Readings:
Matthew 21:1-11 (Gospel for the Procession with Palms)
Isaiah 50:4.7
Philippians 2:6-11
Matthew 26:14-27:66 (Passion)
before the procession:
"Look, your king comes to you;
he is humble, he rides on a donkey…”
To adorn the royal majesty with all possible earthly glories has been
the practice not only of the Jews but also practically among all. Even today,
nobles are given due honor worthy of their dignity.
Our solemn celebration of the Holy Week starts with the re-enactment of
the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The palms we carry and the Hosanna
we chant make us remember the joyous celebration of the Jews long ago when they
hailed David their king. Today, we recall with the same joy the entry of our
Lord into the holy city. We give him the same honor and respect due to a king.
Truly, we believe in him not only as king but also as the King of kings. But what a poor king we do have! "He
rides on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of beast of burden."
The paradox of our faith teaches consistently that true greatness
consists in humility. And if ever we believe in the truth of it, it is simply
because Christ himself sets an undying example of how it is to be humble. This
starts as early as the nativity. Even the choice of place and people reveals
our King's humble beginnings. Can anything good come Nazareth? Why was he born
to such an ordinary woman and the carpenter and not to the king of Judah and
queen of Sheba? Why on the poor animals' stable and not on the golden crib of
the Caesars? Now, he rides on a beast of burden.
Why not on a chariot? - - - There is only one answer to this seemingly endless
question: humility!
The
passion of the Lord:
“I am innocent in this man's blood.
It is your concern…
Let his blood be on us and on
our children…”
The humility
of Christ, as we see, reaches its peak at Calvary. This would be the highest
form of his kenosis of his total self-emptying. But this humility ends
up in total humiliation, it has no other greater reason than to fulfill the
scripture: "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father…but then,
how would the scriptures be fulfilled that say this is the way it must be?”
This is a Matthean characteristic evident in his
version of the passion narrative. However, typical to Matthew, too, is his
stress on the responsibility, which this humiliation is to be blamed at Matthew
shifts the blame from Pilate to
the people: not of course to the Jewish people in general, but to the elders in
particular who have been consistently forceful to have Jesus condemned. Thus,
while Pilate washes his hands before the innocence of Jesus, these people shout
back: "Let his blood be on us and our children.” How Matthew
depicts the court ordeal is quite interesting. Here we see some
contrasts of personalities and how these personalities would try to struggle
for their ends. In this particular scenario, we see the struggling Pilate and
the condemning Jewish elders.
Pilate has
the “command responsibility." So, we easily point our fingers on him. But while
we traditionally impute the blame on him, Matthew seems to depict a human
Pilate who wants to be honest in his own right. The message of Pilate's wife
touches his religious conscience and now bothers him so much. And not only
that. Pilate himself sees no: guilt in
Jesus. So, while he could not resist the shouts of the condemning Jews, he
knows that he is indeed confronting an innocent man. The situation is then
extremely difficult for the human Pilate, and yet he has to make a decision. He
washes his hands.
From a
distance, we sometimes consider Pilate's decision as escapism. But actually,
Pilate seems to make the safest decision possible and the most human at that. We must
remember that while he makes this difficult decision, which escapes him from public
fury, we know that at the silence of his conscience Pilate is deeply sad. With
what happens, the Matthean Pilate teaches us so great a human lesson. The
Matthean Pilate is a mirror to many, if not to all, of us. Pilate is just like
us, or better, we are just like Pilate. We also wash our hands. While trying to
save our name or to preserve the dignity of our office, we wash our hands in
public. And worse, we wash our hands not only once but many times and even over
silly things. And yet, at the core of our being, we know we are not happy with
what we do. Like Pilate, we are deeply sad.
But this is
not the case of the Jewish elders. They are determined and too hot in pursuing
after the life of an innocent. And even after they succeed, they are not sad. Perhaps,
this is the reason why Matthew shifts the blame from Pilate to these people.
They are the real culprits. Jesus dies not at the hands of Pilate but at the
cruel instigations of these elders. And Matthew wants to tell us that these
unscrupulous accusers would indeed succeed because of their power and
influence. Thus, unfortunately for Christ, but perhaps fortunately for these
people, they are just that influential as to silence those who go against them
and convince to rally behind them those who prove weak and indifferent. Such
would be the case of those some who at first acclaim Jesus as king and messiah,
but only to end up condemning him. And more than that, their power holds not
only over ordinary people, but also even over the office of Pilate. Thus, the
real powerful appears not to be at the court of justice but at the circle of
these elders. Sadly, what happens at the
sala of Pilate is not a by-gone scenario. Even at present, this formidable
thing still happens at our own courts of justice.
Matthew must
have been aware of this tragic attitude. But despite all this, the Matthean
Christ voluntarily accepts this horrible ordeal. He accepts the challenge of
the cross as no less than the challenge of life. As a result, the scandal,
which the cross is supposed to bring simply slides down,
at least partly, and becomes a shadow of his perfect obedience to the Father's
will. Indeed, human failures see hope in divine obedience. It is precisely
because of this that Matthew wants to stress how rewarding the death of Christ
becomes. His kenosis does not bring him total annihilation, but a
transition to his final glorious exaltation.