“Hail our King,.. Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is He who
comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!” This was the song of
Jews on this day as Jesus entered Jerusalem. The ordinary Jews who perceived
the messiahship in Jesus took Him solemnly into the Jerusalem city from where
king david reigned. On the contrary, the leadership in Jewish circle felt
threated by this act. It is not the mere fear to roman empire that they wanted
to get rid of Jesus, it is their fear of losing their own power and control
over people. Jesus, who knew all that is going to happen to Him in Jerusalem
allowed the thing to happen so. Jesus allowed the people to do as they wished.
Today, He is hailed as King but soon for the very same reason He had to undergo
the most cruel death in the history. Jesus embraced the joyful acclamation as
well as sorrowful passion as they encountered Him. As today’s first reading
says, “I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward . I gave my back to those
who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide
my face from insult and spitting.” (Is 50:5-6) Jesus accepted the events as
they approached to make it a remarkable history. He came down to live like
humans without exercising His divine prerogatives (Phil 2:6-8). He allowed
failures, brokenness, struggles to come along the way. Though He had power to
restrict and by pass them, still He allowed all these to affect His human life
to complete His humanity without any mark of selfish exercise of His divine privileges.
Today, we try to be smart to avoid trial and tribulations. The more we become
secure to by pass them, the faster we break down if anything contrary happens.
The real smartness is facing the situations without any reservations. The
smartness consists in tackling the challenge, than restricting.
Palm Sunday is the commencement of Holy week. We read
the passion narratives from the gospel of mark to see the coherence of events
that had happened from palm Sunday to holy Saturday. This reading is the
summary of Jesus’s wonderful way of encountering the situation in a sublime way
to make it a history. In our times, we are preoccupied with planning our
history, we decide how things should happen. The execution of those plans are
not real history. They are only success of the plan. They make be at the most,
success stories. The historical story is that which has ups and downs, rises
and falls, praises and curses. The making of unplanned things to fall in line
as well as allowing oneself to be learned, moulded, adulted by them is a
historical story. The modern view of planning in the name of security make us
slave to material satisfaction. The biblical view of gaining the better in life
and life after in the name of Jesus would make us to pursue higher goodness and
larger happiness. Let this Holy Week be a time to resituate our life from the biblical
view. Let us uproot our slavery to security to inherit the glory that is gained
by embracing the history as they come to us.
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