HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

A SERMON FOR PALM SUNDAY

We have just listened to the details of the sufferings to which Our Lord Jesus Christ was submitted.  It is not a pleasant story, how human beings could inflict such mental and physical pain on another human being.  When we consider that this was not just a human being, but the very Son of God, he who was in the beginning with God, and without whom was not any thing made that was made, without whom none of his persecutors could even take a breath, we then begin to realize the scale of the crime they perpetrated.

But we must take a step back from the immensity of what took place that day.  It is too big for us to cope with just the infinite offense of a single venial sin, let alone the crime of nailing the Son of God to a cross.  And yet, when we do step back and look at it from that point of view, isn’t it after all the same thing?  For after all, just one of my own venial sins would have been enough for our Savior to have died on the Cross.  That infinite offence of just one sin against God demanded an infinite response, if we were not to be condemned to an eternity locked out of heaven.  The blood of a lamb or an ox was not enough, not even the blood of a man, a human sacrifice.  It required the Blood, the most Precious Blood of God made man.

There is really nothing that can be added to this story told in St. Matthew’s Passion:  everything we need to know in order to save our souls is contained in this narrative.  We could spend the rest of our lives, not just these next few days, contemplating the events of this week.  A hundred, a thousand lessons are contained in this story, and it would seem almost futile to attempt to pull out one or two and talk about them.  Which lessons would we choose?  Forgiveness perhaps?  That this crime of Deicide by the Jews, so infinitely grave as it was, was freely forgiven by Our Lord, and yet we can’t even bring ourselves to forgive a harsh word, an insult even?  Shame on us!  Or the lesson that we sleep even as the Apostles slept that night in the Garden, and don’t even attempt to share Our Lord’s terrible agony as he sweat blood, and suffered almost unto death?  That we don’t have the time, the energy, the courage, to give of ourselves, to embrace our own crosses and to help Our Lord carry his, by sharing its weight with him?  Shame on us!  That we can’t even bring ourselves to renounce our attachment to sin, self-indulgence, pleasure, material wealth, when Our Lord is stripped of his garments and nailed to the wood of the Cross?  Yes, shame on us, because we are indeed his shameful creatures.  We are the dust of the earth, we will return to the dust when we die, and yet meanwhile, we cling to so many things that serve only to draw us closer and closer to damnation.

Perhaps this is the most important lesson we can take from Calvary.  The lesson of humility, recognizing our own worth.  We might not be able to grasp the enormity of this terrible crucifixion, but one thing we can surely grasp:  That in spite of our sins, our high crimes and misdemeanors, Our Lord nevertheless died for us.  Pitiful creatures though we are, Our Lord loves each and every one of us so much that he suffered all this for each and every one of us.  The chalice of his Blood was shed for me, for you, and for many, unto the remission of our sins.  “Pro multis, in remissionem peccatorum.”

With this knowledge, we can arm ourselves with new courage.  And arm ourselves we must.  Because the only alternative to courage is despair – either we follow St. Peter in his penitence, or Judas in his ultimate self-loathing.  Yes, we are wicked, but yes too, God loves us.  The arms of our Savior nailed to the Cross are open wide to receive us.  Even his Most Sacred Heart was opened wide by the lance so that we may enter in.  And then from that gaping wound:  Vidi Aquam—I saw water flowing from the side of Christ.  Water to cleanse and purify us from our sins, just as at the end of the forty days of the Great Flood, the earth stood purged and clean for man to rise from his sin and begin again, refreshed.

He is ready to forgive all our offences, even those against his only–begotten Son.  Let us not throw that forgiveness and love back in his face.  Let us gratefully kneel this week at the foot of the Cross, acknowledge our numberless offences, and humbly ask pardon for what we have done.