Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, and Matthew 27:27-54
It is Palm Sunday. There were crowds who welcomed Jesus by waving palm branches to celebrate the coming of the King. Through them, we can read the crowd’s mind. There was a group that dreamed of political independence from the Roman Empire through Jesus. There were also religious groups that viewed Jesus as the Messiah. All of them desired to achieve something through Jesus. They thought of Jesus as a means. It is a very blasphemous expression. They had to worship Jesus and live as His disciples well. However, they had their own ulterior motives.
I feel very sad when I imagine Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem. As Jesus enters the midst of suffering, the disciples fight over who will have power second only to Jesus. Some people calculate the potential benefits they might gain. Some people are plotting to betray Jesus. I think that even the donkey carrying Jesus must have mistaken the cheers people were sending to Jesus for being directed at itself. But was it only the donkey that did like that? I can easily imagine some disciples acting all high and mighty and boasting as if they were Jesus himself. How desperate must Jesus have been to tell His disciples to perform miracles and cast out demons without Him?
When expectations for Jesus turned into disappointment, betrayal was widespread. Peter, who promised to protect Jesus, denies Jesus three times in the future. Jesus’s final entry into Jerusalem, made despite knowing all of this, is an incredibly painful moment. It breaks my heart to look at Jesus from a human perspective. Jesus must repeatedly witness the betrayal of the disciples He trusted. Jesus must helplessly watch as what He had educated and trained for three years crumbles. Even though Jesus has great power, He does not use it. He just acts that way solely to obey God’s will.
He was even placed in a worse position than Barabbas, the robber. How distressing is it if someone tries to kill me? However, the chief priests and leaders make various efforts to kill Jesus. The governor’s soldiers insult and mock Jesus. They make Jesus kneel, spit on him, hit him on the head, and assault him. They nail his arms to the cross and mock him to the very end, calling him the King of the Jews.
If I were in Jesus’ position, I would not have been able to endure it as Jesus did. I probably wasn’t thorough enough with God’s will and plan. However, Jesus trusted God even in the worst moment of his life. In the midst of suffering, he sought God and relied on the Creator. It is to accomplish God’s work. It is for the glory of God. Beyond the passion, it is to complete God’s plan of salvation for us.
It is very challenging for us to follow Jesus’ ministry and perseverance. However, what I wish to propose is to remember the one person who exists in the midst of this pain. The Bible described him with this one verse. He is from Cyrene, named Simon, and the soldiers forced him to carry the cross. He came on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem from Cyrene in Libya, Africa. He happened to encounter the procession of Jesus’s crucifixion. Even Jesus, who bore the cross, was wronged, and Simon was also forced to carry Jesus’ cross. It would be very shameful if he did not know about Jesus. However, he was with Jesus during that tough moment of suffering. Due to this sacred intervention, he was recorded in the Bible and continues to be repeated by Christians to this day.
The work of the holy God sometimes visits humans at unexpected moments like this. At that time, I hope that we will become like Simon of Cyrene, silently carrying out the Lord’s work and helping God’s ministry. May we spend this holy week as disciples, creating the mysteries of God that are currently unknowable. Amen.