Entering the Procession with Christ, Palm Sunday (B), March 24, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Palm Sunday, Year B
March 24, 2024
Mk 11:1-10, Is 50:4-7, Ps 22, Phil 2:6-11, Mk 14:1-15:47

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

 

The following text guided the homily: 

  • In the two Gospels that the Church ponders on Palm Sunday, the passage at the beginning of Mass that details Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the solemn reading just completed of Christ’s Passion and the way of the Cross that led him out of the holy city, there is a focus on two different, contrasting, but nevertheless interconnected, processions. Joining those processions is the journey of Palm Sunday, of Holy Week, and of the Christian life. Both processions involve preparation, assistance, branches, and exclamations. Together let us briefly these elements so that we may better accompany Christ today, this week and beyond.
  • First, Christ prepares for each journey and wants us to imitate his preparation. When Jesus and the disciples drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he told two of his disciples, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately upon entering it, you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone should say, ‘Why are doing this?, reply, ‘The Master has need of it and will send it back here at once.’ So they went off and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street and they untied it. Some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ The disciples answered the bystanders just as Jesus had told them to, and the bystanders permitted them to do it. So the disciples brought the colt to Jesus.” Similarly, in the Passion, Jesus again said to two of his disciples, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples.” Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.’ The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.”
  • In each passage, we behold Jesus’ preparation. He was ready. He was eager. He was meticulous. He was in charge. In Isaiah’s prophecy that we heard in the first reading, the Suffering Servant said, “I have set my face like flint, knowing that I will not be put to shame,” meaning that he had fixed his face as solidly as that hard, dark quartz on what he was to accomplish and he would not be deterred. We also see how much he wanted to include the efforts of his disciples working together. Both lessons teach us a lot about Palm Sunday, Holy Week and the Christian life. Jesus’ detailed immediate preparation for these culminating scenes in his earthly life are just a glimpse of his remote preparation across the centuries — indeed from the time of the Fall, or some theologians would say, because God is eternal, from before the foundation of the world — for the redemption he would accomplish during that first Holy Week. Jesus similarly wants us to be prepared. To be conscious of what we’re doing. To choose to make the time. To get ready and eager for what we are doing. Sometimes there is the temptation for Catholics during Holy Week just to wing it, to show up unprepared, to play spiritual “Simon says” and go with the flow, to be led by others, or to remain as bystanders. That obviously is what would characterize many in the crowd on Palm Sunday and the mob in Pilate’s courtyard and along the way of the Cross on Good Friday. To follow Christ, however, to receive all that he won for us and desires to give us this week, we must be prepared. All of Lent has been to prime us for these moments. Our whole Christian life has been the remote preparation. As St. Paul reminded us on Ash Wednesday, “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation!” Second, it’s not enough just to prepare individually; Christ wants us to prepare together. He could have easily sent one faithful disciple to commandeer the colt or make ready the Upper Room, but he sent two, just like he had previously sent out the 12 apostles and the 72 disciples two-by-two to proclaim the Gospel, so that they could love each other, forgive each other, support each other, in short, live the Gospel, as they labored together. He wants us similarly to collaborate, to cooperate, to accompany and support each other this week. Look around each other with gratitude; each of us is meant to inspire the others and be inspired by them. The Good Shepherd who came, as St. John told us in the Gospel yesterday, “to gather into one the dispersed children of God,” wants us to live this week united.
  • The second element is that Jesus wanted help for the journey of this week. On Palm Sunday, he could have easily walked into the city; after all, except for occasional boat rides, he walked everywhere, including sometimes on the waves of the Galilean sea. But on Palm Sunday he wanted to ride the foal of a donkey. Similarly, on Good Friday, he who had begun the way of the Cross, “obedient until death, death on a Cross,” could have completed the agonizing Via Dolorosa simply with human fortitude and divine strength. By divine will, however, the soldiers “pressed into service a passer-by, Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country … to carry the Cross.” The use of the animal was a fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy announced by Zechariah, who had written, “Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden” (Zech 9:9). Just as King Solomon had ridden a mule, so Jesus was riding a consecrated colt no one had ever used, an indication that he was indeed the Son of David and rightful successor to his throne. Whereas riding a horse would have been a sign of war, to ride a donkey was a sign that the one riding was coming in peace. Zechariah’s prophecy continues: “He shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. … Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your captives free from the waterless pit” (Zech 9:10-11). This King of peace riding on the foal of a donkey would be a universal king “from sea to sea” who would set people free not from political enemies but from the “waterless pit,” in other words, from death.
  • As we begin this most holy of weeks, we learn from this colt, and from Simon of Cyrene, that the Master, despite his divine omnipotence, according to his humble humanity, has need of us, too. He wants us not only to collaborate with others in preparation for his saving work, but to collaborate intimately with him in execution. In the ancient Gregorian chant for the famous hymn “All Glory Laud and Honor” that Christians sing today, there is a verse in Latin that reads, “Sis pius ascensor, tuus et nos simus asellus. Tecum nos capitat urbs veneranda Dei,” which can be translated as, “May you be the holy Rider and we your little colt, so that the venerated City of God may embrace us together with you.” “Tecum,” the Latin for “with you,” is the way Jesus wants us to approach this week. He wants us to enter the Holy City with him. He wants us to collaborate with him in this work of his salvation. St. Josemaria Escriva sought to imitate and help others to emulate this donkey in assisting Jesus accomplish his work. “There are hundreds of animals more beautiful, more deft and strong,” he wrote. “But it was a donkey Christ chose when he presented himself to the people as king in response to their acclamation.” Jesus wants us, like a donkey, to be a docile, diligent, steady companion. That’s the type of companion Simon of Cyrene became, united to Christ in carrying the Cross. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen stated in his famous meditations on the Way of the Cross: initially, “Simon saw in the cross only a shameful burden of wood, not the burden of the world’s sins. Hence, he became at first an unwilling helper. But a few minutes in the sweet company of Jesus changed his outlook; his slavery became freedom, his constraint became love, and his reluctance became sweet abandon.” That’s the type of cooperation Jesus has need of from us during this week, and that’s the type of transformation he wants to give us this Holy Week and beyond.
  • The third element we can mention are the branches that characterized each procession. St. Mark tells us that before Jesus entered the gates of the city, “Many people spread their cloaks on the road and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.” In the Passion account, we have the wood of the patibulum of the Cross. In the famous hymn Vexilla Regis sung today and Good Friday, the Church states about the Cross, which it calls our “only hope”: “Beata, cuius brachiis pretium pependit saeculi: statera facta corporis, praedam tulitque tartari,” which can be translated, “O blessed tree whose branches bore the ransom of the world! Like a scale weighing the worth of the body, it took away Hell’s expected prize.” Just as we bless, wave and carry the palms at the beginning of Mass, so, too, we are called to be blessed, carried and waved by the Cross that unites us to the Lord. There’s great reason, therefore, that in Christian devotion, when we take the blessed palms home, we put them behind a crucifix, because the branches of the palms are linked to the branches of the Cross. Throughout the Middle East, at Jesus’ time and still today, palm branches are a symbol of victory, joy, goodness, peace, and, because of the nourishing dates that Palm trees produce, life. God instructed the Jews to use palm branches during the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev 23:40). King David was welcomed with palm branches the day he was enthroned (2 Kings 9:13). King Solomon had palm branches carved into the walls and doors of the Temple (1 Kings 6:29). The Maccabeans used palm branches to celebrate after they defeated the Greeks in battle in Old Testament times (1 Macc 13:51). The Book of Revelation describes the redeemed as “wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands” as they stand before the throne of God and of Jesus the Lamb (Rev 7:9). At the beginning of Holy Week, we Christians take up palm branches, we could say, to roll out the red carpet to welcome the Lord Jesus as he enters this week. We proclaim with joy his victory, his goodness, his peace and how he leads us to a life that will know no end. The priest prays as he blesses the branches: “Almighty ever-living God, sanctify these branches with your blessing, that we who follow Christ the King in exultation, may reach the eternal Jerusalem through him.” Renewing ourselves in the white robes of our baptism and holding palm branches in our hands, we stand before the Lamb as he takes away our sins through what he accomplished on Good Friday and then hope to join him, the Lamb looking as if he has been slain, and enter with him into the eternal Jerusalem. Just as we lift the palm branches, with similar fervor we “lift high the Cross, the love of Christ proclaim, till all the world adore his sacred name.” This is the triumphant song behind which the conquering ranks combine. This is the branch Satan’s legions fear and angels revere. This is the glorious tree by which Christ draws all to himself. And we lift it high as the fulfillment of the palms, the sign of victory, the means by which the Lamb takes away our sins, and the tree that produces eternal life. We lift Christ’s cross, and our cross, high, as a sign and means of triumph along the daily effort of self-denial and the procession of the Cross together with Jesus that constitutes the Christian life.
  • The last element we can ponder are the expressions that are shouted as part of each procession. Those with palm branches jubilantly shout as Jesus enters Jerusalem on the colt: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!” Hosanna is a Jewish expression that means, “Save now” or “Deliver us promptly.” It’s a recognition that Jesus was coming as the Son of David, as the King, to save them. These words are excerpted from Psalm 118, which the Jews used to sing on the Feast of Tabernacles: “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord… The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.… Save us [Hosanna], we beseech you, O Lord! … Give us success! Blessed be he who enters in the name of the Lord! …Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar! You are my God and I will give you thanks” (Psalm 118:19,22,25-28). Jesus, they were proclaiming, was coming in the name of the Lord to deliver them and to lead them with thanksgiving ultimately to the Temple, to the altar, and to sacrifice. Little did they know what the fulfillment of what they were praying in the Psalm would entail! Likewise, in the Passion account, as the procession to Calvary was about to begin, the crowds erupted repeatedly with the cacophonous clamor, “Crucify him! … Crucify him!” Every day we echo those expressions. As Sheen wrote in his Way of the Cross, “As often as I choose to speak the uncharitable word, do the dishonest action, or consent to the evil thought, I say in so many words, ‘Release to me Barabbas,’ and to choose Barabbas means to crucify Christ.” We call for Christ’s crucifixion every time we turn to sin. But every day at Mass we make our own the words of Psalm 118 and cry out for deliverance. We pray, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” as we sing or shout, “Hosanna,” “deliver us,” “save us.” Christ comes to lead us to the Upper Room and Calvary, where he was crucified for that deliverance. On the branches of the Cross, he takes away our sins, every time we’ve chosen his crucifixion by opting for Barabbas in disguise. And it’s then that, like St. Paul, we begin to learn how he wants to change the words, “Crucify him,” from a murderous roar to a proclamation of God’s power, wisdom and love, as we recognize that on the Cross he cried out for the Father to forgive us because we really don’t know fully what we do by our sins, as he showed mercy and paradise to the repentant thief, as he made the Cross our sole boast and glory, the means by which the world is crucified to us and us to the world, indeed, our only hope.
  • The drama of Palm Sunday, Holy Week and beyond revolves around whether we will prepare with Christ, collaborate with him and others, wave palm branches and be saved by the branches of the Cross, and cry out for deliverance and mercy as he sheds his blood for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus wants us to be intimately involved in his work of redemption. But the devil wants us to be present without real participation, or worse. Judas, we remember, was present at the Last Supper, but betrayed Jesus. Jesus said to the remaining eleven, “All of you will have your faith shaken, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be dispersed’” (Zech 13:7). When Jesus was arrested, all of the disciples fled. Peter had sworn that even should others have their faith rocked, even if he had to die, he wouldn’t betray the Lord, but we know what he did. He thought he could follow Jesus at a safe distance, but when he was outed as a disciple, he swore three times that he didn’t even know who Jesus was. We see a similar thing in the young man who followed Jesus after his arrest covered in nothing but a priestly linen cloth, who, after they recognized him and grabbed the cloth, ran away naked and exposed. Many scholars in Christian history have long believed that the only reason why that curious detail was included exclusively in St. Mark’s account was that that young man was St. Mark himself. Regardless of who he was, we all learn a lesson, that is meant to guide our week. We have to make a choice to process with Christ up close. We can’t remain faithful at a distance. Holy Week is that time that we choose, even at personal cost, to remain with the Good Shepherd as he is struck down for our salvation, so that when he is struck, rather than fleeing, rather than denying, rather than having our lack of faith exposed, we will give witness to our faith that we see in Mary the Mother of Jesus, Mary, Magdalene, and a converted St. John at the foot of the Cross. That choice between proximity and distance, between explicit collaboration and fear, is one we must all make this week.
  • And the choice we make this week is a choice that overflows into the entirety of our Christian life. Living Holy Week at a distance is one of the surest signs of lukewarmness in the Christian life. Living Holy Week up close, coming to the liturgies of the Triduum and even on Monday through Wednesday of Holy Week, is a means by which we grow in fidelity, love and courage. The Church’s journey through time can be likened to the continuation of the procession begun on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. The Church is, as the Second Vatican Council emphasized and Eucharistic Prayer III proclaims, a “pilgrim Church on earth.” We journey with Jesus in and out of the gates of the earthly Jerusalem toward the new and eternal Jerusalem. And that journey is ultimately Eucharistic. It’s in the Holy Eucharist that Jesus, who never ceases to call us to follow him, chooses to have us follow him. It’s in the Eucharist that Jesus keeps his promise to remain with us — indeed within us — until the end of time. That’s why as we think about how Jesus wants us to join him in procession on Palm Sunday and on the road to Calvary that we remember that he wants us to live out this journey through a Eucharistic life. The Church’s pilgrimage through time is ultimately a Eucharistic procession. That’s why, during the ongoing Eucharistic Revival taking place in the Church in the USA, there will be a 65-day Eucharistic pilgrimage, from the north, south, east and west, making a sign of the Cross over our country, culminating in the first national Eucharistic Congress in 83 years taking place in Indianapolis in July. One procession will begin in San Francisco; another from the birthplace of the Mississippi River in northern Minnesota, near the Canadian border; a third from Brownsville, Texas, near the Mexican border; and the last from the east will begin at the tomb of Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, in New Haven. Like the donkey on Palm Sunday and Simon of Cyrene on Good Friday, I will be able to carry the Lord not into Jerusalem but into New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and many other cities and towns along our journey, and priests on the other pilgrimage routes, starting May 18, will be doing the same in cities all across our country. I would urge you to try to participate for a day somewhere along one of the four routes. This is not only the biggest Eucharistic pilgrimage in the history of the United States but in the history of the Church. Just as Christ made immediate preparations for the colt and the room and remote preparations for what he would do with both, so Christ wants us to prepare not just for a particular Eucharistic journey but for the Eucharistic pilgrimage of life. He wants us to lift up the palm branches of our joys and the arms of our bitter crosses and unite them to him as he saves us through his passion, death and resurrection that we enter into every Mass. The Eucharist is ultimately where Jesus wants us to meet him as he comes to us each day in the name of the Lord, to receive the fruit of what he won for us by his crucifixion, and to continue the journey with him all the way.
  • At the beginning of Mass today, in the prayer the priest prayed on behalf of the Church, we see the connection between the procession of Palm Sunday, the procession of the Way of the Cross, and the procession of the Church through time. The Church prays: “Today we gather together to herald with the whole Church the beginning of the celebration of our Lord’s paschal mystery, that is to say, of his Passion and Resurrection. For it was to accomplish this mystery that he entered his own city of Jerusalem. Therefore, with all faith and devotion, let us commemorate the Lord’s entry into the city for our salvation, following in his footsteps, so that, being made by his grace partakers of the Cross, we may have a share also in his Resurrection and in his life.” This is the way Holy Week turns into a holy life. This is the way we become followers up close and united rather than at a distance. Let us ask our Lord who prepared in detail for centuries for our imminent Eucharistic encounter to give us the grace to continue walking with him each day in a Eucharistic life, until with him we cross the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem that he blew open for us by all he accomplished during these most sacred days.

 

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

At the Procession with Palms – Gospel

When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem,
to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives,
he sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the village opposite you,
and immediately on entering it,
you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.
Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone should say to you,
‘Why are you doing this?’ reply,
‘The Master has need of it
and will send it back here at once.’”
So they went off
and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street,
and they untied it.
Some of the bystanders said to them,
“What are you doing, untying the colt?”
They answered them just as Jesus had told them to,
and they permitted them to do it.
So they brought the colt to Jesus
and put their cloaks over it.
And he sat on it.
Many people spread their cloaks on the road,
and others spread leafy branches
that they had cut from the fields.
Those preceding him as well as those following kept crying out:
“Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
Hosanna in the highest!”

 

At the Mass – Reading I

The Lord GOD has given me
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and 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 Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

Responsorial Psalm

R. (2a)  My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
All who see me scoff at me;
they mock me with parted lips, they wag their heads:
“He relied on the LORD; let him deliver him,
let him rescue him, if he loves him.”
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Indeed, many dogs surround me,
a pack of evildoers closes in upon me;
They have pierced my hands and my feet;
I can count all my bones.
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
They divide my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.
But you, O LORD, be not far from me;
O my help, hasten to aid me.
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
I will proclaim your name to my brethren;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:
“You who fear the LORD, praise him;
all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him;
revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Reading II

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,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, 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.

Verse before the Gospel

Christ became obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.

The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread
were to take place in two days’ time.
So the chief priests and the scribes were seeking a way
to arrest him by treachery and put him to death.
They said, “Not during the festival,
for fear that there may be a riot among the people.”

When he was in Bethany reclining at table
in the house of Simon the leper,
a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil,
costly genuine spikenard.
She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head.
There were some who were indignant.
“Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil?
It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages
and the money given to the poor.”
They were infuriated with her.
Jesus said, “Let her alone.
Why do you make trouble for her?
She has done a good thing for me.
The poor you will always have with you,
and whenever you wish you can do good to them,
but you will not always have me.
She has done what she could.
She has anticipated anointing my body for burial.
Amen, I say to you,
wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world,
what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve,
went off to the chief priests to hand him over to them.
When they heard him they were pleased and promised to pay him money.
Then he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
his disciples said to him,
“Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there.”
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.

When it was evening, he came with the Twelve.
And as they reclined at table and were eating, Jesus said,
“Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me,
one who is eating with me.”
They began to be distressed and to say to him, one by one,
“Surely it is not I?”
He said to them,
“One of the Twelve, the one who dips with me into the dish.
For the Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him,
but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.
It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”

While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them, and said,
“Take it; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
“This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Then Jesus said to them,
“All of you will have your faith shaken, for it is written:
I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be dispersed.

But after I have been raised up,
I shall go before you to Galilee.”
Peter said to him,
“Even though all should have their faith shaken,
mine will not be.”
Then Jesus said to him,
“Amen, I say to you,
this very night before the cock crows twice
you will deny me three times.”
But he vehemently replied,
“Even though I should have to die with you,
I will not deny you.”
And they all spoke similarly.

Then they came to a place named Gethsemane,
and he said to his disciples,
“Sit here while I pray.”
He took with him Peter, James, and John,
and began to be troubled and distressed.
Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death.
Remain here and keep watch.”
He advanced a little and fell to the ground and prayed
that if it were possible the hour might pass by him;
he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you.
Take this cup away from me,
but not what I will but what you will.”
When he returned he found them asleep.
He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep?
Could you not keep watch for one hour?
Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
Withdrawing again, he prayed, saying the same thing.
Then he returned once more and found them asleep,
for they could not keep their eyes open
and did not know what to answer him.
He returned a third time and said to them,
“Are you still sleeping and taking your rest?
It is enough.  The hour has come.
Behold, the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners.
Get up, let us go.
See, my betrayer is at hand.”

Then, while he was still speaking,
Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived,
accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs
who had come from the chief priests,
the scribes, and the elders.
His betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying,
“The man I shall kiss is the one;
arrest him and lead him away securely.”
He came and immediately went over to him and said,
“Rabbi.”  And he kissed him.
At this they laid hands on him and arrested him.
One of the bystanders drew his sword,
struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his ear.
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Have you come out as against a robber,
with swords and clubs, to seize me?
Day after day I was with you teaching in the temple area,
yet you did not arrest me;
but that the Scriptures may be fulfilled.”
And they all left him and fled.
Now a young man followed him
wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body.
They seized him,
but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked.

They led Jesus away to the high priest,
and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together.
Peter followed him at a distance into the high priest’s courtyard
and was seated with the guards, warming himself at the fire.
The chief priests and the entire Sanhedrin
kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus
in order to put him to death, but they found none.
Many gave false witness against him,
but their testimony did not agree.
Some took the stand and testified falsely against him,
alleging, “We heard him say,
‘I will destroy this temple made with hands
and within three days I will build another
not made with hands.’”
Even so their testimony did not agree.
The high priest rose before the assembly and questioned Jesus,
saying, “Have you no answer?
What are these men testifying against you?”
But he was silent and answered nothing.
Again the high priest asked him and said to him,
“Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed One?”
Then Jesus answered, “I am;
and ‘you will see the Son of Man
seated at the right hand of the Power
and coming with the clouds of heaven.’”
At that the high priest tore his garments and said,
“What further need have we of witnesses?
You have heard the blasphemy.
What do you think?”
They all condemned him as deserving to die.
Some began to spit on him.
They blindfolded him and struck him and said to him, “Prophesy!”
And the guards greeted him with blows.

While Peter was below in the courtyard,
one of the high priest’s maids came along.
Seeing Peter warming himself,
she looked intently at him and said,
“You too were with the Nazarene, Jesus.”
But he denied it saying,
“I neither know nor understand what you are talking about.”
So he went out into the outer court.
Then the cock crowed.
The maid saw him and began again to say to the bystanders,
“This man is one of them.”
Once again he denied it.
A little later the bystanders said to Peter once more,
“Surely you are one of them; for you too are a Galilean.”
He began to curse and to swear,
“I do not know this man about whom you are talking.”
And immediately a cock crowed a second time.
Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had said to him,
“Before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times.”
He broke down and wept.

As soon as morning came,
the chief priests with the elders and the scribes,
that is, the whole Sanhedrin held a council.
They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.
Pilate questioned him,
“Are you the king of the Jews?”
He said to him in reply, “You say so.”
The chief priests accused him of many things.
Again Pilate questioned him,
“Have you no answer?
See how many things they accuse you of.”
Jesus gave him no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.

Now on the occasion of the feast he used to release to them
one prisoner whom they requested.
A man called Barabbas was then in prison
along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion.
The crowd came forward and began to ask him
to do for them as he was accustomed.
Pilate answered,
“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?”
For he knew that it was out of envy
that the chief priests had handed him over.
But the chief priests stirred up the crowd
to have him release Barabbas for them instead.
Pilate again said to them in reply,
“Then what do you want me to do
with the man you call the king of the Jews?”
They shouted again, “Crucify him.”
Pilate said to them, “Why?  What evil has he done?”
They only shouted the louder, “Crucify him.”
So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd,
released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged,
handed him over to be crucified.

The soldiers led him away inside the palace,
that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort.
They clothed him in purple and,
weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him.
They began to salute him with, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him.
They knelt before him in homage.
And when they had mocked him,
they stripped him of the purple cloak,
dressed him in his own clothes,
and led him out to crucify him.

They pressed into service a passer-by, Simon,
a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country,
the father of Alexander and Rufus,
to carry his cross.

They brought him to the place of Golgotha
— which is translated Place of the Skull —,
They gave him wine drugged with myrrh,
but he did not take it.
Then they crucified him and divided his garments
by casting lots for them to see what each should take.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.
The inscription of the charge against him read,
“The King of the Jews.”
With him they crucified two revolutionaries,
one on his right and one on his left.
Those passing by reviled him,
shaking their heads and saying,
“Aha!  You who would destroy the temple
and rebuild it in three days,
save yourself by coming down from the cross.”
Likewise the chief priests, with the scribes,
mocked him among themselves and said,
“He saved others; he cannot save himself.
Let the Christ, the King of Israel,
come down now from the cross
that we may see and believe.”
Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him.

At noon darkness came over the whole land
until three in the afternoon.
And at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?
which is translated,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Some of the bystanders who heard it said,
“Look, he is calling Elijah.”
One of them ran, soaked a sponge with wine, put it on a reed
and gave it to him to drink saying,
“Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to take him down.”
Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.

Here all kneel and pause for a short time.

The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom.
When the centurion who stood facing him
saw how he  breathed his last he said,
“Truly this man was the Son of God!”
There were also women looking on from a distance.
Among them were Mary Magdalene,
Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome.
These women had followed him when he was in Galilee
and ministered to him.
There were also many other women
who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

When it was already evening,
since it was the day of preparation,
the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea,
a distinguished member of the council,
who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God,
came and courageously went to Pilate
and asked for the body of Jesus.
Pilate was amazed that he was already dead.
He summoned the centurion
and asked him if Jesus had already died.
And when he learned of it from the centurion,
he gave the body to Joseph.
Having bought a linen cloth, he took him down,
wrapped him in the linen cloth,
and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock.
Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb.
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses
watched where he was laid.

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