Palm Sunday of thw Passion B

Passion (Palm) Sunday B

Readings: Commemoration of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem: 

Mark 11:1-10

Isaiah 50:4-7  Philippians 2:6-11  Mark 14:1-15:47

Although the liturgy for Passion Sunday seems to move abruptly from Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem to his agonizing passion, there is an inextricable connection between the two events.  In Mark’s theology, Jesus is the suffering Messiah whose full identity cannot be comprehended until the cross and resurrection.  His entrance into the city has messianic overtones and precipitates the final conflict with the Jewish leaders which will lead to his death and resurrection.  Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt, as had been prophesied of the peaceful messianic king in Zechariah (see Zech 9:9), and is greeted by the crowds as the Davidic Messiah with words drawn from Psalm 118.
“Hosanna!  Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed be the reign of our father David to come!
God save him from on high!”
When Jesus follows this triumphant entry with the cleansing of the Temple, the chief priests and scribes seek a way to destroy him out of fear for the multitude who are astonished at his teaching (11:11-25).
The first reading in the Liturgy of the Word is the third so-called servant song from Second Isaiah.  It gives an autobiographical report of this prophet’s tireless commitment to speaking a rousing word to the “weary” exiles who think that their Lord is powerless to save them from their Babylonian captors.  Because of his confidence that the Lord is his help, the prophet, like Jesus in Gethsemani, has the courage not to turn back from his wearisome task, even though it involves suffering and rejection.
Paul’s magnificent hymn to Christ in Philippians celebrates God’s victory over sin through Jesus’ self-emptying death.  In the context of exhorting the Philippians to give up selfish and petty jealousy (2:1-5), Paul uses this early Christian hymn to establish the foundation for the Christian life of selfless love.  The pattern, set forth in Jesus, of death to self and resurrection through God’s power, is to mark the life of the community.  Christ, in contrast to Adam, did not grasp at being Godlike, but, like the suffering servant in Second Isaiah (Isaiah 53), took the form of a slave and emptied himself by becoming fully human, even to the point of obediently accepting the degradation of death on a cross.  God affirmed this act of self-emptying love by exalting Jesus and bestowing on him lordship over the cosmos, so that at his name all beings in the universe might acknowledge him as Lord and Messiah.

Mark’s passion story skillfully presents Jesus as both the long-awaited Messiah, or “anointed one,” and also the one who must be crucified.  At the outset, Mark places the story of Jesus’ anointing “for burial” in the midst of the plot to arrest and kill him (14:1-11).  In his account of Jesus’ Last Supper (14:12-31), Mark carefully links Jesus’ words and actions to his earlier passion predictions and presents him as in total control of his destiny.  Jesus informs his disciples that the room for the celebration of Passover had already been arranged ahead of time.  He begins the meal by announcing that one of the twelve will “betray” (“hand over”) him (14:17-21), the same verb used in earlier predictions (9:31; 10:33).  Jesus’ words in connection with the bread and wine allude to the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 and make reference to his sacrificial death that will seal a covenant for “the many”--something he had earlier prophesied in teaching his disciples (10:45).
In the Mount of Olives and Gethsemani scenes (14:26-50), Mark continues to present Jesus as painfully submissive to his destiny, while his disciples are able neither to comprehend nor follow their master in this moment of crisis.  As they go out to the Mount of Olives, Jesus predicts that his disciples “will all fall away,” but goes on to announce that this failure will be overcome when he is raised up and goes before them to Galilee.  After further proclaiming to a boastful Simon that he will deny him three times, Jesus, in a most human fashion, prays that “the hour might pass from him,” but then ends by accepting his Father’s will.  In contrast, the disciples, although they have been warned of the upcoming crisis, are unable to watch with him in his hour of agony, and when he is seized by the crowd brought by Judas from the Jewish leaders, they forsake him and flee.
The trial before the Jewish leaders (14:53-65) culminates Mark’s dual themes of both the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and the necessity for him to be rejected.  After false witnesses are unable to agree on testimony brought against Jesus, the high priest asks him: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus responds by saying, “I am; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”  In an ironic fulfillment of all Jesus has said concerning his death, this solemn proclamation leads to the council’s decision that he deserves death for blasphemy.  In this scene Mark finally reveals the whole scope of Jesus’ identity.  He is the Christ (Messiah), the beloved Son of God, who is about to die as the rejected and betrayed one, but he will return in power as the triumphant Son of Man to complete his kingdom.  Ironically, just as Jesus is announcing his full identity before the hostile high priest, Peter, the leader of the disciples, is in the courtyard vehemently denying that he knows Jesus (14:66-72).
The trial before Pilate stresses his cowardly complicity in condemning Jesus.  He is aware that the chief priests have delivered Jesus up out of jealousy and tries to release the murderer, Barabbas, but in the end “wishing to satisfy the crowd,” he releases Barabbas and, after scourging Jesus, gives him up to be crucified.

Mark’s crucifixion scene (15:16-41) is filled with bitter and painful irony.  Using frequent references to lament psalms of righteous sufferers (Pss 69 and 22), Mark has the Roman soldiers, the crowds, and the chief priests and scribes taunting and mocking Jesus, while pointing to his true identity and the salvific effects of his death. The Roman soldiers ridicule him as a would-be king, place on the cross an inscription which reads “The King of the Jews” and, like the mockers in Ps 22:18, cast lots for his garments.  Some in the crowd “wag their heads” like the taunters in Ps 22:7 and challenge Jesus to ‘save’ himself by coming down from the cross.  Finally, the chief priests and scribes, consistent with their character throughout Mark, mock Jesus by saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.  Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.”
In contrast to these taunters, the Roman centurion, when he sees Jesus’ death accompanied by the signs of ominous darkness and the rending of the Temple curtain, affirms Jesus’ full identity: “Truly this man was the Son of God!”  This scene captures the spirit of the whole liturgy for Passion Sunday.  Only after Jesus has endured his destiny to suffer and put an end to the need for the Temple and its sacrifices is it possible to confess him as the Son of God with understanding.   As the opening instruction for today’s liturgy reminds us:
Christ entered in triumph into his own city, to complete his
work as our Messiah: to suffer, to die, and to rise again.
Let us remember with devotion this entry which began his
saving work and follow him with a lively faith.  United with
him in his suffering on the cross, may we share his resurrection
and new life.

Lent 5B

 

5th Sunday of Lent B

Readings: Jeremiah 31:31-34  Hebrews 5:7-9  John 12:20-33

As we move closer to Holy Week, our Lenten readings probe the interior renewal God wants to work within us.  In Jeremiah, we hear of the prophet’s longing for a new covenant when God’s law will be inscribed in the human heart.  The epistle and gospel readings show us the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy in the person of Jesus, the obedient Son, who embraced suffering and death and thereby becomes the source of life for all who follow him. In our longing for the full realization of the new covenant in our lives, each of us can pray the refrain of today’s responsorial psalm: “Create a clean heart in me, O God” (Ps 51:12).
Jeremiah’s prophecy of a new covenant was forged in the crucible of Judah’s defeat and the destruction of the Jerusalem temple by the Babylonian armies at the beginning of the sixth century B.C.  In the years leading up to this disaster, Jeremiah stood virtually alone against kings, princes, priests, prophets, and the people of the nation, as he repeatedly urged an interiorized commitment to God’s covenant law and warned of the impending destruction of the nation.  In the darkest hour of Judah’s tragedy, however, when the Babylonian armies were besieging Jerusalem, Jeremiah’s message suddenly became hopeful.  He bought a plot of land that he had a right to purchase in the tribal system of family land inheritance in order to assure the people that “homes and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land” (Jer 32:15).
Convinced that God “will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more,” Jeremiah proclaims that “the days are coming” when the old covenant made with the fathers who were brought out of Egypt will be completed in “a new covenant.”  Although the forefathers broke the old covenant and the Lord had to “show (him)self their master,” Israel and Judah will again be bonded by law to God and one another.  But, unlike the old covenant in which the law was written on tablets of stone, the Lord promises to inscribe the law upon the people’s hearts (the seat of intelligence and will in Hebrew psychology), so that “all from the least to the greatest, shall know me. . .”

The reading from Hebrews presents Jesus as the obedient Son, who in his flesh lived out the commitment to God’s will envisioned in Jeremiah’s prophecy.  According to Hebrews, the earthly stage of Jesus’ life in which he learned sympathy for our weakness by enduring temptation was preparation for his heavenly high priesthood.  Jesus did not exercise an earthly priesthood by offering animal sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple; rather, in the flesh he learned to be an obedient Son.  In an allusion to Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Hebrews reminds us of his “prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to God,” as he faced death in faith that God was able to save him.  Only through his obedient endurance of death in faith did the Son become perfected so that he might become the source of eternal salvation for all who follow him in obedience.  Later, in chapters 8-10, Hebrews describes the heavenly priesthood of Jesus who is the mediator of the new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah (see Heb 8:1-33) by offering his own blood in the heavenly sanctuary.
The Gospel reading from John continues this Sunday’s theme of the life-giving power of Jesus’ death.  At the final Passover in John’s Gospel, God-fearing Greeks, representing the whole Gentile world, arrive in Jerusalem and ask to see Jesus.  He now knows that “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  His hour of glory involves death, but, like the grain of wheat which must die in order to produce much fruit, it will be a glorious lifting up which will draw all to him.  Although his soul is troubled at the prospect of death, Jesus refuses to ask the Father to save him from this hour and instead embraces it by praying, “Father, glorify your name!”  As we move closer to Christ’s Passover from death to life, let us ponder his words to those who would follow him.
“I solemnly assure you, unless the grain of wheat falls to
the earth and dies, it remains a grain of wheat.  But if it
dies, it produces much fruit.”

Lent 4B - Laetare Sunday

 

 

 

 

4th Sunday of Lent B

Readings: 2 Chronicles 36:14-17  Ephesians 2:4-10  John 3:14-21

In the midst of our Lenten season of penance, the readings for the Fourth Sunday provide a joyful reminder of the way God’s mercy brings life out of death.  With our Jewish ancestors who were restored to Jerusalem after the death of the Babylonian Exile, we listen to the lyrical words of today’s entrance antiphon:
Rejoice, Jerusalem!  Be glad for her, you who love her:/
rejoice with her, you who mourned for her,/
and you will find contentment at her consoling breasts.  (Isaiah 66:10-11)
The reading from Second Chronicles is a reflection on the Chaldean (Babylonian) destruction of both Jerusalem and the Temple and their restoration by Cyrus the Persian.  According to the Chronicler, Judah caused its own destruction by its repeated rejection of God’s prophetic messengers who were sent to warn the nation of covenant infidelity.  But, from the Chronicler’s perspective, God’s intention was not simply to destroy the temple and the land of Judah.  Rather, the word of God through the prophet Jeremiah had spoken of a sabbatical rest for the land and then its restoration.  This promise has been fulfilled with Cyrus’ victory over Babylon and his subsequent decree allowing the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the temple.  Our reading ends with the joyful good news of Cyrus’ proclamation:
“(God) has . . . charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem,
which is in Judah.  Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to
any part of his people let him go up and may his God be with him!”
The reading from Ephesians reminds us of the gratuitous and life-giving character of our salvation in Christ.  Before the coming of Christ, both Jews and Gentiles were hopelessly dead in sin.  But now through the gift of God, and not through their own doing, both have been brought to life in Christ, who was raised up and has taken his place in the heavens.  This new community of Jews and Gentiles is God’s handy-work and is now called to lead a life of good deeds.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not from you; it is a gift of God;
it is not from works, so no one may boast.
For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus
for the good works that God has prepared in advance

that we should live in them.
The Gospel reading from Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in John continues the theme of last week’s gospel by providing us with a symbolic foreshadowing of the cross and resurrection. For John, Jesus’ crucifixion is the beginning of his life-giving exaltation and return to the Father.  In his dialogue with Nicodemus, Jesus compares his being “lifted up” and giving eternal life to all who believe to an incident in the Israelites’ journey in the desert from Sinai to the promise land.  In Numbers 21, some of the Israelites are bitten by serpents and die because they complain to the Lord and Moses, saying, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water?  We are disgusted with this wretched food!”  At the Lord’s command, Moses makes a bronze serpent and mounts it on a pole.  Whoever was bitten and looked at the bronze serpent recovered.
John understands Jesus’ coming into the world in the same way.  The conclusion of the reading is a profound reflection on God’s motive for sending his Son into the world.  God has acted out of love for the world and desires to share his eternal life of love with it.  The light of God’s revelation in the darkened world of sin is the Son’s act of love in laying down his life “for his friends” (see John 15:11-17).  God does not actively condemn the world in John’s Gospel.  Condemnation and judgment come when the world rejects the light of God’s love in Jesus and prefers the darkness of wickedness.  Evil hates the light of God’s love and retreats into darkness.  As we move closer to the celebration of Jesus’ life-giving death and resurrection, let us allow the love of God manifest in Jesus to draw us into the truth of God’s light.

Lent 3B

 

 

 

 

3rd Sunday of Lent B
Readings: Exodus 20:1-17  1 Corinthians 1:22-25  John 2:13-25
    This Sunday's readings continue to proclaim to the Christian community the life-giving power of God's covenants with our Jewish ancestors, who were delivered from slavery in Egypt, and with the whole of humanity in Christ, who by the folly of his cross has unleashed the saving power and wisdom of God.  We are challenged to reject all idols, even the desire for signs and wisdom, which may stand between us and God's saving will.  Humbly aware of the saving gift of God's covenants, we can pray the refrain of the responsorial psalm: "Lord, you have the words of everlasting life" (Ps 19).
    The Exodus reading recounts the Lord's giving the commandments to Israel on Mount Sinai; they are to serve as the new basis for their continued covenant relationship with him.  The Israelites viewed this covenant with its laws as a saving gift from the Lord who had already freed them from Egypt.  In the words of the responsorial psalm: "The law of the Lord is perfect,/ refreshing the soul;/ the decree of the Lord is trustworthy,/giving wisdom to the simple" (Ps 19:8).
   
    Although most of the commandments are worded negatively as absolute prohibitions of certain actions, they actually protect the basic freedom of both God and the members of the Israelite community.  In a polytheistic world which tended to worship the forces of nature and the tyrannical power of kings, God demands the right to Israel's exclusive worship without the fashioning of idols or the vain use of his name for false oaths (see Lev 19:12).  The Sabbath is to be kept holy, or separate, for the Lord by observing a day of rest from labor.  The last six commands guarantee the basic rights of the Israelites: honor in old age, life free from murderous attack, marriage protected from adultery, property guarded from theft and a neighbor's covetousness, and reputation preserved from false witness.  Is it any wonder the psalmist can say of these commands: "They are more precious than gold/ sweeter than syrup or honey from the comb" (Ps 19:10)?
    In the second reading, Paul reminds the Corinthians, who are divided by their commitments to various apostles, that the gospel is not a form of wisdom, as philosophers understand it.  In fact, the heart of the gospel is the folly of a "Christ crucified," a stumbling block to the Jews, who were looking for spectacular "signs," and "an absurdity" to the Gentile Greeks who wanted worldly wisdom.   In the mystery of God's plan, the folly and weakness of the cross contain the wisdom and power by which we are saved.

    The Gospels for the third through fifth Sundays of Lent in the B cycle are taken from John's Gospel, and all point symbolically to the life-giving power of Jesus' death and resurrection.  In this Sunday's Gospel Jesus, in the course of cleansing the temple, announces that he in his death and resurrection will replace the temple where animal sacrifices were offered to God.
In contrast to the other Gospels which place this incident at the end of Jesus= public ministry, John recounts the cleansing of the temple in chapter two on the first of three Passover celebrations in his gospel.  A major theme in the first part of John is that Jesus replaces the various institutions of Judaism.  In this case, the temple has been corrupted "into a marketplace" where sacrificial animals are sold.  Filled with "zeal" for his Father's house, Jesus makes a whip of cords and drives out the sacrificial animals and knocks over the money-changers' tables.
When asked for a "sign" authorizing this action, Jesus replies: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."  As often happens in John, Jesus' hearers misunderstand him because they interpret his language as referring to some earthly, often Jewish, reality.  His opponents think he is speaking of the temple which "took forty-six years to build," but the narrator reminds us that Jesus "was talking about the temple of his body."
    John also notes that only after the resurrection did his disciples recall and believe both Jesus' cleansing of the Temple and the saying about his body.  For us as well, the life-giving power of the new temple, Jesus' body, "destroyed" yet "raised up," is to be remembered and meditated upon as we progress though Lent toward the celebration of Easter.  The covenant of our salvation has not been won by spectacular signs nor though sophisticated wisdom, but by the folly of a crucified Messiah, who had the courage to reject turning his "Father's house into a marketplace."