Here is the text. As always, you can see the video of homily on our YouTube site here. The whole Mass is on our Facebook page here.
We begin with the blessing of the palms and the commemoration of Christ’s Triumphal entry into Jerusalem and then all of a sudden, we are reading the Passion of Mark. In less than 15 minutes we go from
Palm Sunday, more properly known as “Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion” really lends itself to a kind of liturgical whiplash.
“Hosannah to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
to “My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?!”
From the palm which is a symbol of victory
To the Cross, an instrument of execution.
How are we to make sense of it all?
In order to do so, we need a good understanding of what it means to be redeemed by Christ by his suffering and death on the Cross.
First, what does it mean to be redeemed?
In the time of Christ, right up to the end of the middle of the 19th century, the idea of “debt bondage” was a rather common practice.
Briefly stated, if you ran up a personal debt that you could not pay, then you could be sentenced by the civil courts to be sold into slavery to your creditor until such time as your debt was paid.
We see this elsewhere in the scriptures in the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:21-35. Remember the scene?
“That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt.”
Later, in Europe, this practice continued right up until the middle of the 19th century with a system of debtors prisons. Your sentence depended on the amount you owed and you were not released until your debt was paid to the last penny.
Federal debtors prisons were outlawed in the United States in 1833 and in England in 1867. But they still exist in certain parts of the world.
But even today we will use the phrase, “Paying your debt to society” when referring to those serving time for criminal offenses.
So it was in the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus. Of course, the Romans, being very efficient, documented everything.
So let’s say you owed a debt you could not pay, your creditor brought you before the magistrate, you were convicted.
One of the first things they did was draw up the legal document on parchment or papyrus recording the nature of your offense, the details, and what it would take to redeem your debt. This document was known as your mandate or “mandatum.” It might look a little like this:
[Hold up the Mandatum}
Then, you were led off by the bailiff and cast into bondage. How could you get out of the situation? How could you be redeemed and set free?
There were three ways that you could be redeemed:
1. You could spend the proscribed amount of time in bondage.
2. You could shorten this time by paying in blood and submitting to torture. Of course, if your creditor didn’t like you, or the prison was a bit overcrowded, they might do this to you anyway, just to move things along. Or,
3. If you had a rich uncle or other friends or relatives, they could pay your debt for you and you would be released.
Now, let’s take this little scenario and apply it to the situation of fallen humanity.
With the disobedience of humanity in the fall, SIN entered the world.
Humanity flexed its infantile moral muscles and asserted its independence from the Creator.
Humanity, of course, was perfectly free to do so, but such independence from God comes at a price.
As St. Paul and many others has surmised, this price for original and all sin…is suffering and death.
Even the casual observer of the human condition can see that this is true in this life, as it is in the next.
Who of us has not suffered because of our own carelessness or sins
or the carelessness or sins of another,
sometimes with fatal consequences?
Sin is real.
And death is real.
Like the man in debtors’ prison, humanity found ourselves owing a debt we could and cannot pay, eternal in its magnitude.
1. Thus by our sin, we found ourselves sentenced to a debt bondage for eternity.
2. Suffering in this life and the next in separation from God.
3. Unless…unless someone with the means could pay that debt for us.
Enter Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Mary, Son of God,
Who by taking on a human nature, was able to pay the debt of suffering and death which is the price of sin.
Who by his divine nature had the means to do so.
Jesus, the Christ, who by his suffering and death on the Cross, redeemed a fallen humanity and reconciled all creation to the Father.
“Christ paid a debt he didn’t owe, because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay.”
The price for our sins has been paid. And we are free.
Now, the liturgical whiplash of Palm Sunday makes sense.
By his suffering and death on the Cross that Christ paid the price for our sin. We are redeemed in the blood of Christ.
In the Roman Empire, your debt was paid, by time, by suffering or by anorther, they took your mandatum and wrote on it in big red letters. REDEMPTUS EST, ‘He or she is redeemed.”
And you carried it around with you.
So that if someone should challenge you, “Say, aren’t you the guy that welched on your debt to Wally?”
You could whip out your mandatum, show it to them and say, “I have been redeemed.”
You know, we each have a mandatum. It looks like this:
[Show baptism certificate.]
It’s called your baptism certificate, and it reads like this:
[Read baptism certificate.]
It is now the Cross, not the palm that is the ultimate symbol of victory
The palm spoke only of earthly victory in battle.
The Cross stands as witness and speaks for all eternity of the sacrifice which won for us the victory over sin and death.
We are redeemed in the blood of Christ.