March 28, 2021: Palm Sunday
Psalm 31:9-16
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble;
my eye is consumed with sorrow,
and also my throat and my belly.
For my life is wasted with grief,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails me because of affliction,
and my bones are consumed.
I have become a reproach to all my enemies and even to my neighbors,
a dismay to those of my acquaintance;
when they see me in the street they avoid me.
I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind;
I am as useless as a broken pot.
For I have heard the whispering of the crowd;
fear is all around;
they put their heads together against me;
they plot to take my life.
But as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord.
I have said, “You are my God.
My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies,
and from those who persecute me.
Make your face to shine upon your servant,
and in your loving-kindness save me.”
This Sunday is Palm, or Passion Sunday, in which we remember the death of Jesus. (I chose the Psalm for today’s reflection instead of the Gospel reading as it is so long).
I have always struggled with theology that focuses on the belief that Jesus died for our sins, and that his suffering and death was a sacrifice or atonement for our wrongdoing. Partly because corresponding with this set of beliefs is the notion that God sent Jesus to die, that it was Jesus’ pre-ordained death that was the reason he was born in the first place.
Instead, I prefer to see Jesus’ death as an act of integrity and authenticity. He lived a life of love and service that upset the power structures of his day, and rather than flee from those who wished him harm, he “stood up” for his beliefs in the most complete way possible – by dying. To me, Jesus’ death was an act of courage that embodied his decision to be true to his lived beliefs of radical forgiveness and love. Jesus’ definition of what it means to be human was built on his relationship with God, and not on exterior or cultural definitions that were, and still are, partial and incomplete.
Anyone who has ever felt alone and misunderstood can take heart from Jesus’ surrender of self in the face of hatred and injustice. Anyone who has ever been persecuted for standing up for what is right can draw strength from Jesus’ refusal to back down from his knowledge that he was God’s “beloved Son” (Mt. 3:17b), and that everything he did flowed from his identity as God’s beloved.
Since Jesus’ life and death models for us what it means to be human, we know that we, too are God’s beloved children. In the words of the late Henri Nowen, “As a spiritual practice claim and reclaim your primal identity as beloved daughter or son of a personal Creator.”
When we fully embrace our identities as God’s beloved children, our lives are rooted in the knowledge that we are precious to God, and it is this knowledge that informs and guides our every action. No longer are we held hostage by others’ beliefs about us, or even by our beliefs about ourselves. In other words, we become free.