Our People

Palm Sunday 2006

By Most Rev. Julian Porteous
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
9/4/2006

We have listened to the account of the passion and death of the Lord, told to us by St Mark. In the account we face a number of primordial realities.

We see blatant human evil.

• The determination of the Chief Priests to have Christ killed. Here we see envy and jealousy driving human action.
• We see the weakness and abdication of responsibility of Pilate as he washes his hands of what he knows was the condemnation of an innocent man.
• We witness the ugliness of mob rule, as the crowds cry out, “Crucify him, crucify him”.
• We behold the horror of the brutality of the Roman soldiers, so powerfully captured in Mel Gibson’s film.

We behold the depths of human suffering.

• The physical suffering endured by the Lord chills us, as we wonder about our own ability to deal with suffering.
• We ponder the experience of the Lord in being abandoned, mocked, denied, rejected and humiliated – this by the Son of God.
• We hear his anguished cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
• In all of this we wonder about ourselves, our own need for acceptance, affirmation and friendship, and the shallowness of our own ability to accept suffering in any form.

We behold the wonder of the love of God for us.

• A Father – the Divine Father – asked his own Son to walk this path for the sake of humanity.
• Jesus, in profound humility and obedience, took all this on because of the sin of mankind, for each of us.
• It was an expression of the mercy in the heart of God. God would not abandon humanity but acted to save it.
• From the cross flowed love – “this day you will be with me in paradise”, “Mother this is your son”, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do”, “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Let us be silent for a moment before the profound mystery of God and what God has done for us in Jesus. From our hearts in humility and trust let us simply say, “Thank you”.