HOMILY FROM CANON STEPHEN FOR PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION
‘AND SUDDEN FEAR CAME OVER HIM, AND GREAT DISTRESS’
Holy Week tells the story of people who fall, falter and fail. One after another, the disciples, the crowd, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Romans, the Scribes, Criminals, Bystanders all fall down, one after another ‘like a ton of bricks’, as my father would say. It is a fall story. We can identify with different people in the story. It is a toxic mixture of temptation, fear and rebellion.
During Holy Week we see Jesus with outstretched hands, embracing a fallen people. His hands get overwhelmed, crushed and wiped out. They get nailed. Because they are divine hands they have the power to stop this rapid violence of a fallen people. But, because they are also human hands, they hurt like hell. That is what happens on the cross. The divinity of humankind says ‘Stop’. The humanity of God in Christ gets crushed.
As we journey through Holy Week together, we see the joyous Palm Sunday singing Hosanna turn to the terror and pain of the words, ‘Crucify him’. We see our own fall in the fall of each of the many characters of the Passion Gospel story today.
Holy Week tells us that ‘Stop’ doesn’t turn out to be the last word of this story. God raised Jesus from the dead. They are raised with him. The last word that Jesus says as the crushing grave-stone is rolled away and he turns the fall into an agent of resurrection is the word ‘Go’. He says it to a woman! Mary Magdalene.
May this be a holy week for us and our loved one. May it be a discovery of how our worlds can fall. May it be a week where we can discover in our life, how we can find the strength, courage, grace and wisdom to say, ‘STOP’. And may God turn our ‘STOP’ into a divine ‘GO’. Bless you and all your loved ones this Holy Week!
