common name. 

The second describes the events from the Last Supper through Jesus’ burial and is referred to as the Passion; this Sunday is officially called the Sunday of the Lord’s Passion in Palms.

The juxtaposition of an apparent victory parade and the complete rejection of Jesus the Messiah by the crowds is striking. The gospels tell us that Jesus entered the city on a donkey, a beast of burden and the means of transport of the poor. 

Jesus, the King of Israel, has no war horse. He enters without soldiers or bodyguards, despite the threats against him. The crowds that gathered were partially his companions from along the way, and no doubt some curious folks eager to be part of the action. Waving palms was a gesture of victory, in this case a prophetic one. Things do not continue on that high note as the week progresses. 

Remember the temptation from the first Sunday of Lent’s gospel, the temptation to take the easy path? This ragtag crowd around Jesus would have eagerly crowned him a king, and probably could have been armed to protect him from the religious leaders and the Romans. 

But Jesus incarnates the suffering of humanity as was graphically described in the first reading from Isaiah. He comes to transform suffering, not to create suffering for others through violence.

Obviously there are many moments which we might contemplate in the Passion narrative from Matthew: preparations for and the sharing in the Passover meal, the agony with which Jesus prayed before he was arrested, Jesus’ multiple betrayals and being led to trials before the Sanhedrin (religious leaders) and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, the death sentence pronounced on Jesus by the crowds despite his being called innocent, mockery and cruelty by the soldiers with license to do what they please (not unlike today’s ICE officers in too many places), carrying the cross to Calvary, crucifixion and death. 

We might stop and ponder each of these moments and ask which members of the body of Christ are experiencing them today: death sentences even of the innocent, the betrayal by friends, unwarranted arrests, and the cruelty of those in power towards the vulnerable.

To reinforce the nonviolent option of Jesus as expressed in his entrance to the city, at the time of his arrest, Jesus rebukes one of his followers who draws a sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant. 

“All who take the sword will perish by the sword.” A lesson that humanity has failed to learn, made all the more precarious by weapons much stronger than swords in use today. Jesus resists the easy path and goes willingly to his death, carrying in himself the suffering of all people in all times and places.