Homily -
Palm Sunday -
A prisoner soldier of a regiment
during World War II was in a work detail on the railway. The day’s work had ended; the tools were
being counted, as usual. As the party
was about to be dismissed, the Japanese guard shouted that a shovel was
missing. He insisted that someone had
stolen it to sell to the enemy. Striding
up and down before the men, he ranted and denounced them for their wickedness
and their ingratitude.
As he raved, he worked himself up
into a paranoid fury. Screaming in
broken English, he demanded that the guilty one step forward to take his
punishment. No one moved; the guard’s
rage reached the heights of violence.
“All die! All die!” he
shrieked.
To show that he meant what he said,
he cocked his rifle, put it on his shoulder and looked down the sights, ready
to fire at the first man at the end of them.
At that moment on soldier stepped forward, stood stiffly to attention,
and said calmly, “I did it.”
The guard unleashed all his whipped-up
hate; he kicked the helpless prisoner and beat him with his fists. Still the man stood rigidly to attention,
with the blood streaming down his face.
His silence goaded the guard to excess rage. Seizing his rifle by the barrel, he lifted it
high over his head and, with a final howl, brought it down on the skull of the
man, who sank limply to the ground and did not move. Although it was perfectly clear that he was
dead, the guard continued to beat him and stopped only when he was exhausted.
The men of the work detail picked up
their comrade’s body, shouldered their tools and marched back to the camp. When the tools were counted again at the
guardhouse, no shovel was missing.
The Christ is carrying the cross is so many ways. The Christ
is crucified everyday.
We listen this week to the story of salvation – but that
story is not history. It is what is happening now.
Jesus, The Christ, is present is our journey – that is what
we believe.
And our following him this Holy Week and remembering his
suffering and remembering his challenge to us and remembering his victory must
bring us to better vision.
We need to see his suffering in those about us.
In the poor who are dismissed by the powerful.
In the sick who are seen too often as expendable.
In those whose lifestyles we judge.
In the immigrant, in the powerless,
in the helpless and the weak.
In those and in so many places the cross is still being
carried – the nails are still being driven.
The prisoner soldier was the one who took upon himself the pain
and the hurt and fear of the others.
Jesus takes upon himself daily the persecution his brothers
and sisters.
We enter this Holy Week – we realize his saving action.
May it transform us and re-create us to be people who
identify with this Jesus who identified with us.
May we come to Easter more alive in Him.