Homily for Palm Sunday
April 2, 2023
Matt 27: 11-54
St. Francis Xavier,
Bronx
Our Lady of Esperanza,
Manhattan
“His blood be upon us and upon our children”
(Matt 27: 25).
When the crowd assembled in front of Pontius Pilate shouts this cry, they’re accepting that they’re taking responsibility for bringing about the crucifixion of Jesus, for which they’ve clamored, stirred up by the chief priests and the elders. The chief priests and the elders, and now the whole people, bear the guilt for Jesus’ execution.
Pilate,
tho he symbolically washes his hands of responsibility, also shares the guilt
because he has the power to do what’s right but goes along with what he knows
is wrong. He perverts justice by
condemning an innocent man.
The
crowd also speaks for us. Our sins, the
sins of all of humanity, are the cause of Christ’s death. Christ accepted the death penalty, the price
for sin—St. Paul says that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23)—even tho Christ
was sinless. He paid the penalty that
you and I, all of us, deserve on account of our sins, our big and little
defiance against the goodness of God.
His blood is upon us.
We
can take the cry of the crowd in another sense.
Christ’s blood is upon us as the price of our redemption. We repeat at every Mass, quoting Jesus’ words
at the Last Supper, that the chalice of his blood is “the blood of the new and
eternal covenant” poured out for us, for the forgiveness of our sins. Christ’s blood covers us, washes over us,
cleanses us of sin, wins pardon for us.
In this sense, we can acclaim in hope, “His blood be upon us and upon
our children.”
May
the blood of Christ shed for us lead us into the life of his resurrection,
cleansed of all our sins.
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