Usually a king rode into a city on horseback during a time of war and he entered on a donkey during peacetime.
?Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday,? Bishop Nelson Perez said during his Palm Sunday homily at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. ?He was on his way to battle,? he said, referencing the Passion and death Jesus would face within the week. ?But he rode in as the Prince of Peace.?
The liturgy began with the traditional blessing of the palms. The Gospel was St. Mark?s version of the Passion.
Bishop Perez used the Passion as the theme for his homily. ?What is passion?? he asked. He said it?s a powerful emotion and enthusiasm for the love of Christ. ?It?s not what is the Passion of Christ but who is it? It?s you and me, the passion of his Father.? The bishop said the words of John 3:16, ?For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life,? will come to resonate during the upcoming Holy Week.
?Listen to that story, to what truly was the Passion,? he said.
As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the bishop said people in the crowd were there for different reasons. Some were curious, some had been touched by Christ and some were conspiring against him. He said it?s likely that some blind, lame and lepers who had been healed by Jesus were in the crowd. ?Some came to see their hero one last time,? he said, ?and Jesus rode in on a donkey in the midst of all as the Prince of Peace.?
The bishop said he?s ?been Palm Sundaying all over for the past six years,? noting he was in Philadelphia six years ago, then in New York and now here. He compared the crowd that greeted Jesus in Jerusalem with a crowd he encountered one time near Times Square in New York City.
?I asked this one man if he knew what was going on. He said it was a movie premiere. It turns out, he was Bill Murray and he was in the movie,? Bishop Perez said, as the congregation laughed.
Much like the crowd on the original Palm Sunday that included people with different reasons for being there, the bishop said some of us here are curious; others are grateful for where God?s grace has taken us; some are enthusiastic and some of our hearts are conflicted. But he said we have the joy and hope that Christ will come to all.
?He came to make us all whole,? he said, wishing the congregation a truly Holy Week to savor God?s unconditional power and his love for us.
For a look at the rest of the Holy Week schedule at the cathedral, click HERE.
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