Each year our Church invites us to hear two accounts of Jesus’ Passion. The first one is read on Palm Sunday, and the second on Good Friday. On Good Friday every year, the account is from the Gospel of John, but on Palm Sunday we hear the Gospel from the current liturgical cycle or “year.” So this year we hear Matthew’s Passion narrative. In it, details of the horrific nature of Jesus’ death come through loud and clear. Matthew describes not only the physical torture Jesus endured but also his relationship pain. Jesus was betrayed by one apostle, denied by another, deserted by them all, ridiculed by the soldiers and the formerly adoring crowds, condemned by leaders of his beloved Jewish religion. In his humanness he cries out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We all suffer and die, and so we are strengthened in our life journey by knowing that Jesus is “the fellow-sufferer who understands,” as the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said. The resurrected Jesus who appears to Thomas and the other disciples after his resurrection still has the wounds on his body. He is a risen Christ who “remembers” his Jesus suffering in his risen body and self. Yet there is an important reminder in Matthew’s Passion account. At the death of Jesus, frightening things occur. Listen for this passage! It is Matthew reminding us that God abhors evil and suffering. God is emphatically not approving of what just happened. God did not need Jesus to die like he did. It was humans who killed him. The crucified Jesus reminds us of the evil we humans are capable of. But the story does not end there. God does what God always does, and brings good from evil by raising Jesus. As we enter into the suffering of Jesus this week, we do so with the resurrection in mind!
— Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia; photo by Mareefe
The post Palm Sunday, March 29, Suffering: a Sunday Scriptures blog first appeared on Sisters of the Precious Blood.