Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is the beginning of the holiest week in our calendar because this day represents the fulfillment of Jesus’s mission. Today we are asked to accompany Jesus on his solemn entry into Jerusalem where he will suffer and die. But he will rise again. Let us focus now on the suffering of Christ and what this can teach us about the meaning of our own lives and our own suffering. The most important lesson we can learn from this story of the passion of Christ is that of humility, for Christ so perfectly embodied humility during his travails.
How do we know this? St. Paul describes the way Jesus, knowing he was “in very nature, God,” did not use this power to his advantage (Philippians 2:6). Why? Many of us placed in a similar situation might have used our power to our advantage to get ourselves out of a sticky situation. The reason why we sometimes make sacrifices is for others, to make the world a better place. That is what Jesus was doing: remaining complicit while fully knowing that he was being led to his death. It is not always easy to make sacrifices like these—otherwise they would not be called sacrifices.
Paul also tells us “he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness,” (Philippians 2:7). Like a servant is an understatement; Jesus was led to his crucifixion on the back of a donkey. Made almost as low as a pack animal, Jesus becomes the beast of burden for humanity itself. Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8). Even death on a cross—the type of death reserved only for the lowliest members of society. How could Jesus stand for this? He stood boldly facing death by crucifixion because sometimes we must lower ourselves in order to be made great.
This is certainly not a message that is taught to us in our society every day—we are told that we are special, we are great, we are better than everyone else and we should never have to suffer. It is because of these false messages that we have such huge problems with disillusionment, anger, violence, and addiction. Humility is the process of facing the truth, of becoming level with the rest of humanity. That is essentially what Jesus teaches us in his journey to Jerusalem: what it means to be a member of the human race. There will be plenty of time later to reap what we have sown in our hard work and struggle, but there can be no meaningful rewards without putting forth the effort first.
Now few of us have the opportunity to sacrifice our lives for something huge, but that in no way means that our actions in the world do not have a profound impact on society. Even the smallest actions can yield tremendous rewards, whether we are making sacrifices for our children or our parents, or working extra hard today to receive rewards in the future.
Jesus’s message is not just that things will get better, for that is not what Palm Sunday is about. Palm Sunday is about the mystery of death and resurrection just as much as it is about the power of humility in our daily lives. The transformative power of the resurrection is not yet known or felt on Palm Sunday; for the final veil between earth and heaven to be removed we must first make ourselves humble and meek. Keep this in mind today, the power of humility in all your affairs. Remember that everything happens for a reason, even when you are being persecuted or misunderstood.
There is great power in humility. Humility is what provides inner peace as well as inner strength. Jesus’s transformative journey is an emblem for us, showing us the secret to self-empowerment is through an honest understanding of our place in the world. When we are humble, we become ready and willing to accept God’s grace, just as Jesus was willing to die in order to accept the greater gift of the resurrection.



References
Bible: NIV
“Holy Week”