Eucharistic Gospel Reading for Palm Sunday, Year C
“Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31- 32)
This Gospel reading begins with joy! It begins with the ride into Jerusalem with waving palms and palms laid before even the donkey that carries Jesus. But during the week, the celebration goes south quickly, and some of the same people singing “Blessed is the One who comes in the Name of the Lord,” are within a few days, yelling, “Crucify him.” Oh what an unstable people we are.
There is so much to ponder in this Passion Reading. I think in all the readings for any of the Gospel Passion readings, Peter is the significant representative of us all. He wants to be faithful, but fails. We want to be faithful but we too so often fail. Jesus never gives up on Simon Peter and Jesus never gives up on us.
Satan, or at least sin, or some level of unfaithfulness, is at work against Simon Peter and us as well, to reduce us down to manageable, sinful fragments, in an effort to pull us away from following the love of Jesus. But we have the prayers of Jesus himself, keeping the faith within us, to keep us strong. Jesus says in our Passion passage, “but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail.” Jesus has proclaimed throughout the Gospel that it is the faith within us that enables us to overcome the sinful obstacles in life.
All of the interrogators of Jesus asked, “Are you, then, the Son of God?” He said to them, “You say that I am.” Then they said, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!” Wow! how much I would sacrifice to hear those words, in person, from the lips of Jesus. Yet we have the written word to accept and believe.
I tend to ponder deeper into our written words, and I challenge the notion of harassment of the first criminal where it says, “One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” Of all the people deriding Jesus, he is the only one who asked Jesus to not only save himself, but also to save us. Yes, Lord, save us.
Luke’s Gospel account of the Passion is the only one that has Jesus make eye contact with Peter as the rooster crows – as Jesus is being taken away. This is a painful reminder that Jesus told him it would be so. It is also a painful reminder when we too make eye contact with Jesus, and are found falling short of what we should be. However, Jesus also lets Peter know that he (Peter), will at some point, turn back, and that we too, will at some point, turn back, and when we do, we, like Peter, are to strengthen our brothers and sisters in their faith.
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and to serve, and to teach others to love and to serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray: (Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday: BCP p. 219)
Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
onewhoponders 