Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion-Year A
Is. 50:4-7
Ps. 22
Phil. 2:6-11
M. 26:14-27:66
God Wants Our Friendship, Not Our Worship
Without Our Friendship, Our worship of Him is Empty
Beloved in Christ, today we celebrate the triumphal
entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This Holy Week is like none we have experienced
in our lifetime. With churches closed, millions of people infected by the
Coronavirus, thousands of people dead, millions of people unemployed, the whole
world locked down, everything seeming to be falling apart, it is very natural
to ask, “Where is our God?” It is very natural to lose hope and despair. It is
natural to ask why is God allowing the world to go through this suffering? But
the feast of the Lord’s passion that we celebrate today tells us there is hope;
and that we Christians are called to bring that hope to the world. The First reading
reminds us that God wants us to join him bring hope and comfort to the world “The Lord GOD has given me a well-trained tongue, that I
might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.”
The gospel teaches us that, like Jesus,
we should not allow suffering and the pains of life to take away the joy of
life. Even in Jerusalem, the place of his suffering and death, Jesus had time
to celebrate the joy of the moment with people.
The feast we celebrate today took place one week
before the Jewish Passover celebration. It was the day when all the animals
that would be used for the Passover celebration were carried out in a process
and shown to the public. The goal was for each family to show to the public
that the lamp that would be offered by a particular family was indeed
unblemished and pure. Thus, it was logical that Jesus, the true lamb of God,
the real unblemished and most pure Lamb of God would join that procession
because he would be offered on that Passover for the New Covenant. This feast
marked that week that God the Father allowed his beloved son to go through
suffering so that humanity would be made new.
Beloved, the New Covenant is different from the Old
Covenant in the sense that unlike the Old, in the New Covenant God requires our
hearts, our love, our friendship, not the goats or sheep, or money or anything
else that we can offer him. God wants our friendship, not ours worship; because
without our friendship, the worship of him is empty. The New Covenant into
which you and I are baptized requires that we walk away from sin and live in a
way that shows that we cannot save ourselves but that we need a savior. That is
the mystery that the Holy Spirit revealed to the crowed that welcomed Jesus and
they sang that as a song: Hosi-ahna or Hosanna, which means, “Save us”
This song, Hosi-ahna or Hosanna (Save us), which we usually
sing in the Palm Sunday procession, was the cry of the people who welcomed
Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. They were asking Jesus to save them from the
Romans who made life extremely difficult for them. Jesus responded not by
overthrowing the Romans but by overcoming the real enemy of humanity, which is
Sin, and calling on those who cried to him to avoid sin. We call this
celebration the triumphal entry because the feast teaches us that Jesus can and
will always save people if they will give him the permission by calling upon
him, turning away from sin, and allowing him to be their God.
Beloved, God does not cause his children to suffer
but he allows suffering in order to change their hearts to become the children
he created them to be. In the midst of all the pain and suffering we see all
over the world today on TV, and experience in our daily lives, the Internet is
also full of stories of human beings doing wonderful acts of charity for one
another, especially the most vulnerable. People seem to be showing more love
towards one another. Could that be what we have lost in the world and God is allowing
this suffering to bring us back to what it truly means to live as human beings?
The second reading teaches us that like Jesus, we should not allow
suffering to change our love for God but suffering should rather draw us closer
to God and to humanity. Beloved, What God wants is our friendship,
not our worship! Our worship is empty without true friendship with God and his
people. I pray that the suffering we are going through now, all over the world,
will not draw us away from God but rather help us develop deeper friendship
with God and with humanity.
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