Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (C)
Making an Airport of an Auditorium

Readings: Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 21:8-9,17-20,23-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Luke 22:14-23:56

Picture: cc Matthias Rhomberg

Sisters and brothers, do you know the difference between an auditorium and an airport? Of course you do! An auditorium is usually a destination in itself. We go there to attend a function, or to listen to a talk, or to watch a performance. And then we leave. In contrast, an airport is not really meant to be a a final destination, a place of rest, but a point of transit. We go there in order to allow ourselves to be transported somewhere else.

And yet, we also know that it is sometimes possible for us to enter an auditorium and be transported in some way. For example, when we listen carefully, with open minds and hearts, to an inspiring speech, or a moving musical performance. Then, even though our bodies remain rooted in our seats, we may find our spirits somehow being lifted up high into the heavens. If the performance is good enough, if our attention is close enough, if our hearts are open enough, an auditorium can sometimes be transformed for us into an airport.

Can we not say the same about Jerusalem, the holy city where all the action is taking place in our readings today? Jerusalem. At one level, this seems to be the destination, the end-point, towards which Jesus has been travelling. He enters it on Palm Sunday, enjoying a king’s welcome. And he is driven out of it on Good Friday, bearing a criminal’s cross. Jerusalem. At first glance, this is nothing more than an auditorium, in which the ugly spectacle of the killing of an innocent man is performed for all to see. Jerusalem. For many, this was simply a destination like any other. A place to visit. And then to leave. An auditorium. This was what Jerusalem was for the chief priests and the scribes. Whose jealousy and self-righteousness led them to engineer a plan to have Jesus put to death. And for Pilate and Herod too. Whose apathy and moral cowardice were what enabled the plan to succeed. And also for the many disciples of Jesus. Who had welcomed him so enthusiastically on Palm Sunday. But then deserted him so shamefully on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. For all of these people, Jerusalem remained only an auditorium. A place to visit. And then to leave. Nothing more.

But, if our Mass readings are to be believed. Things were quite different for Jesus. For Jesus, Jerusalem was not so much a destination as a point of transit. For, as St. Paul reminds us in the second reading, it was as a result of Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem, that God raised him high and gave him a name that is above all other names. And this happened not unlike how an auditorium is sometimes transformed into an airport. It happened because Jesus listened attentively, open-heartedly, generously to the will of his Father. As the first and second readings tell us, Jesus listened like a disciple. And what he heard, he put into practice. For love of his Father and for us, he made no resistance. He emptied himself. Even to accepting death on a cross. This was how Jerusalem was transformed for him. Although it may appear to some like a final destination, Jerusalem was really a point of transit. It was here that Jesus was lifted up into the glory of God.

But that’s not all. The gospel draws our attention also to several other people who managed to benefit from the experience of Jesus. People who found themselves transported in some way. The repentant criminal, for example. Whose humility won him an eternal reward. Indeed, I promise you, Jesus tells him, today you will be with me in paradise. Or the centurion at the foot of the cross. After seeing how Jesus dies, this soldier is able to praise God saying, This was a great and good man. Or the people who had gathered for the spectacle. So affected were they that they went home beating their breasts. Unlike the Jewish and Roman authorities, whose hardened hearts kept them transfixed in their own prejudice and sin, these other people found themselves transported into a new experience of God’s mercy and compassion. For them, Jerusalem was no longer just an auditorium, but an airport. A point of departure into God’s loving embrace.

How did this happen to them, sisters and brothers, if not through their willingness to watch and to listen, with attentive ears, and open hearts, and generous hands? And if this is true of these people in the gospel, surely it can be true too of us. Today, as we begin this most solemn and sacred of weeks in the Church’s calendar, it is too easy for us simply to go through the motions. To enter and to exit Holy Week as we would any other destination. And yet it doesn’t have to be this way. In the course of this week, it is also possible for us to be transported in some way. If we allow ourselves to pay careful attention to all that Jesus is saying and doing. To all that he is allowing others to do to him. If we watch and pray and accompany our Lord as he goes to his Passion. Surely, Holy Week will be transformed for us from a mere place of rest into a true point of departure. A place where we will find ourselves lifted up, as Jesus was, into the loving arms of God.

Sisters and brothers, how may we better allow the Lord to transform our auditorium into an airport today?