Gospel Reflection on Luke 22:14—23:56

April 13, 2025, Palm Sunday

Holy week is not far away. We approach these holy days hungry for a million small and large, ordinary and extraordinary resurrections. Here we are, cloak and palm branches ready, waiting with our mile long list of expectations for a mighty king to come down from the mountain and save us. This is the meaning of our hosanna. Save us now.

We don't gather to say 'we love you' or 'your will be done' or 'we praise you as you are, gentle, vulnerable, suffering God'. Instead, we cry out: 'save us now'. If Palm Sunday is about anything, it's a story about disappointed expectations. A story of what happens when the God we want and think we know doesn't show up. And another God, a less efficient, less aggressive, less muscular god shows up instead.

When that happens, our cries, 'save us now', are met with heartbreaking silence. Our hosannas go dark. Our palm branches wither. We walk away, close our hearts, and betray the image of God in ourselves and each other. And if push comes to shove, our hosannas can give way to hatred, and we can strike to kill.

Unlike the Roman emperor and his legions who ruled by force, Jesus comes defenseless and weaponless. Riding on a donkey, he all but cries aloud the bottom line truth that his rule has nothing to recommend it but love and sacrifice. So often, we think we know what kind of savior we need, but that savior does not exist. If there's a single day in the liturgical calendar that shows us how much at odds we are with the heart of our faith, it's Palm Sunday. More than any other day, this festive and complicated day of Palm France and Hosanna bon banners cautions us that paradoxes we might not like or want are woven into the fabric of our faith.

God on a donkey. These paradoxes are what give Jesus' story its shape and weight, and they call us at every moment to hold together truths that seem bizarre. On our good days, we understand that these paradoxes are what gives our faith its credibility. If we live in a world that's full of pain, mystery, and contradiction, then we need a religion, a faith that's strong enough to bear the weight of that kind of messy world, a religion that empowers us to live in humility before the reality of the world. But the question for us is always this, will we choose the humble and the real, or will we insist on the myth of the empire?

Will we accompany Jesus on this ridiculous donkey, honoring the precarious path he has chosen? Or will our impatient and broken Hosanna undermine and erode our journey?