This Sunday, the Passion Means the Innocent Die for the Guilty, Even Now

Christianity is set up such that the innocent die for the guilty. That is the shocking but ultimately comforting lesson of the readings for Palm Sunday of the Passion, Year A.

Here are six takeaways drawn from Sunday Readings columns at this site and the Extraordinary Story podcast.

First: Palm Sunday Mass is a mini-Holy Week.

None of the other Holy Week Masses is obligatory for Catholics, so the Church provides all we need to commemorate Christ’s passion and death in the Sunday liturgies.

That makes Palm Sunday a one-day Holy Week. The liturgy begins with the account of Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. Alexander the Great entered Jerusalem on a warhorse in 329 B.C., demanding taxes; Pompey the Great entered on a battle chariot in 63 B.C., massacring thousands; and Titus pummeled his way in with catapults in 69 A.D. and took everything.

But Matthew tells us that in Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem, the prophecy is fulfilled: “Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on a donkey.” This is a new kind of king, a king whose power is peaceful and who offers freedom, not domination. The people cover the ground before him as they would for a king and cry out “Hosanna,” which means “Save Us!”

What do they want him to save them from? We know what they want, because we want the same thing. We got trapped in sin by Satan who, like a human trafficker, manipulated us into leaving our safe world for his, by lies and empty promises. Now, sin owns us. Sin makes our memories painful, our relationships tense, and our future uneasy.

We want back the innocence we once had, when we were the beloved children of the Father and Satan had no power in our lives.

Second: In other words, we want God to save us. So he does.

The New Testament readings this Sunday previews the Triduum.

First, on Holy Thursday God will restore our innocence. He does what would do for our children if we could. When they sin, we have to punish them — but if we could, we would go back in time to before they sinned and give them back the life they lost. We can’t do that, but God he can.

Jesus Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God” and “The firstborn of all creation” says “Take and eat; this is my body” and “Drink … for this is the blood of the covenant, which is shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.” He is restoring us, forgiven, to his image, the image of God, by incorporating us into his body.

But along with innocence, we want freedom. Satan told us we could be like gods and escape death, to lure us into his trap. But on Good Friday, Jesus leads us out by doing the precise opposite of what we did: He rejects his Divine status and embraces death, says St. Paul:

“Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave …. becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him.”

Jesus sees us stuck in sin and death, and plunges into the pit by our side to lift us up and out.

Third: The passion story shows the stark difference between God’s way and our way.

The Gospel shows a clear contrast between the humble way of Jesus, who is God, and the proud way of the apostles, who are sinners.

They argue who is the greatest while Jesus takes the form of bread. They disobey his simple request to stay awake while Jesus prays to his Father, “Not my will, but yours.” Examples multiply: Peter brandishes a sword, Jesus carries a cross; Peter denies Jesus to the women he meets, Jesus goes to his death refusing to defend himself. They loudly proclaim their fidelity, then flee; Jesus is silent before Pilate, and stays. He climbs the hill to the cross; they take the broad road out of harm’s way.

This has long been the modus operandi of God. Every reading at Mass this Sunday says so. They each hold two things in tension: An innocent one who suffers as if he were guilty; and guilty people who lash out as if they are in the right. The First Reading, from Isaiah says, “I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.” The Psalm says: “They have pierced my hands and feet; I can count all my bones,” then adds, “But you, O Lord, be not far from me.”

And precisely because he died as an innocent on the cross, “every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” says the Second Reading.

This is awe-inspiring humility and obedience, and it’s what we need most: Humility that puts God first, others second, and myself third — and obedience that accepts God’s plan in place of mine.

Fourth, the conclusion is inescapable: In Christianity, the innocent suffer and die for the guilty.

From the Roman martyrs to the French Revolution to the slaughter of Christians is Islamic countries today, Christians have always done what Jesus Christ did: They give their lives for others.

Jesus warned us it would be this way. “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you,” he said. “They will do all these things to you on account of my name.”

Those of us who are not killed by those who hate us have to give our lives another way — by praying and sacrificing for the sins of our neighbors who can’t, or won’t, give themselves to God in love on their own.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI, made this point throughout his career. In a 1958 lecture brought to my attention by Matthew Ramage, he clarified that, of course, we are all guilty:

“This point remains true,” he said, “we are unworthy of salvation, whether we are Christians or non-Christians, faithful or unbelievers, moral or immoral. … Condemnation belongs to all men together, while salvation belongs to Christ alone. But in a holy exchange, the opposite takes place: He alone takes all the evil upon himself, and in this way, he makes the place of salvation free for all of us.”

In the same way, he said:

“This great mystery of substitution, on which all of history depends, continues itself in a complete system of representation. … In the continuation of the mission of Christ, the representation of the many has been committed to the few, who are the Church.”

That means the Passion of Christ isn’t just something in the past to be grateful for, but something to continue, as the Body of Christ, right now. Our instinct is to see life’s suffering as an obstacle to progress; he asks us to see it as a way forward. We tend to see our culture from a perch of judgement; he wants us to see it from the cross. We want to be at war with sinners; he wants us to join his self-sacrificial rescue mission.

We can do it, too.

“Here it is not a case of a cruel God demanding the infinite. It is exactly the opposite,” Ratzinger wrote in Introduction to Christianity. “God himself ‘drinks the cup’ of every horror to the dregs and thereby restores justice through the greatness of his love, which, through suffering, transforms the darkness.”

He gives us back our innocence in baptism and confession so we can offer our neighbors theirs. He gives us our freedom from Satan’s trap so that we can help him pull others out of it with us.

Fifth: So walk back from communion at Mass this Sunday with full awareness of what just happened.

Our Lord and Savior has finally come. We greeted him at Mass like a king with our palms, and then laid our palm down on the pew to call for his crucifixion. Now he is back, in a form more humble than a slave, more meek than a king on a donkey. He is before us on the altar looking like bread.

He said, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass without my drinking it, but your will be done!” Then he drank it to the dregs. Now he is offering the same cup to us. Those of us who receive him in the Eucharist are saying Yes to the same life he led. We are saying, “I may be innocent, but I, too, will suffer for the guilty with you.”

But the secret is, his life, his way, his truth, is the only happiness on offer in this world. As we return, to our pews we can look at our palms and pray:

“Save me, Lord. Not my will but yours be done. Help me save my life by losing it for sinners, like you did. Lord, at your name, every knee should bend, starting right now with mine.”

Image: Scenes of the Passion of Christ, 1470-1490, Leuven, Belgium; Wikimedia.

By Tom Hoopes