Brief synopsis of the readings: Today is Palm Sunday, the week before Easter, and the readings are a little unusual. At the beginning of mass we read from Mark’s gospel that Jesus instructs his disciples to find a colt outside Jerusalem and bring it to Jesus. Jesus will then ride on the colt (or donkey) into Jerusalem where his followers will lay their cloaks or palm fronds in the road to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem. The palm fronds give rise to calling this day “Palm Sunday.” The first reading at mass comes from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. The prophet speaks of having been given a “well trained tongue” from the Lord that allows him to speak. For his part, Isaiah proclaims that he offers no resistance to evil. He will offer his back to those to beat him and his cheeks to those who pluck his beard. Because the Lord is his help he shall not be shamed. Finally Mark’s Gospel (the entire 14th chapter and almost all the 15th chapter) recounts Jesus’ passion, from two days before the Last Supper to his death. This account begins Bethany where Jesus is eating with his disciples and a woman comes and anoints him with perfumed oil. Judas then leaves and goes to the chief priests to betray Jesus. Later, on the first night of Passover Jesus predicts that he will be betrayed, and his disciples all protest, but Judas flees. Then Jesus breaks and blesses the bread; at the end of the meal he does the same with the cup of wine. Jesus then predicts that all of them will lose faith. When Peter proclaims he will never lose faith, Jesus predicts that before sunrise Peter will deny Jesus three times. After they finished eating they went to the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus went off alone to pray. There Jesus asked God to “take this cup away from me” but that Jesus will do God’s will. After praying Jesus returns to find that his disciples are all asleep. He wakes them and tells them he will be betrayed. Right then Judas appears with a number of armed men. They arrest Jesus and take him away. Jesus is then taken to the chief priests who accuse him of blasphemy. They bring Jesus to the Roman ruler Pilate. During this time someone approaches Peter and claims to have seen Peter with Jesus. Three times Peter denies knowing Jesus, after which a rooster crows (announcing sunrise). Jesus is questioned by Pilate who appears puzzled and does not know why the crowd wants Jesus crucified. But he is not willing to stand up to the crowd and orders Jesus’ execution. Jesus is then beaten and taken to Golgotha and crucified along with two criminals. After he dies on the cross he is taken down; a wealthy Jew named Joseph then asks Pilate for Jesus’ body and buries him in a tomb.

This may be hard to imagine but preaching on Palm Sunday is not as easy as it looks. Whether we were born into a Christian church or converted from another faith, this is the story we’ve heard from the very beginning. Countless books have been written about these events and movies from Ben Hur to The Greatest Story Ever Told continue to depict what happened over 2000 years ago. Every year on Palm Sunday and Good Friday we read an account of the passion and death of Jesus and we picture these images. The Procession into Jerusalem. The Last Supper. The Garden of Gethsemane. The Arrest. Jesus before Pilate. The Scourging. The Procession to Golgatha. The Crucifixion. Catholics remember well on Fridays in Lent going to the Stations of the Cross.

So where to begin? It’s clear that any sermon that encompasses all these events would take all of Holy Week. As a matter of fact, most Palm Sunday sermons are fairly short as the readings are so long.

Last week I spoke about the death of Jesus as a necessary step in his resurrection and how it has always puzzled me that we have blamed others, particularly Jews, as “Christ killers.” I received a response from a friend that I’ve been thinking about as I’ve been writing this. She wrote to me about recognizing that this new covenant of love goes to the heart of Jesus’ coming but being troubled by the idea that Jesus had to die for this covenant to be fulfilled.

I confess that I’m also a little troubled. Could it have gone another way? Could Jesus have brought this covenant, this key to salvation, without the Passion? As a Christian I know that the answer has to be “no” only because Jesus wouldn’t have died if there had been another way.

But is that true? What if Jesus was born of Mary, proclaimed a new covenant, and lived his life as just another human? What if he died of natural causes after a long and fulfilled life? There have certainly been figures in history who have done that. The Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu (the founder of Taoism), Muhammad, and many others. All were born normally, taught what they were given, and died natural deaths. Why not Jesus?

I think there is something different and unique about Christianity and the covenant of Jesus. I’ve spoken of this before, but we are not a religion that separates us from God. That’s how we started out: God created the universe and watched over it from Heaven. But at some point that separation troubled God and God decided not to watch us, not to send a messenger, but to send God’s very self. That required an entire new paradigm, one that we continue to discuss, pray about, and grapple with. Jesus needed to come among us, live fully our lives, and elevate us. Jesus’ coming had to throw out the old playbook and start something new.

So if Jesus needed to be born among us, did he need to die, and did he need to die in such a horrible way? When I think about this I think of Lazarus. If you remember, from the 11th chapter of John, Lazarus is a friend of Jesus who falls ill and eventually dies while Jesus is nearby. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and they all live happily ever after. Could Jesus have done the same?

I don’t think so. We don’t know much about Lazarus’ death, only that it was ordinary enough that we don’t have a description. But when Jesus raises him from the dead, he’s pretty much the same guy. It’s almost as if his death was an interruption. It’s also true that at some point Lazarus did die and did not come back.

I’ve spoken of this before, but Jesus’ death was horrific beyond words. The Romans executed people quite liberally during their reign, but crucifixion was reserved for a select few. It was a painful death that often lasted a few days and was intended not only to kill the criminal but to warn others. It was reserved for slaves who killed their masters, for those guilty of high treason against Rome: it was not for the common criminal and it was prohibited for Roman citizens. It was, simply put, the height of evil.

And maybe that’s the point. Jesus came to bring us eternal life, to grant us redemption and salvation, and to ultimately defeat ultimate evil with ultimate good.

It is as if Jesus announced to the world: “Give my your worst evil. Make my death the most horrific and painful imaginable. And I will rise up and defeat not only evil, but death itself.”

I write this with the recognition that the physical pain Jesus suffered was not his only suffering. Because of films like Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and others, it’s easy to focus on physical suffering alone. A few years ago I was talking to a friend of mine who felt it was her duty as a Christian to see the movie (and truth be told I never saw it). I observed that when I think about the most hellish moments of my life, they tend to focus around experiences of humiliation and isolation. That’s what strikes me most about Jesus’ death: the ones who were the most vocal fled and left him alone. They were more concerned with their own safety; they served their own fear instead of Jesus.

And so we find this man nearly alone (props to the women who were at the foot of the cross) enduring unimaginable suffering. Too often we look at the fact that this suffering was caused by human evil. I’ve often joked that we were told as children: “Jesus died for your sins. Nice going.” But instead let us look at this event not in terms of the evil we are capable of, but of the love that God is capable of. No matter how often we’re told that God’s love is infinite there’s a part of us that worries that our capacity for evil will one day cause God to say: “OK, that’s it. I’m done with you. I’ve given you every opportunity to get it right and still you get it wrong. You are now officially on your own.”

But we know God won’t. This Easter let us celebrate the fact that not only was Jesus capable of defeating evil, he was willing. And we are who we are because of it.