Palm/Passion Sunday
The critical reading we are given from Scripture today is not one of the two Gospels, not the triumphant Palm Sunday story of Christ’s entry to Jerusalem and not the story of the Last Supper, Passion and death of Our Lord. No, the reading that is crucial to an understanding of all, OT and NT alike, is the short hymn quoted from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians. We’ll see that in a moment.
The Church at Philippi was a favorite of Paul, probably because when he, directed by a prophecy, sailed from Troas to Europe, Philippi is where he planted his first congregation. And they were one of the few that from that day on sent Paul support on his missionary journeys. He wanted them to become followers of Christ, and not just that but imitators of Christ. The hymn he quotes today may not be original to Paul, but he uses it whatever be the copyright. He tells the Philippians to have the same mind as Jesus, Son of God. And I’ll paraphrase:
The Son of God was divine already, but He thought it unfair to glom onto that identity. He became the face of the divine compassion and enduring love, God’s hesed, by emptying Himself of all His divine glory, all His divine dignity. He took on human identity, a slave’s body and soul, and was known to be a man. Even in that form He humbled Himself to the lowest degree, and in His obedience to the Father accepted the death of a slave, crucifixion. For that reason and purpose, God has exalted Him above all and given Him the name above all other names. When we hear that name we should bend the knee with every other creature in heaven or earth or under the earth and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, thus giving glory to the Father.
Before we connect to the other of today’s Scriptures, let’s look at the Philippian hymn more closely. We are about to celebrate the Pascua, the Christian Passover, when Jesus gave up His life, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven for our salvation. But in the hymn we just paraphrased, the end is what we do when we hear the name above all names.
Until Jesus sacrificed and gave Himself to us, the divine name was only heard once a year, at the Feast of Atonement when the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies with a sacrifice of blood, to atone for all the sins of the past year. Then He would come out and three times utter the Divine Name, YHWH or Yah, while the congregation prostrated themselves, bent themselves down in worship. Then they would not hear the divine name until the next Day of Atonement, a year later.
But Our Lord received a name that was even greater, because it was more complete. The name given to the baby in Mary’s womb was Yah-shua, which completes the most glorious name because it means Yah saves. The word “Jesus” comes indirectly from Yah-shua to Iejus in Greek and Latin to Jesus in modern English, Spanish and others. The name “Jesus” then shows us the fullness of God’s loving kindness and compassion, and calls on us to give Him ultimate praise and thanksgiving.
How do we tie this wondrous hymn into the other words that the Word of God shares with us today? Hundreds of years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah perhaps suffered like Christ, or maybe even foresaw Christ’s sufferings, the scourging at the pillar, the insults of the soldiers, and the help given by God through the passion and onto the resurrection and ascension.
The psalmist, probably king David, both experienced the mockery and rejection of the crowd when his own son, Absalom, fomented a violent revolution against David’s rule, and drove him from Jerusalem. He seems to have foreseen the division of Jesus’s garments, the casting of lots for His tunic, and the nails in His hands and feet. But not only that, he saw the ultimate triumph of Christ and our own praise in Christ for His resurrection and our own. As we imitate Christ, we accept being caught up in His very life and sacred sacrament.
And finally, by reading the twenty-second and third chapters of Luke’s Gospel, we seen the graphic account of Christ’s emptying Himself of all divine glory, His acceptance of suffering and death, His prayers when crucified, and His sabbath rest in the tomb, while He contended with death and the powers of hell and defeated them for us. That mind of Christ is what we seek during this coming Holy Week, so that we might profit even more from His hard-won grace and victory, more than in any other year. Blessed be God for this grace and triumph.
