Written by The liturgy for Palm Sunday begins with joy and ends with pain. It begins in triumph, and it ends in agony. We much prefer to focus on the triumph and the joy, but we will not grasp the full mystery of our faith, nor can we understand the true depths of God’s love for us, unless we look carefully at the pain and agony.
It is easy for us to follow Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and to throw our cloaks at His feet. But it is much, much harder to follow Him to the garden, then to the court, then to the cross atop Golgotha on Good Friday.
On Palm Sunday, the sun is out, times are good, and everything makes sense. We do not feel alone in our worship of the Savior. Life is going as we would hope – our King has arrived to rescue us and rule the earth forever. “Hosanna!” We cry out with the others. The King has come, but to conquer in a way we cannot fully comprehend.
Only four people remained with Jesus by the cross on Good Friday. Our Lord beckons us to follow Him there during Holy Week.
On Good Friday, the land is cloaked in darkness. The sun is eclipsed and so is the Son of God. Suddenly, life no longer makes sense to us. It may be totally unrecognizable. Our King who we thought had come to save us is dying a gruesome death by crucifixion. There is no political victory, and our Savior is now mocked by many who sincerely praised Him alongside us on Sunday. “Crucify him!” They cry. Perhaps we join them, for it is easier to mock than risk being mocked ourselves.
Only four people remained with Jesus by the cross on Good Friday. Out of the Twelve Apostles, only John was courageous enough to stay with Jesus as he suffered and died. All the others fled, including Peter, who, though he once so boldly confessed Jesus as the Christ, now denied Him three times. Our Lord beckons us to follow Him there during Holy Week.
An Active Faith
Holy Week reminds us that our faith is not a passive thing. Our faith is rooted in love because God is true love. But as anyone who has ever loved knows, the deeper we love someone the more vulnerable we become to them. We become more vulnerable because we trust those we love, and to trust our loved ones means we risk having our hearts broken by them.
This is why Good Friday is the fullest expression of love, because Jesus, though he was in the form of God, made himself completely vulnerable for our sake, and humbled himself to the point of death on a cross – because he loves us.
Our faith is active because love is an action, the same way that Jesus’ Passion was an action. The crucifixion was not something that just “happened” to Jesus – it was a willing, intentional act of perfect love for God and man poured out in ultimate humility.
True faith then requires us to love God not only on Palm Sunday when the sun is shining, but on Good Friday too when the sun is blotted out. Thankfully, most of us will have many more Palm Sundays in life than Good Fridays – that is, far more days of joy than days of sorrow. But not all are that fortunate, and for everyone the dark days will come. True faith will dictate how we respond when the day arrives.
A Trusting Faith
Holy Week also reminds us that our faith is a matter of trust because our faith is rooted in love and love requires trust. This becomes more difficult for us when we realize we must trust God even when we do not fully understand what He is doing. This trust is also an act of vulnerability inherent to true love.
Jesus understands the agony we feel when our prayers seem to go unanswered, when God does not provide a way apart from the present sufferings in which we find ourselves.
This relational dynamic could be derided as “blind faith,” but to do so would defy common sense. Consider the relationship an infant has with his mother. The baby does not understand the plans of his mother, nor does he even know what a mother is. Yet the baby knows when he looks into her eyes and he smiles that he can trust her, because his mother loves him. We must recapture this childlike faith if we are to trust the LORD in the seasons of darkness.
When we are in distress, it is natural for us to pray to God for relief. When our life is in turmoil, we pray for solutions. We ask for healing. We pray for peace. We seek clarity. We might even ask God for a miracle. It is good for us to trust God with our petitions, but we must recognize that while He can perform miracles, He may not answer in the way we desire or expect.
Jesus understands the agony we feel when our prayers seem to go unanswered, when God does not provide a way apart from the present sufferings in which we find ourselves. Jesus’ soul was sorrowful, even unto death, and He prayed to the Father: “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Jesus was terrified in the garden, but it was not a cowardly fear. His agony was an agony of anticipation, not merely for His physical suffering, but for the unimaginable spiritual suffering He was about to bear for the sins of the whole world. Jesus was preparing Himself for the ultimate act of vulnerability in service to that supreme act of love – not simply His physical vulnerability on the cross, but also the spiritual, and the pain of knowing His gift of love, freely offered to all mankind, would be rejected by billions of people to their eternal suffering.
No wonder Jesus prayed for another cup. No wonder he sweat drops of blood.
“Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
Mark 14:36
Our Lord’s first petition for a miracle (“remove this cup”) was followed by a second (“not what I will, but what you will”). While the first request was conditional, the second was absolute. Jesus loves the Father and therefore trusts in Him and His will.
We are likewise called to trust in God even when His will is not what we would have chosen for ourselves. But He is God, and we are not, and His plans are perfect and true. Because God is love, and He loves us perfectly, we can trust Him in love even when we don’t understand His plans. We may be hesitant to trust God, because human beings are fickle and we often have our trust betrayed, but God’s love is perfect, and He cannot lie. As the Psalmist says:
“Our forefathers put their trust in you; they trusted, and you delivered them. They cried out to you and were delivered; they trusted you and were not put to shame.”
Psalm 22:4-5
The Psalmist proclaims this truth in a cry of lament, the very words which Jesus cries out with a loud voice from upon the cross:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Psalm 22:1)?
In that very moment, Jesus knew the feeling of total abandonment by the Father; not that the Father had truly abandoned Him, but in that instant our collective sins were too grotesque to look upon. Just as we cannot fully comprehend Jesus’ love for us, neither can we comprehend the suffering He endured. If there is no limit to His love for us, then there is no limit to what He was willing to endure for us on the cross.
The Mystery of our Faith
Our faith is simple, but it is a mystery. We cannot argue ourselves into faith. Our relationship of love and trust in the Lord must come first, and then the knowledge that comes after can deepen and strengthen it. When Jesus was on the cross, the Chief Priests and the Scribes mocked Him by saying, “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.”
The brutal irony is that these men had already seen the evidence of Jesus’ entire life and ministry, witnessing countless miracles, and they to this point refused to believe. They would not have believed even if Jesus came down from the cross. Their unbelief was not for a lack of evidence, but for a lack of love for the Savior. The same is true for all who reject that free gift which Jesus offered upon the cross on Good Friday.
Do you wish to grow closer to Jesus? Do you want to strengthen your faith in Him? Do you desire to be with Him not only when times are good, but also when times are tough? Do you wish to be present with Him not only on the Palm Sundays, but on the Good Fridays as well? Then follow Him to the cross this Holy Week. Ponder the depths of His suffering and the weight of your sin, so that you may know the wondrous glory of His infinite love. Amen.