JESUS HUMBLED HIMSELF

PALM SUNDAY - Philippians 2:6-11

My first Palm Sunday mass in Lubengele

As he enters Jerusalem with the singing crowds, Jesus is acclaimed as the Messiah king, with everybody shouting Hosanna, as a cry for deliverance: Please, save us! Thad caused a commotion in Jerusalem, with the people from Jerusalem asking: Who is this?

It is indeed a strange sight. If he is the Messiah and a King, where is the show of power? And where are his armies? How is he going to defeat the enemy and to impose himself? Or is it a joke? How can he be the Messiah on a donkey, the humble animal used by the poor? Where are the generals and the army commanders? How does he enter Jerusalem, the holy city, accompanied of a rabble of poor people?

Matthew considers this event as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah:

Say to the daughter of Zion:

Look, your king comes to you;

he is humble, he rides on a donkey

and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. 

(Zech 9:9; see Is 62:11)

The Messiah would come in humility, not in power and glory. He is king, but of a different kind. He is not in the business of dominating and imposing himself. The famous kings and generals - like Nebuchadnezzar and Pompey - came into Jerusalem riding horses, shedding blood and vomiting fire. They did not bring peace, but destruction and death. Jesus comes in peace with a promise of life. That’s why the Church applies to him the passage of the prophet Isaiah, where the Messiah is like a servant and like a disciple:

The Lord has given me

a disciple’s tongue.

So that I may know how to reply to the wearied

he provides me with speech.

Each morning he wakes me to hear,

to listen like a disciple.

The Lord has opened my ear. 

For my part, I made no resistance,

neither did I turn away.

I offered my back to those who struck me,

my cheeks to those who tore at my beard;

I did not cover my face

against insult and spittle.

(Is 50:4-6)

He is ready to be obedient and to suffer. It is for us that he suffers, so that he may bring relief and peace.

Palm Sunday procession in Lubengele Parish, Chililabombwe

The first generation of Christians composed a hymn that Paul used in his letter to the Philippians (Phil 2:6-11) about the mystery of Christ, that is the mystery of his suffering and death and then the mystery of his resurrection and exaltation.

His state was divine,

yet Christ Jesus did not cling

to his equality with God

but emptied himself

to assume the condition of a slave

and became as men are;

and being as all men are,

he was humbler yet,

even to accepting death,

death on a cross.

Jesus humbled himself to the point of death, and death on a cross, which the most humiliating death.

This is the mystery that we are going to celebrate during the Holy week that starts this Sunday, the Palm Sunday. During this week, let us come close to Jesus to share in his pain and suffering, so that we may share as well in his glorification. With him, we will be able to learn how to live, passing through suffering and death and moving forward to the resurrection. Indeed, 

God raised him high

and gave him the name

which is above all other names

so that all beings

in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld,

should bend the knee at the name of Jesus

and that every tongue should acclaim

Jesus Christ as Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.