He Arrived in Humility He Departed in Glory Part 1

The crowds that normally pressed in tight around him made way, garnishing the sandy roadway with the vestments off their backs and branches freshly cut from palm trees. He came riding in on a borrowed donkey, humbling himself even as the people praised him. They honored him as the king who would overthrow the Romans; rejoicing at the entrance of the man they hoped was their awaited Messiah. And, how they shouted, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Days later, some of the people who held in in adoration crucified him.

Palm Sunday is this weekend, commemorating Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem and marking the beginning of Holy Week. This last week of Lent leads the faithful into the observance of Easter—the most important celebration of the Christian faith. During Holy Week, many in the church reflect upon the suffering Jesus endured on our behalf, knowing that this commemoration will make the joy of Easter so much sweeter. Some churches set up “stations of the cross”—artistic representations of Jesus’ path to his death—for visitors to slowly make their way through, reflect on and pray over. The point, like all of Lent, is to help us recall, to help us dig into and dwell upon the fullness of this faith we cleave to. The point is to immerse oneself in it—in the account, in its significance, in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus suffered in every form possible, but still, even more than we could ever imagine. The bodily torture he endured was only the surface of his sacrifice, and the pain grew worse as the wounds reached deeper. Crowds beat him. Guards, drunk so they could carry out his gruesome punishment, flogged him within an inch of his life using a whip of tails, laden with small fragments of metal and bone which sank into his skin as it wrapped around his body, shredding away pieces of flesh as it pulled back for another lashing. A crown of thorns dug into Christ’s scalp. He carried a rough, splintering bed of torture on his raw back, collapsing under its weight, laboring and straining forward again, his vision blurred by the blood and sweat that poured into his eyes.

Finally, the nails were driven through his feet and hands. His whole body weight dragged against those small points of pressure as the guards lifted him up and dropped the base of the cross into a hole in the hill. He hung there for hours; using what strength he had left to strain against his nails so he could lift his chest to breathe, the wood of the cross scraping up and down his body like sandpaper, up and down with every breath until his last.

But no physical pain could match the excruciating duplicity and rejection. One of his disciples handed him over to his death for forty pieces of silver, and all of his friends fled in fear as he was arrested, leaving him utterly alone. Then came the accusations. Though he was innocent, he was accused of dreadful crimes.