Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

In our Office Gospel today, we read Luke’s account of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem before his passion and death, the people shouting “Blessed is the king who comes in the Name of the Lord!” It’s what we commemorate on Palm Sunday. Now, that shout of blessing is cribbed from Psalm 118, a liturgical text that celebrates the entry of the king into the temple after a victorious battle. Between Psalm 118 and the Palm Sunday shout, it's also why we say “Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord” at the Eucharist: we’re welcoming Jesus, our champion, savior, and victor over sin and death, into the temple, particularly as he is present to us in the Sacrament…the strife is o’er, the battle won!

In our text, it may not be so clear what battle has been won: the cross and resurrection are still a few chapters away at this point in the narrative. If you look a little closer, though, you’ll see that Jesus’ triumphs, are manifold: he’s healed disease, mended and strengthened human infirmity; he’s cast out demons; proclaimed liberation to the captive and good news to the poor; he’s fed the hungry, lifted up the lowly, cast down the proud; through his life, work, and teaching, Jesus has been undoing the effects of the fall, restoring relationship, witnessing to the (re)union of heaven and earth that he has already accomplished in the Mystery of his own Incarnation. And (as in the Gospel of John where Jesus proclaims his victory over the Ruler of this World before he’s crucified), there’s a proleptic sense that what’s about to be done on Golgotha, in Hades, and in the empty tomb has already been finished…and time and space are simply catching up with reality. The inexorable and irresistible working out of Love’s purposes in the redemption of the world is a done deal, having been declared from endless ages by the unchangeable Word of God.

The end of our reading has the Pharisees begging Jesus to tell his followers to stop with the shouting, and Jesus says, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” And I feel, beloved, that we should experience this exchange as a challenge.

The disciples have seen miracles and heard teachings, and they shout with all the strength their hearts can muster about the victory of Jesus over death. We’ve heard the same teachings, and we’ve even had them explained and re-articulated by Spirit-enlightened saints through the centuries; the miracle of God’s presence is promised to us in the Eucharist we receive, and many of us have experienced the miraculous in other areas of our lives; moreover, we know (as the disciples don’t in this part of the text), that in the cross and resurrection, Jesus has definitively vanquished hell and sin and death not through violence, but through the power of his deathless love…but where, Beloved, is our shout?

Many of us have taken to heart that old saying (wrongly attributed to Francis, though something gesturing toward it appears in the Franciscan Regula): “preach the gospel; if necessary, use words.” It’s nice in it’s way, but how often does it become an excuse not to announce the love of God and the victory of that love to someone in need? How often do we say to ourselves, “Well, even if I don’t say anything, my life will bear witness to the Gospel.” And then how much of our lives are still lived according to the ways and patterns of this sin-sick and death-centered world?

Beloved, when do we really sing our Alleluia song? When do we shout, “Blessed is Jesus, my King, my Life, my Love, who comes in the name of the Lord” loudest? How will people see or hear the Gospel in our lives if our words and our living aren't equally suffused with it and transfigured by it? How might all our lives become one great Alleluia, one shout of Blessed is He? Or is it more likely that a stone will shout the praise we will not or cannot?

Dear Friend, I'll not pretend that living the Gospel is easy, nor will I pretend that I'm particularly good at it (I affirm with Paul in I Timothy 1:15, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief")! And, still...living the Gospel is necessary. So often, part of the trouble is that we think we need to do it by our own efforts, on our own steam. But Beloved, if we can trust in Jesus, if we can commit in and through him to be living Gospels to a broken world in sore and desperate need of a word of liberation and love, then the grace of God can complete in us the good work we, on our own, cannot; grace can empower us to live an Alleluia life of love, can empower us to repent when we fall, and can make us, in word and deed, to grow in all virtue and goodness, in witness to the All-Virtuous, All-Good One, who is our Lord, our Life, and our Love.

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+