They began their accusation,
Saying,
We found this man inciting our people to revolt,
Opposing payment of tribute to Caesar,
And claiming to be Christ,
A king.
Pilate put to him this question,
Are you the king of the Jews?
It is you who say it,
He replied.
Pilate then said to the chief priests and the crowd,
I find no case against this man.
But they persisted.
He is inflaming the people with his teaching all over Judea.
It has come all the way from Galilee,
Where he started,
Down to here.
When Pilate heard this,
He asked if the man were a Galilean,
And finding that he came under Herod's jurisdiction,
He passed him over to Herod,
Who was also in Jerusalem at the time.
Herod was delighted to see Jesus.
He had heard about him,
And had been wanting for a long time to set eyes on him.
Moreover,
He was hoping to see some miracle worked by him.
So he questioned him at some length,
But without getting any reply.
Meanwhile,
The chief priests and the scribes were there,
Violently pressing their accusations.
Then Herod,
Together with his guards,
Treated him with content,
And made fun of him.
He put a rich cloak on him,
And sent him back to Pilate.
And though Herod and Pilate had been enemies before,
They were reconciled that same day.
Pilate then summoned the chief priests,
And the leading men,
And the people.
You brought this man before me,
He said,
As a political agitator.
Now I have gone into the matter myself in your presence,
And found no case against the man in respect of all the charges you bring against him.
Nor has Herod either,
Since he has sent him back to us.
As you can see,
The man has done nothing that deserves death.
So I shall have him flogged,
And then let him go.
But as one day howled,
Away with him,
Give us Barabbas.
This man had been thrown into prison for causing a riot in the city,
And for murder.
Pilate was anxious to set Jesus free,
And address them again.
But they shouted back,
Crucify him,
Crucify him.
And for the third time he spoke to them,
Why?
What harm has this man done?
I have found no case against him that deserves death.
So I shall have him punished,
And then let him go.
But they kept on shouting at the top of their voices,
Demanding that he should be crucified.
And their shouts were growing louder.
Pilate then gave his verdict.
Their demand was to be granted.
He released the man they asked for,
Who had been imprisoned for rioting and murder,
And handed Jesus over to them to deal with as they pleased.
As they were leading him away,
They seized on a man,
Simon from Cyrene,
Who was coming in from the country,
And made him shoulder the cross and carry it behind Jesus.
Large numbers of people followed him,
And of women too,
Who mourned and lamented for him.
But Jesus turned to them and said,
Daughters of Jerusalem,
Do not weep for me.
Weep rather for yourselves and for your children,
For the days will surely come when people will say,
Happy are those who are barren.
The wombs that have never borne,
The breasts that have never suckled.
Then they will begin to say to the mountains,
Fall on us.
To the hills,
Cover us.
For if men use the green wood like this,
What will happen when it is dry?
Now with him,
They were also leading out two other criminals to be executed.
When they reached the place called the Skull,
They crucified him there,
And two criminals also.
One on the right,
The other on the left.
Jesus said,
Father,
Forgive them.
They do not know what they are doing.
Then they cast lots to share out his clothing.
The people stayed there watching him.
As for the leaders,
They jeered at him.
He saved others,
They said.
Let him save himself if he is the Christ of God,
The chosen one.
Soldiers mocked him too.
And when they approached to offer him vinegar,
They said,
If you are the King of the Jews,
Save yourself.
Above him,
There was an inscription.
This is the King of the Jews.
One of the criminals hanging there abused him.
Are you not the Christ,
He said.
Save yourself and us as well.
But the others spoke up and rebuked him.
Have you no fear of God at all,
He said.
You got the same sentence as he did.
But in our case,
We deserved it.
We are paying for what we did.
But this man has done nothing wrong.
Jesus,
He said,
Remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Indeed,
I promise you,
He replied,
Today you will be with me in paradise.
It was now about the sixth hour.
And with the sun eclipsed,
A darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.
The veil of the temple was torn right down the middle.
And when Jesus had cried out in a loud voice,
He said,
Father,
Into your hands I commit my spirit.
With these words,
He breathed his last.
When the centurion saw what had taken place,
He gave praise to God and said,
This was a great and good man.
And when all the people who had gathered for the spectacle saw what had happened,
They went home,
Beating their breasts.
All his friends stood at a distance.
So also did the women who had accompanied him from Galilee.
And they saw all this happen.
The passion of the Lord.
Praise to you,
Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we look at the passion of Christ.
Walking with him all the way from Jerusalem.
Seeing the whole story that we are going to be revisiting during this holy week up to his last breath.
Now if there is a large congregation and a number of clergy and readers available,
Then we would see a longer version of this passion being read with each person portraying a role.
You have the narrator.
This morning I got the honor of being the narrator during Mass at my bishop's chapel.
You get the voice of Jesus.
You get the voice of all the other people,
The voices.
And that got me thinking about the different characters here in the passion of Christ.
One of the characters that we don't often highlight and discuss is one that stood out for me tonight.
Herod.
So we see in this story how the Pharisees and the scribes and the senior clergy and the priests,
The senior priests,
Take Jesus to Pontius Pilate,
A Roman,
Claiming that Jesus was inciting violence and inciting riots against,
Or an uprising against Rome,
Which is completely not what Jesus did.
And yet during that time,
The Jewish people were so yearning,
They were yearning for this Messiah to come and save them,
That when Jesus came,
And instead of preaching an uprising,
He preached love and peace,
That they were so hit with cognitive dissonance that they sent Him to the Romans to be killed.
Not to Herod,
Their leader,
That area.
And yet Pilate sends Him off to Herod because of Jesus being Galilean.
So Pilate still tries to save Jesus,
And he sends Him to Herod for questioning,
And what does Herod do?
So Herod is excited.
Here is the Christ.
Here is the Messiah,
The messiahs.
Let us try and see if these miracles that he has been doing,
If that's truly true,
Let's try and see a miracle.
And then maybe,
Maybe He can help us to get rid of the yoke of the Romans,
Because that is what the messiahs are supposed to do,
Not to give us freedom to save us from oppression.
And then what happens?
Jesus turns out to be a disappointment.
Jesus turns out to be not what Herod anticipated,
Not what he wanted.
And here we see this great leader turn on Christ.
Just like the scribes and the Pharisees turned on Christ for not being what they expected Him to be.
Does that not sound familiar?
How many times don't we create these images in our minds of other people,
And we put them on pedestals,
Or we try and bury them in the gutter?
We do that very easily.
But we create these expectations of others and of ourselves that are sometimes unrealistic,
But that are so far removed from what they truly are,
That when we are faced with the reality that the image in our mind is not the image,
Is not the truth,
Then we react like Herod.
We react and we treat others with contempt.
How many times have we not experienced that?
When our communities tell us,
This is the way that you should be.
You were born into this community,
Into this race,
Into this gender.
And with that combination,
You are supposed to act in this specific way and don't question us.
And then when we don't,
When we ask difficult questions,
When we express life in ways that our societies do not necessarily understand,
If we are not what they want us to be,
How many times have we not been met with that same derision,
With contempt?
And so as we celebrate the Passion and Palm Sunday,
Let us remember that Herod stands for many of us as a symbol of what it means not to be what human beings want us to be.
When we prayed the rosary earlier today,
We prayed the sorrowful mysteries and one of the questions and meditations that came up was when we are faced with something,
Do we stand up for what we know is right?
And what is more important,
What others think of us or what God thinks of us?
And here again,
Jesus stands up as our example.
He could have chosen to do a miracle,
To perform a miracle and maybe then Herod would have been so delighted that he would have said,
Said Jesus free rather than just sending him back to Pontius Pilate.
It's almost like,
You know,
In this whole Passion that we read that this is a side quest for those of you who play Dungeons and Dragons.
It is something that happened on the side.
It was not,
It doesn't feel like it's part of the the main narrative but yet it is so important.
Jesus didn't suddenly pretend to be something that he wasn't.
Jesus didn't suddenly sway to the pressure facing death.
He didn't buckle under this pressure to become a circus monkey and it cost him his life.
Yet we know that this is what he came for.
He came to give himself completely so that we could experience the tearing of the veil,
So that we could experience the lifting of this image,
This mirage that we are separated,
Separate from each other,
That we are separated.
And so even in his way Herod played his part in this story.
And as we embark into the preparations for Easter,
As we enter Holy Week it is my prayer that you start recognizing the Herod that might be hiding inside of you.
And when you recognize Herod in each other or somebody else that you also see that this is part of the plan.
That when we turn out to be not what people expect us to be,
It's okay.
As long as we remain true to that what God wants us to be.
And that I can tell you now with great certainty is love.
Amen.
