Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year C (March 28th 2010)

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – Year C (March 28^th) – Reflections by Fr Nick King SJ

Readings: Luke 19:28-40    Isaiah 50:4-7    Psalm 22:8-9, 17-20, 23-24    Philippians 2:6-11    Luke 22:14-23:56

Next Sunday is the first day of Holy Week, that long-drawn-out and solemn drama at which our Lent has been aiming all these weeks. All during Holy Week, the readings are rich and powerful and speak for themselves. The readings for Palm Sunday are no exception: Luke’s account of that deceptively triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Isaiah’s third “song of the Suffering Servant”, Psalm 22, on which Christians have meditated ever since they started to tell themselves the sombre story of Jesus’ passion, then Paul’s astonishing account of Jesus’ self-emptying and God’s powerful response. As always, though, the gospel reading is the Passion story, which this year we hear in Luke’s version. And it seems worthwhile just to point today to one or two details that you might like to listen out for during the long narrative. These will be details that you only find in this gospel; in other words, they are what makes Luke’s account of the Passion different.

First, there is, as in Mark and Matthew, the institution of the Eucharist; but it is an odd fact (and you must check it for yourself) that Luke stays closer to the account given by St Paul than to what he found in Mark’s gospel. At the Last Supper, Jesus’ prediction of betrayal leads in Luke to what looks like a drunken brawl about “Who is Mr. Big?”. Then comes the gentle rebuke, “Simon, Simon, Satan sought to sift you” (the s-sounds giving it a peculiar quality in both Greek and English), leading to the prediction of Simon’s denial of Jesus. Astonishingly, for such a gentle gospel, Luke’s Jesus encourages his disciples to buy swords – and, it turns out, they already have two! Then, however, Jesus spoils it all by saying “that’s enough”. Typical of Luke is the emphasis on prayer on the part of all the disciples; and perhaps also the details (not in all manuscripts) that Jesus sweated blood, and was comforted in his agony by an angel from heaven. Then there is a charitable remark by Luke, to the effect that the disciples were sleeping “from grief” (On Easter Sunday he will with equal charity tell us that they did not believe in Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearance “from joy”!).

A characteristic Lucan touch is the denial that just as Peter has energetically denied all knowledge of Jesus, “the Lord turned and looked at him”, which causes Peter, not surprisingly, to burst into tears. Also typical is the accusation brought to Pilate that Jesus has been “subverting our race, and stopping people paying tax to the Emperor”. It was not true, of course; but it shows Luke’s interest in the wider Roman Empire. Typical also is the accusers’ assertion that Jesus has been “shaking up the people, teaching throughout the whole of Judea, and starting from Galilee, until this point”. Luke’s is a journeying gospel, with much geographical detail of this sort. It is also only Luke that has Jesus appear before Herod, for a bit of inconclusive fun. Luke alone has the women in the crowd who mourn for Jesus, and are told instead to “weep for yourselves and for your children”. Only in Luke, too, and not in all manuscripts of the gospel, is the characteristically gentle prayer, “Father – forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing”. It is typical of Luke, too, that he has “the people stood watching”, as Jesus hangs on the cross; they are the same “people” who at the gospel’s very beginning had been waiting outside the Temple while the angel Gabriel spoke to Zachary.

And it is in Luke alone that we find perhaps the loveliest detail of the Passion story. Quite unexpectedly, the mockery that too often accompanies the execution of condemned criminals is interrupted by a rebuke from one of Jesus’ fellow-convicts: “do you not fear God?” and a prayer, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom”, which gets the astonishing answer, “Amen I tell you, today”(and that “today” is a very important word in Luke’s gospel) “you will be with me in Paradise.

There are other small differences that you find in Luke’s gospel alone; but these may help you to pray your way attentively through the Passion, and walk with Jesus in his death.