Palm Sunday (Year B)

 In the Gospel of St Mark the expression "King of the Jews" is used four times by Pilate and the Romans. They put Jesus on trial, display him before the rabid crowd, and mock him before putting it as a title on the cross, where he is executed as a criminal. The Jewish authorities taunt him: "Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe" (Mk 15: 32) Yet this label is inadequate. As St Paul points out in the second reading that: "... at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, the glory of God the Father." (Phil 2: 10-11) Jesus in the triumphal entry to Jerusalem, was greeted as the Messiah foretold by the Scriptures for the Jewish people and is revealed, in the resurrection, as the King of the Universe to whom even knees in heaven must bend. Let us not be scandalized by Jesus' suffering for it is through them that we experience the divine love most powerfully for us. Jesus is not only the one who saves us but also sets the pattern and example for our own Christian experience which, in one way or another, includes the experience of the cross. As the write of the Letter to the Hebrews puts it: "It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of our salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters." (Heb 1: 10-11)