Beyond Violence

Propers: Palm Sunday of the Passion, A.D. 2017 A

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Violence. Violence is the common thread that ties Palm Sunday to the Passion: Jesus’ consistent refusal to use violence to inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth; and our resolute insistence that His mercy be met with blood.

In a time of unbearable tension—with the messianic furor of the masses roiling beneath Rome’s flint-hearted obsession with preserving order at all costs—Jesus rides into Jerusalem upon a donkey, a gesture saturated with meaning. In the ancient world of the Bible, a king advancing upon a given city would display his intentions by riding either upon a horse, if he came to conquer, or upon a donkey, if he came in peace.

Jesus, by entering the City of David in this way, silently proclaims two truths: that He does indeed come in peace; but also that He is Himself the long-awaited King of Kings sent by God to reclaim His rightful throne. At this public renunciation of violence, the Romans sheathe their swords; yet their hands rest warily on the pommels, knowing that any Man claiming to be King must sooner or later be dealt with firmly and decisively. Palm Sunday has both delayed and cemented the inevitable reckoning between the Caesar and the Christ.

It also, I believe, turns the heart of Judas Iscariot. He is an enigmatic character, this traitor amongst the Apostles. His surname would imply a previous vocation as Sicarius, that is, as a terrorist—or freedom fighter, depending on your point of view. The fact that Judas reacts to Jesus’ Crucifixion with such self-destructive anguish and despair would indicate to me that he neither intended nor expected Jesus to actually die. So what did he think was going to happen? Why did Judas betray Jesus, his Lord and Master, his Rabbi and friend?

I have long suspected that Judas betrayed our Lord in order to force His hand. Judas had seen what all Jesus could do—the miracles and healings, the epiphanies and revelations, the swirling clouds of followers and mighty exorcisms of demons. He knew Jesus’ power and authority and obvious divinity. It must’ve seemed as though everything Judas fought for, everything for which he’d dared to hope, was finally coming to pass. All he had to do was to tip Jesus’ hand—to make Him fight, to make Him rise up against Rome and liberate the people of God. Judas wanted a war! And he wanted Jesus to win it.

But that’s not how Jesus inaugurates His Kingdom. No matter what violence we throw at Him, no matter what new horrors our deviant little minds can devise, He continues to offer forgiveness and healing, to stretch out His arms on the Cross for all, to absolve us of our sins even as we are in the midst of murdering Him! We hurl God headlong into violence, we rage against His goodness, we lash out against His Light. And He just keeps on rising, always rising, ever rising. Rising from a cave in Bethlehem, rising from obscurity in Nazareth, rising from the waters of the Jordan and the peak of Mt Tabor. Rising from the Table, rising on the Cross, rising from the Tomb.

He is beyond violence, this God-Man, as far beyond it as the stars are from the earth. He is beyond death, pouring out from His side a well of everlasting life that fills and floods and drowns the grave. We will try and we will try and we will try to kill Him, and it simply will not work. This Love will not stay buried; it is inexorable as the tide. No matter what we do, no matter how we hate Him—no matter the lash and the thorns and the nails and the spear—He will not stop coming for us, He will not stop forgiving us, He will not stop calling us home.

We cannot stop Him from Rising. God knows how hard we’ve tried.

We cannot stop Him from Rising. For death on that Cross has now died.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.