Palm Sunday Homily

Cycle C – Homily – Sixth Sunday of Lent – 13 April 2025

Lectionary I Lectionary II
Palm Sunday Procession – Luke 19:28-40 (plus Psalm 118:1-2, 19-24)
Isaiah 50:4-7 Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 22:8-9, 17-20, 23-24 Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:6-11 Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 22:14 – 23:56 Luke 22:14 – 23:56S

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” When was the last time you screamed these or similar words at God? I know I’ve done it – even recently. I would wager that most of us have shouted similarly at God (either out loud or in the silence of our heart) when we are lost, hurt, frustrated, abandoned, or just plain feeling neglected and forsaken by our God. This is a normal human reaction to the trials and tribulations we all face in life. If we look carefully at today’s readings, we can see how Jesus dealt with this bodingly complex set of very real emotions. Recall that Jesus was like us in all things except sin. That includes the feelings of despair and desperation. Watch the crescendo as the feelings begin, rise to a summit, and then collapse into a complex resolution. I do ask you to keep these thoughts in mind as we journey through Holy Week. Note what happens as Jesus resolves the internal struggle with his human nature.

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” This is one of the themes that permeates today’s readings.

Today is Palm Sunday. If time and circumstances permit, this Sunday’s liturgies often begin with a “Palm Parade” of some sort into and/or around the church and the church grounds. A few lucky parishes and congregations may actually have extended Palm Observations that cover several city blocks. Congregants often wear red, as red is the color of the passion.

From the Palm Sunday Procession reading we learn that everyone was excited about Jesus’s coming. They waved palm branches, threw their cloaks on the ground, and shouted “Hosanna” as Jesus entered Jerusalem. That sounds rather triumphant and not very much like the manifestation of an abandonment issue. Besides, Jesus was getting ready to celebrate the Passover, a glorious feast no matter how one looks at it.

But, let us look at this ceremonious series of events and see how despair and frustration must have been winding their way into this last week of the life of Jesus. Look at the foreboding and the predictions in what Jesus says. We may see this more ominously than anyone at the time because we know how the story ends. Nevertheless, we need to keep the foresight of Jesus at the forefront of our minds. We can almost hear Jesus crying out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Jesus will ask that question many times this week.

The first ecclesial reading of the day is from Isaiah and begins, “The Lord has given me a well-trained tongue.” It would certainly be natural to wonder how a “well-trained tongue” fits into the forthcoming despair. But, if we look farther into the reading, we see that “The Lord God is my help…” and we begin to see the glimmer of hope starting to arise in today’s message.

Then we hear the mournful cry of the psalm’s responsorial. “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” I suggest that everyone read this psalm very carefully. Note that the first two stanzas are statements of utter despair. We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt that despair and we can relate – all too well. The third and fourth stanzas, however, begin to show hope. It is not quite as bad as we first thought, and our God is with us. We plead for God’s accompaniment. Somehow at this point we have an inkling that things will get better and that the curtain will be lifted.

The next reading, from Philippians, is not a reading of despair but a reading of hope because it is a reading extolling the form and function of Jesus. “…God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every other name….” If we put this in the context of a continuum from despair to glory, we can see that this makes perfect sense. Yes, our desperation is real and we really do feel that pain and we cry out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” But, Jesus experienced this too and we learn of the place Jesus has on this road to glory. We won’t see it until next week but the end is indeed glory. We will be shown the magnificence of the end of the story.

But first we need to look at the passion – the despair – of Jesus. We need to feel his anguish. We need to internalize what he went through. We need to relate his suffering to our own. We all suffer. We all fight our frustrations. We all experience the sense of abandonment that Jesus experienced. “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Look carefully at these words from Luke as Jesus ate the long-awaited Passover, identified his betrayer, settled an in-house squabble, and then went to the Mount of Olives. Read this over again and again and feel the accelerating sense of foreboding as Jesus takes step after step toward his destiny. Jesus felt as we would feel in similar circumstances. “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Look at how many places in this narrative we could put this psalm response.

Finally, we see the horrors of the Good Friday narrative. Jesus does cry out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” What do we do? Are we passive observers or are we a part of the passion? Do we feel the proximity of the Good Friday events or do we cynically think that the narrative has been redacted and what we are reading is simply an interpretation?

Does it actually matter what the chronology is if we are looking at the deeper meaning? What is the real story here? We have excitement, despair, climax, conclusion, and (next week) resurrection. We will spend this entire week with varying shades of reflection on “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

We are geared up for this being a Jesus story. But, I think it is the story of each one of us. We each scream (as Jesus did – as in Isaiah, on the Mount of Olives, on the cross, and throughout the focal point of this season), “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” We can each write our story as corresponding to the story of Jesus. I urge you to put yourself in the place of Jesus with a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a wonderful Passover (complete with the forebodings), a trip to the Mount of Olives, a horrific series of Good Friday events, and finally an ignominious death on a simple tree after having been stripped of clothes, dignity, and even humanity. We have all been there – not with the same circumstances but each of us with our own circumstances. Let us know and remember that Jesus was “there” on Calvary and Jesus will be with us there – wherever our “there” is.

Let us put our crosses at the foot of the cross that Jesus bore. We will feel our own despair lifted and our God will gently tell us that we are not abandoned. Our God is with us and will hold our hands and guide us as we step forward toward our own resurrection.

Dr Roberta M Meehan, D.Min