Palm Sunday

We celebrate Palm Sunday, proclaiming with the crowd of Jerusalem "Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who enters in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heavens! '"So many years of preparation and so much expectation, and the long awaited' Day of the Lord 'is there. Everything begins today with the crowd that will choose Barrabas. Like the high priest Caiaphas who has already prophesied, "it is better for one man to die for the people, and for the whole nation not to perish." This people will be liberated by a great King, king of the universe, whom they have condemned to death.

This king does not come in a chariot, no longer in a horse, and the prophet said to us, "Behold, your king is coming to you, full of sweetness, riding on a donkey. If He comes in a chariot, it is better take distance from him, for he is coming to conquer, and if He comes in a horse, there is no sense in standing in front of a powerful King who in war with us, and today rather He comes in an ass, He is at peace And comes to be reconciled with us by proposing Peace and Forgiveness. A King of Peace. Biblically when the king choses an ass, he is in mission for peace and reconciliation.

My friends as Christians how are we to welcome our King, the King of the universe in our hearts? He is in mission for peace, peace with us, we, who by our thinking and acting put ourselves against him.  We will not see him at the entrance of our city, where we can show our gratitude and our joy, singing together and welcoming him with red carpet. He will not be on an ass, to discover him in his humility and today, how will we recognize him among us, the saviour of the world?

The dead in Syria with the chemical bombardment does upset us. Yet we cannot justify the American bombardment either, violence that justifies another violence. For this people and others who are victims of wars, oppression, etc., how can our King liberate and save them? The temptation is great to seek a king with his chariot and his horse. Unfortunately we have no positive answer that can help us to master the current situation. The divine silence and the absence of his vengeance can disturb us. Yet in Jesus we have a lasting solution; Patience and dialogue, on everything to seek the divine will without making any judgment. His humanity did express in its utter disappointment and discouragement, ‘if you could remove this cup’ and in His divinity did accept the divine will.

The path of Jesus towards Calvary is ours. His most extreme solitude in the garden, the betrayal of his apostle, his sense of his Father's absence on the Cross, are our own path of faith. Jesus is alone in front of his people who condemn him to death and his heart-rending cry to his Father is totally human and divine. ‘Father, why have you abandoned me’ may be the cry of many of us who are suffering without any out-way or solution.

In his Cross and resurrection, we can find our hope. God who loves us, who gives himself in Jesus, will never abandon us. If He can take the cross and accept a humiliating death, He can go any extreme to save us and protect us.

It is important however from our part to receive this love and forgiveness, by reconciling ourselves with God and with our enemies. We should learn from the Lord, ‘forgive them, they don’t know what they do’. Sometime the contemporary history shows from many genocides that they knew what they did and many of the victims of present time, are pre-planned and the programmes were meritoriously executed, knowingly and wilfully.  With the merciful God, let us walk in joy, putting all our hope in the resurrection of the Lord, for He is also the Lord of justice and He will do justice for us.