Palm Sunday (29.03.15)

The Controlling of Public Opinion

Evil can manipulate unguarded consciences.  Any conscience insufficiently attuned to the Holy Spirit is at risk from Satan’s sophisticated approaches. Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builders illustrates the point:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and fulfills them will be like a wise person who built their house on the rock. The rain fell, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not fulfill them will be like a foolish person who built their house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

Jesus would not have recognized the title ‘Palm Sunday’. He would have known today as the first day of the most significant week of his life on earth. It marked the approach to the annual great Jewish Festival of Passover, commemorating God’s deliverance of his people from Egypt. For Jesus, this week was uniquely different and, had they but known it, for his companions too. For Jesus, ‘his time was near’.

Jesus had repeatedly told his close associates that he was going up to Jerusalem to die and to rise again on the third day. Even if they heard, they didn’t grasp the significance of Jesus’ prophecy. With the distraction of the bustle of a city preparing for the festival, how could there be a fear for Jesus’ life when so many were welcoming him? Who would dare to attack Jesus in the face of such public acclaim? Jesus knew that, beneath their superficial jollity, his fellow Jews were filled with fear.

People in any era can be swept along on a wave of ephemeral public opinion. There have always been astute ‘mind-benders’ capable of subverting public opinion, for a price or a hidden agenda. Today, mind-bending has become respectable, a global industry quite frighteningly adept at manipulating the public’s mind.

Fear is a powerful tool. Think about the phrases most commonly used when people describe fear. They speak about ‘being gripped by fear’ or ‘being overcome by an oppressive fear’. The opposite of fear is trust. People value trust and are very careful in giving it or they should be. In an atmosphere of established and proven trust, human nature flourishes.

Fear can be imposed uniformly, bringing about severe restrictions to basic human freedom. Examples include the Nazi Holocaust; the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodian genocide; Mao Tse-tung’s Chinese revolution; Kim Jong-un’s North Korea and so many more.

Well-founded trust, by contrast, fosters the flowering of individuality and uniqueness with which the Creator has endowed each person. Trust gives an individual the freedom to follow a personal path to maturity and the fullness of potential. In the best of circumstances, trust promotes a mutuality of care, support and encouragement.

When Jesus looked into the eyes of the welcoming throng on what we call Palm Sunday what did he see? Previously Jesus had vocalized his concern for his people:
“Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.…” (Matt 9: 36-37)

With so many visitors Jerusalem’s crowded narrow streets would have been filled with apprehensive Jews all too aware of the Roman army of occupation. Beneath the smiling faces and uplifted voices Jesus would have sensed his peoples’ underlying fears.

Five days is a relatively short time for such a marked swing in public opinion. Between Palm Sunday and Good Friday there was a switch from ‘Hosannah!’ – ‘Welcome!’ to “Crucify Him” – “Let his blood be upon us and upon our children.” As far as we know Jesus had made no public utterance in the same period. Which of these linked outpourings by Jerusalemites truly reflects people’s freedom of choice? When an army of occupation increases its alert level, it’s understandable if the citizen’s fear level increases, with a corresponding reduction in their freedom of choice whether they are conscious of it it or not.

On ‘Palm Sunday’ Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. On ‘Good Friday’ his weakened and suffering body tortuously climbed the hill to Calvary. He struggled under the weight of the crossbeam to which he would be nailed. Did Jesus make eye contact with people on either occasion? Would he have recognized the faces of some whose sight he had restored, rescued from leprosy, fed on the hillside, resurrected? On ‘Good Friday’ might he have identified some of the voices shouting ‘crucify him’! Fear is such a powerful evil that it can grip and hold a person or a whole people, in an instant.

The entire Passion of Christ is read aloud on just two days each liturgical year – Palm Sunday and Good Friday. It’s a long time to remain standing. The infirm and elderly are advised to sit.

Would it better enable us to participate in the Passion of Jesus Christ were we to place ourselves in the midst of the Jerusalem crowds, on both the original Palm Sunday and Good Friday? We could try to imagine the fear that we shared with others round about us. Have we felt fear when our faith in Jesus Christ has been held against us? Have we remained silent when we should have spoken out in his defence? Have we joined in events damaging to faith, even blasphemous occasions, out of fear? Have we allowed corrupted public opinion to silence our own conscience?
At the reading of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ on Palm Sunday and Good Friday we are not distant spectators. We are participators, God forgive us! Far from condemning the Jerusalemites of those days, an examination of conscience might reveal how we have replicated their words and actions in our own days. Were Jesus to make eye contact with us …… how would we react? Would we look away, try and hide, or switch quickly into self-justification mode?

The Good Friday Jesus’ eyes, though full of pain, would have remained loving, full of compassion, welcoming and not condemnatory. From the Cross we might hear Jesus as he prayed:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23: 34)