One of the most striking things about today's readings is their physicality. With Palm Sunday we enter Holy Week in which Christ, through his own holiness, will turn the unholiness of his murderers into the means by which he saves us from our sins. And Holy Week presents us with both the bodily suffering and the bodily resurrection of Christ. The body matters and we believe in the resurrection of our own body at the end of time.
The brief Gospel that presents the entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem tells us a curious fact: the colt that will serve as His throne when He enters the city is one of the following "that no one has ever ridden". It was destined for Jesus and him alone, almost "virginal" in this aspect, like Mary's womb (Lk 1:27). He will have to be untied, cloaks and palm branches will be spread before him on the road... all physical details. In the text of Isaiah that foretells the Passion of Christ, we are told: "I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who stroked my beard; I did not hide my face in the face of outrages and spittle.". And the long Gospel account of the suffering and death of Christ, this year of St. Luke, gives us all kinds of physical details: the cutting off and subsequent healing of the ear of the high priest's servant; the fact that those who arrest Jesus carry "swords and clubs".the mockery of dressing Christ in splendid clothes; the division of his clothes by the soldiers; of course, the crucifixion; the wrapping of Jesus' body in a linen shroud; the placing of his body in a tomb; and, of course, the crucifixion. "where no one had yet been placed" (also "virginal" in a certain sense); the preparation of spices and ointments....
The Gospel underlines the total availability of Christ for us. As a child he was laid in a manger (Lk 2:7); Jesus is seated on the donkey, and then laid in a tomb... Jesus makes himself available to us in all his physicality, truly soul and body. Born of a virgin womb, seated on the back of a "virginal" donkey, laid in a "virginal" tomb... The all pure, sinless One, enters into the filth, into the pigsty of our sinfulness (Lk 15:15-16), even bodily. In Holy Week we see Jesus really live these words of St. Paul: "Him who knew no sin, [God] made him to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor 5:21).
