Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday Cycle A March 29, 2026
Is.45:21-25 Ps. 22:1-11
Phil. 2:5-11 Matthew 26:36-27:66
In chronological thinking, it is plausible to ponder the textual priority of Pauline writings about the cross of Jesus before the actual accounts of the Passions as found in the four canonical Gospels.
Paul, a Pharisee, did not ever see Jesus though he wrote about being an acquaintance with Peter and others to claim to have been with Jesus. Paul confessed to be one who was a persecutor of those like Peter who belonged to this nascent sect within Judaism who were entranced by this Jesus, both in his bodily life and in the liminal state of his resurrection appearances. I say "liminal" because the written reports are about sightings of someone who speedily could get from Jerusalem to Galilee, and who could perform sudden "poof" appearances of himself on the road to Emmaus and then disappear. This liminal Christ of resurrection appearances eats fish to prove his materiality but he also suddenly enters through locked door. The material reality of this liminal Risen Christ is not like his prior physicality. The accounts of the post-resurrection appearance indicate a very ambiguous corporeality for Jesus. Is he the physical Jesus or the Risen Christ? But in the appearance accounts, he is both. And people who have apparitions or dreams claim that in the moment of sighting, they believe fully in the physicality of the one who appears. Or more likely, literarily we use physicality as a metaphor for saying something is substantial or real in terms of having experiential validity.
St. Paul did not witness a physical Jesus; for him Jesus was the accounts of Peter and others, but knowing them did not give him authority for his apostleship even though he did accept their conferring of his calling to the Gentiles. For Paul, his authority came from a very personal revelation of Christ. He claimed to base his authority and his Gospel upon his revelatory experiences and not upon any personal witness to Jesus in his lifetime.
When we return to chronological ordering for the presentation of Jesus, it oddly begins with the writings of Paul which began in the 50's comprising of pastoral letters for establishing his authority as a church leader, for teaching what Paul called "his Gospel," and his practical instructions for the community life of the churches who are dealing with the issue of merging of Jews who are ritually compliant with Judaism and follow the teachings of Rabbi Jesus and the Gentiles who are drawn to a form of Christo-centric Judaism which does not require strict ritual adherence for participation in communal life.
Paul, who was not at the crucifixion, nevertheless, wrote that he determine to know nothing among you but Christ and him crucified. He presented the cross as foolishness to the Greek mind and as a stumbling block to the Jews. A dying kingly Messiah? Quite an offending point for those living on the fumes of great of a Davidic Messiah.
St. Paul speaks about the cross as an irony. It is the power of God for those who are being saved. A death seems to be the cessation of anything powerful, and yet for Paul it becomes a power.
For St. Paul, the cross becomes a mantra phrase of entering an identity with Christ as visualized through the events in the life of Jesus. In Paul's spiritual theology, he is in Christ, and Christ is in him. And being "In Christ" and having Christ within oneself, one lived a life of identity with Christ such that Paul, wrote, "I am crucified with Christ, and I live, yet not I, for Christ lives within me." Paul dies with Christ to his sins, and in dying with Christ there is power to interdict the state of sin. But Paul also lives with Christ in his resurrection, so there is identity with a new graceful power for living. And further, Paul is raised to sit with Christ in heavenly places, even while Paul is still walking on the earth. Biblical readers need to be poignantly aware of how figurative language is being used.
All this is St. Paul mystagogy, or teachings about this mysterious state of knowing the Christness within one's life.
One assumes that Paul's mystagogy though individually experienced, also co-existed with the ways in which Peter, James, and John and all others came to know themselves to be "in Christ" in the post-death life of Christ as it was known and taught in the various gatherings of the members of the Jesus Movements.
The point of my laborious prologue, is to hint that the Gospel narrative accounts of the Passion come to textual form with a further literary teaching purpose in the Jesus Movements which were much more successful during the decades after Jesus than during the actual life of Jesus.
How does the Jesus Movement put flesh and blood onto spirituality and mystagogy based upon significant mystical encounters of prominent charismatic leaders who professed to have these empowering experiences of the Risen Christ? How do these charismatic leaders translate the significance of their rather ecstatic experience into a body of teaching for the initiation of people who are going to be their followers as they profess to be following Christ based upon their profound experiences?
The intensity and profundity of mystical experiences were not so widespread; just as the persons who were leaders in the Jesus Movement believed their profound mystical experienced derived from Christ, so too their followers could trust their experience in a derivative sense as being normative for founding and comprising communities of believers.
The Gospel narratives and the Passion Accounts in particular were ways of putting flesh and blood visualizations upon the prevailing mystagogy based upon the post-resurrection Risen Christ experiences of the leaders of the Jesus Movement. And why was all this happening? Stated simply: Success. The seeming replication of inner experiences designated as being in Christ was so successful that the Risen Christ in the Jesus Movement was far better known and widely known than the people who would have known Jesus of Nazareth in his own time. The communication efficacy of the Roman Empire allowed for the communication success of this state of being known as being "in Christ." In many ways, the success of the Jesus Movement rode on the coattails of Roman Empire communication networks.
The Passion Accounts of the Gospel give a connection of the mystical theology of the church with a narrative of the life of Jesus.
Sadly, the church often has stressed more the cruel details of the Passion rather than emphasizing the Pauline in Christ state of "being crucified with Christ." As a result, the church in their "over carnal" view of the Passion, have resorted to the anti-Semitic blaming of the Jews for an event which was only done by the Romans. And we know what the Passion Plays and Good Friday emotions have resulted in historically in how Jewish minority communities have been treated by so-called "Christian" majorities.
I would suggest that the earliest writings of the followers of Jesus, emphasized the death of Jesus, first as to the full degree of identity which God has taken with human experience, as expressed in the Pauline hymn. But further as a phase of spiritual identity with the life of the divine within us which enables us to cease, yes, die to unworthy selfishness and the reprehensible acts which derive from human selfishness.
St. Paul viewed the death of Jesus as the last sacrificial death, meaning that you and I in identity with his death need not die, but rather live as living sacrifices with lives acceptable to God.
St. Paul viewed the death of Jesus as the last sacrificial death, meaning that you and I in identity with his death need not die, but rather live as living sacrifices with lives acceptable to God.
So, on the day when we read the Passion of Christ, let our emotions be of appreciation for the degree of identity between the divine and the human as exemplified in this Passion of Jesus. But let us not use this as an occasion for anger or retribution against anyone who differs from us; rather let us embrace the mystery of dying with Christ in knowing the power to cease the unworthy, so that we might embrace the freedom to live lives worthy to the full dignity of human love and justice. Let this be our appropriation of the Passion of Jesus Christ today. Amen.
