Isaiah 50. 4 – 9a
Luke 23. 1 – 49
Palm Sunday
Fr Alex
I remember seeing an advert recently, I can’t remember what it was for – a card and gift shop or something like that – but it had the cheerful and confident tagline: “We make Easter easy!”
I think there’s so much revealed in that little phrase – we often put so much pressure on ourselves to make sure big celebrations go well, that it becomes hard work. Getting the chocolate eggs, the cards, the flowers; putting on the big meal, gathering all the family together (and the tensions that sometimes go with that).
But it reveals something deeper about our human tendency to shy away from the reality of the cross, and what the cross means. Sin, suffering, death. Easter is easy, isn’t it – but Good Friday is hard, so very hard
That tension is at the heart of this service today, as we begin Holy Week. It does feel easy, for a moment, as we get caught up in the excitement of the first part of the service. The joyful expectation of the crowds, the praise and acclamations for Jesus as he enters the city, the hymns and the “hosannas!”
But only for a moment… How soon those “hosannas” turn to shouts of “Crucify, crucify him!” No doubt you felt that tension yourselves at that moment, as we heard the narrative of the Passion, and we all joined in with the crowds baying for blood.
It feels perverse that we should shout such a thing now. They didn’t really know who Jesus was then, they didn’t know the end of the story. We know much better, as followers of Christ.
But the truth is that we crucify Christ again and again, in countless little ways. Turning a blind eye to someone in need; that harsh word or unkind comment; the broken relationship left unrepaired; turning away from the terrible suffering that is the reality for so many throughout the world, because there’s just too much of it to cope with ourselves.
A big part of Lent, and this Holy Week, is facing up to the difficult parts of our lives, all the things we would rather keep hidden – all the ways in which we fail to take up our cross and follow Christ, and keep him nailed to his instead.
Easter can never be easy; because you can’t have Easter without first coming to terms with the reality of Good Friday.
But it is also about letting those things go; about giving them to Christ on his cross, and letting them die with him, so that we may rise with him to the freedom of his resurrection life. This is a theme that will return again and again through this week.
The wonder is that even in the Cross, the terrible suffering and death, we see the promise of Easter Day. Look at what we learn about the Cross, today.
As Jesus is dying, those who put him there repeatedly mock him. The leaders say “Let him save himself if he is the Messiah;” the soldiers say, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Even one of the criminals crucified with him keeps deriding him and saying, “Save yourself and us!
Jesus entered the city like a king, robed and riding on a donkey, acclaimed by all who saw him. Now this king is crucified, and instead of a royal throne he is placed upon the Cross, powerless to save himself, mocked and abused.
But it is in that utter weakness that Jesus reveals his absolute power. Jesus does save on that Cross. Not himself, but the second criminal crucified along with him. Even in that moment of total powerlessness, stripped quite literally of everything and demonstrating only weakness: Jesus saves.
The thief faces up to his sin – he says “we are getting what we deserve for our deeds” – but in accepting his failings, he doesn’t give in to bitterness and despair like the other criminal: instead, he turns to Christ. He has the courage to address Jesus by name – one of very few people in all the Gospels to do so – and he asks to be remembered when Jesus comes into his kingdom.
But Jesus doesn’t just remember him; he doesn’t wait for the thief to receive his punishment and die; he doesn’t wait, even, for Easter Day. Jesus saves. With arms outstretched on the Cross, he reaches out and takes that man’s sin onto himself, with all the sin of the world, and kills it, as he is killed.
“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
And Jesus does the same for us. As we enter into this Holy Week, as we come to terms with our own failings, even as we hold up another nail to hammer into our Saviour with our sin: with arms outstretched on the Cross, Jesus reaches out and takes it all onto himself. He takes it from us and kills it, as he is killed.
We don’t need to wait for Easter to experience his freedom and the fullness of life in him. We aren’t somehow trapped in misery through this week until Easter Day comes and we can be free from it. Easter is now, Easter is on the Cross, and in the tomb. Death has already died.
So let us open ourselves up, truly, to Christ this Holy Week. Let us approach his Cross and be honest about all of ourselves, even those darkest and most hidden parts. Let us come to terms with the reality of our failings: not in bitterness and despair, but with joy: that the light and new life of Christ is already breaking into those dark places; that even in our weakness, Christ is working within us his great purpose of love. Amen.