Archbishop of Sydney

Palm Sunday

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
20 March 2005

Catholics call this week Holy Week.  Its climax is Good Friday, when Christians celebrate the fact that the Son of God died, crucified to a cross.  Next week on Easter Sunday we shall celebrate Christ’s resurrection, but this week it is his death.

This is strange.  Why would a community celebrate the murder of a good young man nearly 2000 years ago?  Why would a religion highlight suffering and evil?

How could this uneducated young man from the most troublesome outpost in the Roman Empire be the only Son of the one true God?  Why would a God suffer in any way and especially this way?

The English poet W.H. Anden had his own take on the problem.  “How could the eternal do a temporal act?  The infinite become a finite fact”.

Perhaps Jesus is none of this; but only another lost cause like the brave democracy protestor run over by a tank in Tienamin Square in 1989.

Neither is it that this brutality towards Jesus is highlighted once a year at Easter.  On every occasion the Eucharist is prayed, Christ’s death is celebrated until he comes again.  What is going on?

The Boxing Day tsunami forced us to acknowledge how cruel life can sometimes be for hundreds of thousands of people.  But awful things happen regularly to different individuals also.

The Christian response begins with a clear headed but warm hearted acknowledgement of all this suffering.  It is part of being human and sometimes it is terrible.  But it is not the whole of the story and certainly not the last word of the story.

The Christian claim is that because Jesus came through this suffering and death and out the other side to the resurrection, love and life are more powerful than death and that love will have the last word.

One of the great benefits of an after-life ruled by a just and merciful God is not only that good is rewarded and unrepented evil punished, but that all who suffered disproportionately will have that balanced out.

Christianity does not provide theoretical answers to intellectual problems (although it has to throw light on the problem of suffering and the reality of death).  It aims to win the hearts and minds of people, to get them to change their lives through acknowledging their wrongdoing and the purpose of their lives (Jesus’ call to repent and believe).

The difference between a believer and non-believer is not an escapist hobby like reading detective stories; not an additional piece of useful information, but the conviction that despite suffering the world is good and beautiful.  This is not our reading, but the recognition of a God-given fact.

Christians cherish the past, all the dramatic Bible stories, but especially the story of Jesus, because in his cross and resurrection are the foundations of life.