Two Swords

Tarot Mucha

Propers: Palm Sunday of the Passion, A.D. 2019 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

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

They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords!” And He sighed and replied, “It is enough.”

He rides into the Holy City as a King, and is proclaimed as such by the multitudes. The only problem, of course, is that Jerusalem already has a king—or rather, a Caesar. For anyone to be welcomed into royal David’s City as royal David’s Son is treason, a rebel just waiting to be crucified, a rebellion begging to be squashed.

But the people simply can’t contain themselves, it seems. After centuries of expectant waiting, begging, praying for the Messiah; after three years and more of Jesus healing, teaching, working His wonders and raising their dead; a few weeks at most since Lazarus came forth at his own funeral, after four days dead in the tomb, just on the outskirts of this very city; their excitement is simply too great to contain. The Messiah has come, the Christ, the King. Had they remained silent, the very stones of Creation would cry out.

Occupied Jerusalem at Passover is a powder keg waiting for a spark. Devout Jews and proselytes from around the ancient world have gathered for the high holy days, a roiling mass of religious fervor one outrage from a riot. When Jesus sees how they will welcome Him, He makes special provision to enter the city astride a donkey—a poignant sign in the ancient world that the King comes not for war but peace. Even so, it affirms their dearest hopes: for a King come in peace is a King nonetheless.

And He knows He’s going to die. That’s unavoidable now, if ever it were. He knows that Judas, pushed to the breaking point by his own zealotry, will betray the Christ in an attempt to force His hand, force Him to fight. And the other Apostles, skittish at the prospect of violence, fired on by the miracles they’ve seen that Jesus wrought, aren’t far behind. When He says that soon the sword will come, they reply with enthusiasm, “Look, Lord, we have two swords here with us!” Two swords for twelve Apostles. Some uprising.

And Jesus, wearied by their lack of comprehension, by their default to the sword, sighs heavily and says, “It is enough.” They really don’t understand what’s coming. Even when He’s arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, Peter lashes out with the sword, and poorly. He wounds an attacker in the ear, with his wild fisherman’s thrust. And Jesus cries, “No more of this!” healing the man’s ear right then and there. He has not come to incite violence. He has come to bring violence, all violence, to its end.

He hasn’t come to conquer Rome. He hasn’t come to rule Israel with an iron fist. He has come to liberate Roman and Israelite, Greek and barbarian, indeed every wayward child of Adam and Eve from slavery to sin and death and hell. And He will do this by opening Himself up to it all—taking it all upon and within Himself—absorbing every blow, every lash, every curse and slap and thorn and fall, the piercing of the nails, the slashing of the lance.

He will take it all into Himself and fall headlong from that Cross, down into the Tomb, down into the earth, down into the very pits of hell. And there He will drown death with His own infinite, outpouring Life; He will fill hades up to bursting with the Blood and Breath and Light of God, until violence itself, until anguish and suffering and death and loss, are one and all swallowed up in the infinite depths of His self-giving Love.

And then He will rise, from gory to glory, triumphant, resplendent, victorious, almighty, having bound Himself to humankind, bound to our death, bound to our fall, that we might one and all rise in Him to a life and a love and a joy unlike any we could ever have known here below. This is the climax of Creation, the redemption of all things! And it shall be wrought upon that Roman Cross for all the world to see.

Come now to the Table, to the Cross, to the Tomb. Come now to the death that destroys death, and to the Blood that washes our souls white as snow. Come to Holy Pascha, the New Passover of Our Lord. Come to Holy Week and the Great Three Days. Let us march into hell alongside Him, and rise bursting forth immortal from out the spiced Tomb.

Come to Jesus Christ our Lord, the Resurrection of us all.

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