Homily for Sunday, 29 March 2015‒ Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Readings of the day: At the procession with palm branches: Mark 11:1-10. During the Mass: Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1-15:27

For how many of us do the events of Jesus’ Passion and death seem somewhat “over the top”; somewhat extravagant?

Our Lord’s Passion according to Mark that we have just heard begins with a woman anointing Jesus’ head with expensive “perfumed oil,” anticipating Jesus’ death and burial. This is an extravagant act of love, to be matched only by Jesus’ own death on the cross for us. The woman’s love is so extravagant that many at table become “infuriated with her.” But Jesus says, “Wherever the Gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

In hearing Jesus’ Passion we remember the woman’s anointing of Jesus: Extravagant love. We remember many counter-witnesses to this extravagant love of the woman. We remember extravagant acts of fear, denial, and betrayal by Jesus’ closest friends. We remember extravagant cruelty as Jesus is led to a shameful death outside the city walls of Jerusalem. We remember the extravagant fidelity of the women who remained at the cross, who did what Jesus’ own Apostles could not do at Gethsemane: “Watch and pray.” We remember the extravagant mercy and courage of Joseph of Arimathea, who took Jesus’ body for burial.

But do we only remember? Indeed, we remember the extravagance of Jesus’ Passion; the extravagance it took for God to redeem us; to save us by the death of God’s only Son. We remember, but we also encounter. How? We encounter God’s extravagant, saving love when we speak it; when we pray by it; when we act by it.

When has somebody been kind to us, even in a small way? When have we been kind; done or said something loving for another; just prayed for another person’s good? These are our encounters with Christ’s Passion; with the Gospel of love; with this story of God’s extravagant love for us with which Christ died and would rise again for us, for our salvation.