The Creed and the Incarnation

While preparing for a seminar I’m doing on the Psalms tomorrow, I ran across a profound reflection on the Creed and the ancient Christian understanding of the Incarnation. The reflection comes from Antiochian Orthodox priest and writer, Patrick Henry Reardon in his wonderful book “Christ in the Psalms”. Reflecting on Psalm 8, Reardon says this:

From the very earliest translations of the Creed into the English language, the mystery of the Incarnation has been expressed in a rather puzzling way, even if our long familiarity with the words has reduced our sense of their grammatical enigma. We say of the Son of God that He “became [or "was made] man.”

The puzzle posed by this construction is exactly how to classify the predicate nominative “man” in this instance. Is the sense of the expression indefinite–”a man,”  much that we might say that “Fred became a farmer”? But if so, why didn’t the translators simply say that? “He became a man” would not only make sense; it would be both grammatically and theologically correct.

Or is the meaning of the expression merely descriptive–”he became human,” much as we might say “Fred became agrarian”? Here again, the translators could easily have said that, if that is what they meant, because God’s Son most certainly did become human.

No, neither of these translations were deemed adequate. Rendering very literally from the underlying Latin…the translators said that He “became man”, leaving us with this stylistic puzzle. One can hardly think of an occasion, after all, in which we might properly say “Fred became farmer.”

What the translators give us here is an idiom, which is to say a form of expression unique to a particular setting and standing outside of expected usage. On reflection, their recourse to idiom in this case is hardly surprising, for the event under discussion, the Incarnation, is itself “idiomatic” in the extreme, in the sense of being completely unique, utterly unexpected and standing free of normal patterns of acquiescence. How better, after all, to speak of an incomparable and unparalleled event than by recourse to an idiomatic improvisation.

God’s Son did not only ”become human,” though it is true that He did. Nor did He simply “become a man,” although this likewise is a correct statement of the fact. He “became man” rather, in a sense defying grammatical precision as thoroughly as it confounds also the expectations of biology, psychology, metaphysics, and other aspects of the human enterprise, thereby shocked and left reeling, all its vaunted resources now strained and overcharged at the infusion of unspeakable glory.

The most correct formulation of the Incarnation is the one to which we are accustomed: “He became man.” Christ is the archetype of man, bearing all of humanity in Himself. “It was for the new man that human nature was established from the beginning,” wrote St. Nicholas Kavasilas; “the old Adam was not the model of the new, it was the new Adam that was the model of the old.”     

 

 

A longing for springtime: wilderness and the garden

 

The following is the first installment of what I consider some important passages from “A Longing for Home; Rethinking a Biblical Ecological Worldview”–my own Master’s thesis. I’ve been thinking about today’s particular passage a lot lately. There is an interesting metaphorical (as well as literal) relationship in Scripture between the wilderness and the garden; between the times of spiritual desert, and the new life that God wishes to give to all of us. How is it that God wishes to use the painful times in our life to lead us to rejuvenation? What does the one say about the other? This section explores the Old Testament and prophetic relationship of the two.

For centuries in the life of the Church and prior, the desert has held a particularly significant theological place. As we have seen, the desert was often the backdrop for exile, although to merely equate desert with exile would be to lose sight of this ecosystem’s true role. Although the Scriptures focus heavily on the desert during Israel’s Exodus from Egypt, the desert is also portrayed in the Old Testament—particularly through the prophets—as the place where YHWH would woo his people back to himself after they turned away from him like an unfaithful bride. Likewise, it was John the Baptist in the New Testament who fulfilled the role of the messenger whom both Isaiah and Malachi foretold would prepare the way for YHWH’s return. Continuing this tradition, many of the early Fathers of the Church sought refuge in the desert, where they produced some of the most beautiful and meditative theology in Christian history. In Scripture itself, there is no shortage of figures that turn to the desert (or wilderness) for strength, inspiration and holy rest. It is in the desert that Moses meets God face to face, that Elijah withdraws to hear the voice of YHWH. Indeed, it is the place where Jesus himself goes for forty days and forty nights to prepare to inaugurate his public ministry. Even St. Paul goes to the desert to prepare for his own ministry after his conversion in Acts of the Apostles. It should come as no surprise then, that in the Christian tradition, the garden and the desert have always been key symbols.

Why the desert? For many, the desert represents a wasteland; a certain absence of beauty. Vegetation is often sparse, life difficult to sustain. Theologian and gardener Vigen Guroian gives us some insight into the attraction. He points out that “the early Christian writers thought that there is no virtue more profound than the perpetual remembrance of our mortality.”[1] “The Bible”, he says, “recalls past paradise; it also prophecies a future blessedness.”[2]

On the flip side, we might speculate on the crucial role of gardens in Hebrew and Christian history. Every human-made garden, Guroian muses, “grows from a seed of Paradise dropped in memory by Adam’s dolorous lament. Sometimes we yearn to return to it, as though Paradise were an ordinary ‘place,’ as if with map and compass we might find it.” He quotes Jennifer Bennett who says perhaps more properly that “the archetype and perfection of every garden ‘is the place where we knew nature before innocence was lost.’”[3] It is in gardening, he says, that man longs to return to the Garden of Eden, to somehow recreate what has been destroyed. In a certain and very real sense the desert leads man to this desire. It is a stark reminder of what it is that humanity has lost.

Not coincidentally, the desert is also the place where God promised to woo his people back to himself. In Hosea, God says that despite her sin, he will “allure” Israel, “and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.”[4] God chooses to woo his people back to him in the desert because it was the desert where God first revealed himself to his people.  Fresh from Egyptian slavery, and surprisingly, right after the golden calf apostasy, God reveals to Moses that he is,

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means free the guilty.[5]

 

This is by far the most in-depth view of the nature God up until this point in Scripture. Through the prophets, the Lord wanted his people to remember that it was in the desert that this was first revealed. Hosea continues:

 

[In the wilderness] I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.[6]

 

We see then that the stark reality was not only meant to be a reminder of what mankind had lost in the fall, but also to be a reminder that all hope and trust ought ultimately fall on God.  In Isaiah 51:3, we read that

 

the Lord will comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.  

 

Here, as in a chorus of similar Isaian passages[7], we have no mere metaphor. The Lord led his people to the wilderness to remind them of a real, tangible, touchable, smellable reality that had been lost; and to create a real longing for its return.  Guroian concludes,

 

It was entirely fitting, therefore, that Christ was buried in a garden, a seed planted in the ground that blossomed into the flower of a glorified humanity. The New Adam [Jesus] refurbished the devastated garden that the Old Adam left behind. No wonder at the empty tomb, Christ came to Mary Magdalene as the gardener (John 20:15). For he is the Master Gardener, and we, we are his apprentices as well as the subjects of his heavenly husbandry.[8] 

 

This, he says, in essence, is why we garden.

 

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[1]Vigen Guroian, The Fragrance of God. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2006) 42.

[2] Ibid, 44.

[3]As quoted by Guroian, 45.

[4] Hos 2:14

[5] Ex 34:6-7

[6] Hos 2:15

[7] Consider Is 32:16; 35:1; 35:6; 41:18; 43:20.

[8]Vigen Guroian. The Fragrance of God. 47.

 

Do goats go to heaven?

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine some time ago that has haunted me ever since. He recounted the words of a well-known Catholic apologist who was once asked by a Protestant, whether, if he were to die today, he could be assured that he would go to heaven. The Catholic’s answer was a textbook one. He said “yes”, explaining that if he had recently gone to confession and was unaware of any mortal sin, then indeed, he could be assured of his own salvation. At first, this answer seemed fine to me. It wasn’t until my friend really pushed the question, that I realized how short-sighted the answer actually was. In a sense of course, the Catholic apologist was right, but in another sense, something profound was missing.

The Gospel of Matthew contains a teaching of Jesus that I’ve recently begun to see in a whole new light. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus recounts a pretty shocking tale:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee a drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee? And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Now, here’s the rub. Why was it–ultimately–that the goats were cast off into the eternal fire? Was it because they did not care for a poor, the sick, the naked, and imprisoned? Perhaps. However, was it possible that if those same goats had responded to God by saying, “Lord we didn’t know that was you, please have mercy on us!” that they would have suffered the same fate? I firmly believe that the goats are not cast off merely because of their unjust actions, but because they refused to acknowledge their wrongdoing and ultimately throw themselves on God’s mercy. Instead, they take their cue from Adam and Eve, actually blaming God for hiding himself! The Fundamental question is this: are there sins that we commit daily (possibly even very serious ones) that we have no idea that we’re committing? Frankly, the goats didn’t realize they were sinning; and you and I likely commit far worse sins than these. If this is the case, what have we to fall back on during the day of judgement?

My problem with the Catholic apologist’s answer (as was the problem of a well-known Orthodox priest whose name escapes me at the moment) is that it relies solely on what we do. At the end of the day, we can have hope of salvation if we are willing to throw ourselves on God’s mercy. We do as much as we can, of course. We should confess our sins as often as possible. But if stand before the throne of Almighty on the last day and he happens to call to mind severe sins that we were unaware of when we committed them, what will be our response? Will it be, “Well, I went to confession, how was I supposed to know that was a sin?” Or will we simply cry out “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner”?

 

The view from the ivory tower

I had a bit of a shaking experience recently; one which really called into question my intentions to begin a PhD program in New Testament studies next year. I found myself surrounded last Friday by intellectual snobbery, the likes of which I’d never experienced before–and all guns (metaphorically) were pointed right at me. I was giving a talk to a particular group who vehemently refused to accept any of my premises. I had (apparently not understanding my audience) suggested that the Scriptures might actually be legitimate or point toward actual true events. “How could I”, they scoffed, “an educated person, actually believe the Bible to be *gasp* the Word of God. Ha!” “These Bible people”, they further scoffed, “actually believe that they can talk to God–the fools!” “They believe in miracles!” I was so taken off guard by the insinuations that I could barely muster a response in between their criticisms. Needless to say, I never actually finished giving the talk (which was supposed to be about the nature of the early Church in Acts of the Apostles, incidentally).

While I (with my melancholic personality) spent most of the weekend still reeling and feeling, frankly, a bit sorry for myself, I’ve slowly begun to appreciate the experience. As a teacher, I speak to people a lot. And usually, people really enjoy what I have to say. I’ve become quite accustomed to my share of accolades. Worse than that however; although in truth, I’m really just a lowly catechist–a simple Bible teacher–I’ve recently begun to subconsciously fancy myself a lofty academic. I like the image of it. Leather bound books, tweed jackets, perhaps a Volvo someday. What’s wrong with that, you might ask? Nothing, really. Except the intention behind it. I’ve been forced to really search my soul this weekend and reassess why it is I want to follow the path I’m following. Could it be that I want to legitimatize my little place in the world to all of my secular, well-paid friends? Do I find it embarrassing to say that I’m a Bible teacher, rather than “well, I’m a faculty member–nay, a professor –at the St. John Vianney Seminary, ho, ho.”

Why is it–really–that I do what I do? Why is it that I teach the Bible in the first place? Is it for the image, or is it because Jesus Christ changed my life and I want to help show others that he can do the same for them? To many in the secular world, my job probably sounds pointless, even a waste. Am I okay with that? My friend Tim Gray likes to point out just how well-recognized and respected in Jerusalem’s Jewish community St. Paul probably was prior to his conversion. He probably could have had a prestigious teaching chair at the best Yeshiva in town. But what did he do? He threw it all away, packed his bags, and became a traveling preacher. One that was often laughed at, imprisoned and kicked out of the same synagogues which he could have been running, had things gone differently. Why? Because Jesus changed his life and he had to do something about it. That’s the reason I got into this gig in the first place, I reminded myself; and the events of the weekend provided a stark reconing with that.

In the end, I probably will still pursue the PhD. I want to have a voice in this field; one to counter the widely prevailing view that there is nothing supernatural or spiritual about the Bible. That it’s all politics; written by the powerful to keep the weak in check. What a tragic way to view Christianity. What lifelessness. The question I need to continually ask myself however, is, am I prepared to be humiliated, mocked and rejected–just like St. Paul? Are any of us? Why do we do what we do? What does that badge of Christian really mean, and what responsibility unavoidably comes with it?

 

The Particulars of Rapture

I’ve borrowed the title of this post from a book by Torah and Talmud scholar, Avivah Zornberg, who wrote a book on Exodus by the same name. In an radio interview I was recently listening to, Zornberg presented a beautiful reflection on the Israelite’s crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 15.  One of the things she stresses throughout the interview is the need to move beyond what may from the outset seem like something of a children’s story, and into the deeper and vastly complex realities within this pinnacle event which has shaped the life of the Jewish people, as well as Christianity.

As I mentioned, one of my favorite segments came as a meditation on the deeper reality of the crossing of the Red Sea. Zornberg–drawing on ancient midrashic tradition–says that if we read carefully the text of what is called the hymn of Moses–in which the Israelites rejoice in their salvation from Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and riders, who have been buried in the waves of the sea–we see that the people are not merely singing after they have been saved, but while they are still in the midst of the parted waters. She says that,

the song is an expression not just of jubilation, but of the human situation. Of being in the middle; of being full of fear; the sense of life and death in the balance; seeing what can happen to human beings all around them; and that, there but by the grace of God go I. And so the song is not a simple ditty. It’s a song that human beings sing in the face of mortality.

The text itself says that even while the waters crash down upon the armies of Pharaoh, the Israelites have not reached the end yet. They are, Exodus tells us, walking “on dry ground in the midst of the sea” even as they cry out, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15:19, 21).  Zornberg says that,

If one imagines it as people still in that rather menacing corridor, which they know can collapse, because it just has behind them, then the song becomes a different song; and it’s a song of human beings at the edge, between death and life; celebrating life…but at the edge.

In many ways, this is the situation we live in today. Death, sin, violence is all around us. War, corruption, Christians at one anothers’ throats. We know that at any moment we might be overtaken, but in this moment, God’s grace is present. Do we believe that God is actively in the process of saving us even though we are not yet out of the woods? This, I think, is what true Christian hope consists in: knowing that while death seems to have the final word over the present world, Christ has conquered this world and is actively creatinga new one–made, no less, out of the material of this fallen world! As the Christian fathers suggest, the same waters which silenced Pharaoh’s armies were the waters in which Israel received a sort of baptism into God’s covenant. God is calling Christians to trudge on through the intimidating waters. We, if anyone, should know that there is light at the other end of the tunnel, that there is hope in the midst of darkness. Jesus proved this, showing us that even crucifixion–the most brutal form of death the world had to offer–could not defeat him. If we cannot carry this hope–the hope that suffering really can lead to life–and carry it like an emblem within ourselves as we struggle through the darkness of our times, who is the rest of an increasingly hopeless world supposed to look to?

 

That intimidating Bible

A good friend of mine, over at his blog, Bumi Dipijak, has compliled a helpful guide for non-experts who want to read and actually understand the Bible. As he notes, the Scriptures are often seen as dangerous and intimidating territory for many Catholics. Others–many of whom I know personally–would like to read the Bible more, or even more deeply, but lack a sane approach that doesn’t consist in just starting in Genesis and trudging through to Revelation (indeed, Leviticus and Numbers have left many causualties along the way, and many Bibles on their shelves). Some simply don’t know where to begin. This guide, which I imagine will continue to grow with suggestions and tools is a great place to start. After all, as St. Jerome says, “ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”

The link follows here:   http://wanweihsien.wordpress.com/scripture-for-the-non-experts/

 

Who the dickens was Theophilus?

I’ve recently run across a new theory which potentially answers an issue that has puzzled Biblical scholars for years. When Luke opens both his Gospel as well as his book the Acts of the Apostles, he addresses his writings to someone named Theophilus. Speculations have abounded as to who this mysterious figure is. Perhaps the most popular is that he is a Roman official to whom Paul is offering a defense of the new Christian faith. Others suggest that Theophilus represents all of the faithful. This is largely based on the etymology of the name, which means “friend of God.”

The new theory which I have just discovered however (thanks to Tim Gray), is that Theophilus was in fact the High Priest of Jerusalem.  While I’m still wrapping my mind around this idea, its possibility opens up a whole new way of reading Lukan literature. Namely, Luke’s high content of priestly, liturgical and Temple imagery, makes a great deal more sense. Not coincidentally, Luke begins his Gospel with the priest Zechariah offering sacrifice in the Temple. It ends with Jesus’ passion which is portrayed largely in light of his priestly ministry. It has always seemed to me that so many of the images and references that Luke uses in the books would have likely been lost to a Roman reader. Why then, would they make a good defense of the faith? If, on the other hand, they were defenses of the faith offered to a Jewish, priestly audience, it would make a wonderful (albiet provocative) defense of the faith.  Richard Anderson has written a helpful blog (and, book, I think) on this topic. I’ve included a link to the blog’s first entry, in which he initially presents his theory. It follows below.  

http://kratistostheophilos.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_archive.html

 

Creation, Gardening and the New World

Over the last several weeks, I have been heavily engaged in a writing project aimed at getting to the bottom of the Biblical notion of the “new creation” and what that has to do with the way Christians ought to interact with the created world today. Unfortunately, many Christians see environmentalism and Christianity as disparate realities. Likewise, many environmentalists see the same opposition but for different reasons. This is tremendously problematic. What do the Scriptures have to say about this? Indeed for the Bible, man is not a foreign invader into the natural world, as many secular streams of thought seem to suggest. Neither ought man be a domineering slavemaster over creation, free to use it and abuse it according to his whim, as many Christians have tended to suggest. Rather, mankind–from the beginning–was called to be a gardener. This was Adam’s primordial vocation in the garden; to tend, keep, guard and care for creation. Fundamentally, it did not belong to him. Creation is Gods’; we are but caretakers. For the Bible, this has eschatalogical consequences. Just as Jesus came to redeem humanity, and by doing so, redeemed the human body which will be raised on the last day (just as Jesus’ was), so too, he also came to redeem all of creation which will also be raised, restored and glorified on the last day. In Revelation, the prophets, St. Paul, and even in the words of Jesus himself, we are led to the reality that when he comes again, God will not obliterate the created world, leaving all of us to float off to some disembodied heaven, but rather, a new creation; a new heavens and new earth; a new heavenly Jerusalem will come down from heaven. Indeed, in the end, it will not fundamentally be us going up to God, but rather, God coming down to us.

The following is a brief passage from my project (more of which, I imagine, will follow in the coming days and weeks) explaining how Paul seems to allude to this idea in his letters.

If our assessment is correct, it is safe to say that most Christians need to change their view of the created world. The Church has long recognized that the body ought to be respected and treated with a profound honor and dignity because it is in fact the material “stuff” that the resurrected body will be composed of. Just as Jesus himself took on a human body, with all of its shortcomings and weaknesses, and then transformed that same body it when he arose on Easter Sunday, Christians are to understand that God will do the same for the rest of mankind. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he calls Jesus the “image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation,” saying that “in him all things were created…He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first born from the dead.”[1]  Paul is suggesting that just as he rose from the dead as “first-born”, so will all the rest of creation follow.  Likewise, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he assures the church there that,…in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”[2]  

This leads to a very logical reality. If our physical bodies will be raised on the last day, they ought to have a physical dwelling place as well. Enter Scripture’s theology of a “new heavens” and “new earth.”            

In St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, he comforted a worried group of apparently newly converted Christians who were concerned over what exactly would happen to their loved ones who have died. Clearly, the resurrection of the dead was still a shaky concept for them. In 4:13f, Paul tells them,…

“we would not have you ignorant brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him all those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who have fallen asleep (emphasis mine).”  

He goes on to tell them that when Jesus returns at the time of the second coming, …

“the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.”  

In Greek, the word for coming is parousia. The city of Thessalonica was the capital city of the Roman province of Macedonia, and thereby a very politically important city. As such, the emperor cult, or worship of the Roman emperor, was also very important. By using the term parousia, Paul was employing a technical term used to describe the visit of a political dignitary. N.T. Wright notes that this language, which would have been well known in the ancient world, speaks of

“an emperor or other dignitary making a state visit to a city or province—or even, when the emperor had been elsewhere, his return to Rome. In fact, the Greek word parousia, which has become a technical term for the literalistic construct of an early Christian hope involving the end of the space-time world, with Jesus “coming down” in a “second coming” and believers flying upwards to meet him, is drawn, not from the Bible at all, but from the world of pagan usage, where it was almost a technical term for this kind of imperial “visitation.”[3]  

Here, Wright notes that this passage has often been misconstrued to speak of what is known in some modern protestant circles as the “rapture”, in which believers will all be swept up into a sort of non-material heaven and the world as we know it will pass away. Wright clarifies the confusion:…

“the point here is that the “meeting”—another almost technical term in the Greek—refers, not to a meeting after which all the participants stay in the meeting place, but to a meeting outside the city, after which the civic leaders escort the dignitary back to the city itself.”[4] 

In other words, when Jesus comes again, Paul says that we will all be caught up in the sky to meet him as he descends on the clouds–a clear reference to the coming of the Son of Man in Daniel 7–and then we will escort him back to earth where he will come to lay claim on all of creation. The world we will return to then, will not be the earth that we know now, but rather the “new earth” which has been transformed by grace, analogous to our own resurrected bodies.  

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[1] Col 1:15; 18.

[2] 1 Cor 15:20-23

[3] N.T. Wright. The Resurrection of the Son of God. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) 217.

[4] Ibid, 217-218

 

Where is this all leading again?

On Sunday, I got to thinking about the terminology we use to describe the day’s liturgical significance. You may have noticed that this day is referred to as both “Palm Sunday” and “Passion Sunday.” Someone asked me recently why this is the case. The two seem as though they should be separate events. The more I pondered this, I realized that in fact, the event of Jesus’ passion can never be taken apart from his royal entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. In the Gospel accounts, Jesus is welcomed into the city as a king in the royal line of David. Several textual details attest to this: the waving of palm branches, the shouting of Hosannas to the “son of David”, the spreading of cloaks on the ground before him, and even the donkey itself on which Jesus’ rides, all hearken back to the Israelite kings of old. Likewise, the people clearly seem to understand Jesus’ symbolic actions. They are not just welcoming him as a popular traveling teacher, but indeed as the long-lost Davidic king returned to take back his throne!  

From here, as most of us may recall, the scene turns increasingly sour. Jesus–as king–pronounces judgement on his own people for their sin (instead of the cruel Romans who were oppressing his people), an act which soon leads him to his crucifixion. This then, is the content of Sunday’s Gospel reading.

For the New Testament writers, the term “Gospel” was not an abstract concept. It had a real, concrete, Old Testament context. Originating from Isaiah and Micah (both of whom Mark quotes as he begins his Gospel) the word itself meant more than “good news.” It was good news about something. What that good news was, according to the prophets, was that the long lost king would one day return to Jerusalem from the desert, and once there, he would go to the temple and then take up his throne. Isaiah also gave some new information. For those who read the prophet aright, the king returning home would be God himself (Is 40).

So what does this suggest about why it is that the Church sees Palm Sunday and the Passion as liturgically inseparable?  Simply this: Jesus’ kingship can never be separated from his crucifixion. According to the Fathers of the Church, the cross was indeed Jesus’ kingly throne, from which he poured himself out in ultimate service to his people–both those who accepted him as king and those who did not. After all, what king (or president) only serves those who support him. Jesus’ kingship is universal, and he demonstrates this by accepting the legal punishment for those who would fail to heed his words and take up arms against Rome. He likewise suffers the same death that would befall many of his followers later on. Jesus’ message is clear, and it resonates with the readings of Palm Sunday; if you will be courageous enough to follow the true king, there will be consequences to pay; there will be crosses to carry.

As much as we want to label it merely Palm Sunday, get our free branches and then go home and shape them into little designs and forget about it, the message of Palm Sunday is one that’s hard to ignore. We stand for an almost excruciatingly long reading of the Gospel account of Jesus’ Passion. Why? Simply so that every time we look at those pretty palm branches that we picked up on the way into Mass, we might remember where it all led.