Palm Sunday 2023 – Matthew
Today we enter the climate of silence which is so proper to the week we call the “holy week”. The birds sing in the fresh and wet new spring, while the soil and the trees relinquish their winter bareness. The procession with the palms sings the glory of Jesus, our King, so humble and so meek of heart. But the long narrative of the Passion gospel leads us into a deep silence made of respect and awe for Jesus’ sufferings and for the mystery of the Cross.
Except for a short text and two cries, the Cross is a silent event. Jesus keeps quiet. He does not preach. He does not plead. He neither excuses himself nor accuses others. He is not his own advocate. He does not defend His life, His works, or His message. It is enough for Him to take the place of the one who is accused. When finally condemned, first by the Jew, then by the Romans, He does not express any reaction. When mocked, when ridiculed, when struck, He does utter a single protest.
One must admire His singular strength of character, but there is much more in His unique silence. It cannot be mistaken for the proud silence of contempt or resignation. Jesus’ patience does not proceed from pride, but from humility. Jesus is constant, peaceful, embraced humility. Humility is the truth of his heart. He does not try to be humble, as we do when we think of it; He is humble; He is humility. His Heart is a deep sea, a peaceful ocean of silence and humility.
Today we listen to Jesus’ humility which speaks to us with the voice of silence. A text has been written and put on the cross: ‘This is Jesus the King of the Jews’. So many other titles could have been chosen: Son of God; Word of God; Son of the Almighty; and even: King of Israel, which would have been much more religious than the Romans’ derogatory ‘King of the Jews’. Jesus, though, does not ask for the words to be changed. Our King accepts His strange title as He did His strange coronation by the soldiers, His strange throne on the cross, and His strange retinue: “Two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left”. We adore our silent and humble King on the throne of His cross.
A first cry breaks the silence: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Humbly, Jesus prays with the words of the Psalms. They are enough for Him. He finds the way to express the unfathomable state of His soul with the words of the suffering Israel. We cannot – how could we? – understand this cry which seems to resonate within God Himself. But we can listen to it in the silence of our heart and even echo it with the words of the psalms and the silent cries of our sufferings. The humble Jesus opens the Psalms and give them to each of His brothers and sisters. “Take and read: this is my prayer; this is my soul.”
A second cry breaks the silence, and the world, too, is shaken. Jesus utters words no longer. He borrows the cry which comes on our lips when we suffer, when we are afraid, and when we are born. Jesus cries and He dies. His cry prepares the way to the silence of death. How is it that our Prophet and our Master, the Word of God, and the Son whom the Father charges us to listen to, is now definitively silent? “Take and listen to my cry in the silence of your heart; this is our prayer”.
The disciples have disappeared. A rich man arrives and lays Jesus’ body in a tomb. A few women look on from afar. Our silent heart remains with them near the place where the body has been laid. We learn in silence and through silence, the strength of divine humility which is not afraid of entering death in order to lead us to life. “Take and keep it silently: this is my death, which is the way to my life and your life, to my Father and your Father.” Take, adore, hope.