Today we hear the most violent and terrible part of the story of Jesus’ life. We hear it every year at this time, and some of us have been hearing it since we were very young. So, in some ways, our feelings about the Passion of Jesus Christ might be dull. We know we are supposed to feel sorrow. But with so much disaster coming at us on the news every day - especially with the war in Ukraine and tragedies throughout the world - this story might seem simply like one tragedy amongst many.
 
In fact, to understand how to feel Jesus’ Passion and pain, we need to keep re-focusing on the total picture of this day, which begins with Jesus’ triumph and joy. The people are welcoming Jesus the Healer, Jesus the Powerful, into Jerusalem with shouts of, “Hosanna!”  When the Pharisees say, “Jesus, your followers are out of control, shut them up,” Jesus replies, “If they kept quiet, you’d hear the stones rejoicing in the same way!”
 
Jesus is reminding us that if we look behind his suffering, its deeper meaning is a cause for rejoicing: the whole creation - stones, people, and all - are groaning and waiting for the transformation which Jesus is about to complete. Jesus helps us see the total picture of his suffering: that it is a productive, life-giving suffering; and we, too, must enter into it by imitating his life of love and forgiveness to all.
 
Salvation, Jesus says, has been deeply etched into the whole creation - and into each of our hearts, as children of God. We, too, can have Jesus’ power to forgive, we can have his will to love… if we will to do it.