Christ the Cornerstone

To know the joy of Easter, take up your cross first

This Sunday, we will celebrate Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord. This is a day of paradoxical joy and sadness. It inaugurates Holy Week, the most solemn week in the liturgical calendar, and it leads to Easter, the most joyous day of the Church’s year.

On Palm Sunday, our joy does not come from our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We know that these shouts of “Hosanna” will not last even a week. And our sadness comes not just from his suffering and death, but also from the fact that we, like the first disciples, have so often betrayed and abandoned him.

Dominican Father Sebastian White, Editor of Magnificat, writes:

Palm Sunday’s liturgy is unusual in giving us two Gospel passages: one at the beginning, for the blessing of the palms, and then another at the usual time for the readings. It is, I believe, precisely by bringing so closely together Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his suffering and death a few days later that Palm Sunday’s particular lessons emerge (Magnificat, Vol. 27, #2).

The lessons of Palm Sunday are that the only way to experience the everlasting joy of Easter is by taking up our crosses and following Jesus. And the only way to accomplish true death-to-self is to obey the will of God our Father.

Sadness and joy were brought together when the Son of God “emptied himself taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:7). When Jesus lowered himself in the most profound act of humble service imaginable, “God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue ­confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11).

Jesus, who is infinitely greater than we are, became one with us. He who never sinned “became sin” and took upon himself the guilt, shame and sadness that belong to us alone (2 Cor 5:21). “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face,” the prophet Isaiah says of the Suffering Servant (a prophetic image Jesus), “I did not shield from buffets and spitting” (Is 50:4-7).

The suffering and death experienced by our Savior Jesus Christ led directly to his Resurrection. That is why on Palm Sunday our joy is mixed with sadness, and our hope is tinged with despair. We know that we have been Redeemed, but we also know that it was because of our sins, the inheritance of a fallen humanity, that our Lord’s sacrifice was required. We will rejoice greatly on Easter Sunday, but first we must share in Christ’s passion and, to the extent possible for us, we must atone for our sins.

Of course, as missionary disciples of Jesus Christ, we know that the Lord’s triumph over sin and death is absolute. Whatever sadness we may feel now, the joy of Easter will overcome. We may be tempted to feel that God has abandoned us—as Jesus was tempted, briefly, on the cross (Ps 22:2a)—but “hope never disappoints” (Rom 5:5). And in the end, the joy of Christ’s Resurrection overpowers every negative human emotion.

As Father Sebastian says in the issue of Magnificat quoted earlier:

When we experience ups and downs in life—or when a great cross is suddenly placed upon us—it is not a sign that God has forgotten about us or that his plan for us has failed. Just as Jesus’ own short journey from a royal welcome to an ignominious death was all part of the divine plan for the redemption of the world, so the vicissitudes of our own life are firmly within God’s loving providence.

We rejoice on Palm Sunday because we know that our sadness, which is real, will not last. If we share in our Lord’s suffering, and follow him on the way of the cross, our sorrow will be transformed by a love that is stronger than death into a joy that satisfies our every desire.

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus suffered the most intense agony, and as a result, his humanity cried out to be relieved of the pain and sorrow that he knew would come: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Lk 21:42).

God’s will, not ours, overcomes all sadness and brings joy everlasting. This Palm Sunday, let’s pray for the grace to say “yes” to God’s will, empty ourselves of all selfishness and sin, and follow Jesus on the road to joy. †