Palm Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons

Though we like to perceive the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey as moment of 'humble access', it wouldn't have been without precedent. There was a regional custom that called upon nobles and rulers to enter Jerusalem in procession riding on the back of a donkey and animal that was a symbol of peace and good intentions rather than the horses of warrior and conqueror.

The palm fronds strewn before him were a traditional way of welcoming a King and carried all kinds of meaning from victory to eternal life. Liturgically we celebrate this entrance by our processions; just like the crowds we symbolically welcome the prince of peace, but we also know the ironic twist in the story and it shouldn't be lost on each of us either!

How many of the crowd would run away from him once trouble started, once association with Jesus might mean problems for jobs, reputations and livelihood?

Each Palm Sunday leads to another Holy Week in which betrayal, cruelty, injustice and falsehoods predominate. Just as it was for Jesus, so it still is for countless living things. Our world is just as cruel, just as deceitful as it was then.

If we think a bit harder even Jesus' own passion and death, dreadful though it was, is nothing compared to what many suffer. The real point is that all he underwent gives a new dimension and meaning to the darker side of life, remember Palm Sunday is still a celebration of triumph, each and every Sunday till the end of time is a celebration of resurrection, of good winning out over evil.

It is the tale of the donkey, one of the oldest of our domesticated animals used for work for thousands of years and still counting! A faithful hardworking animal, often cruelly treated by us, who now belongs close to the Saviour of the world.

I am glad that some of the great prophecies connect the Messiah with animals, for they truly represent the innocent ones, all victims of others nastiness. They makes real the connection in Paul's hymn, that Jesus, identifying with the least, yes even the donkey, sharing the slavery of so many in life, and dying rescues life from darkness and sin, to raise us all on high with him. We rejoice in Isaiah's words, 'The Lord comes to my help...I know I shall not be shamed!'.

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Great Britain.

Listen to his sermons here: www.assumptionreligious.org/our-mission/maria-assumpta-chapel.html