Sunday Reflection: Weekend of 25 March 2018

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord | Year B

Mark 11: 1 - 10

When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem,
to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, 
he sent two of his disciples and said to them, 
\"Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately on entering it, 
you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone should say to you,
\'Why are you doing this?\' reply,
\'The Master has need of it
and will send it back here at once.\'\"
So they went off 
and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street, 
and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders said to them, 
\"What are you doing, untying the colt?\"
They answered them just as Jesus had told them to, 
and they permitted them to do it.
So they brought the colt to Jesus
and put their cloaks over it.
And he sat on it.
Many people spread their cloaks on the road, 
and others spread leafy branches 
that they had cut from the fields.
Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:
\"Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
Hosanna in the highest!\"

Reflection

This is the beginning of the Lord\'s Passion, in what starts off as celebration with a parade route strewn with cloaks and palm branches and then progresses to the start of Jesus� passion, bearable only because we already know its happy ending. Also known as the first Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday reveals the fickleness of the crowd and of humankind first stop.  The crowds had been wowed by his sermons, fed with loaves and fishes, healed of their diseases, delivered of their demons. But as soon as the tide began to turn, so did they. Their cries of �Hosanna� turned to shouts of a very different kind: �Crucify him! This comes as no surprise to Jesus who was not fooled by all the acclamations and fanfare.