Real Change

Palm Sunday. Fr Dominic Ryan ponders the changeability of individuals.

Today, at the beginning of Holy Week, we recall Our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Crowds cheered, the great multitude of disciples rejoiced and praised God with loud voices, garments were laid upon the road, and palms were waved in the air. It’s certainly not hyperbole to call this event a triumph. By no stretch of the imagination are we exaggerating. Yet the more we exalt this triumph, the more we are compelled to think about what happened next; what followed this triumph and what we can learn from this about our salvation.

Of course what came next is very well known: things went rapidly downhill and a few days later Christ would die upon the Cross. Not that this would be the end, of course. Christ’s death on the Cross wasn’t God’s final verdict on the sacrifice of his Son. On the contrary, God would raise Christ from the dead. Nevertheless, the contrast between the crowd’s enthusiasm for Christ when he entered Jerusalem and their cry for his death a few days later is striking. It’s a remarkable about-face, in an extraordinarily short space of time. So what’s going on?

We might surmise that part of the explanation for this reversal is that Christ didn’t turn out to be the kind of Messiah some of the crowd would have wanted. He wasn’t going to free them in the way they would have liked. He wasn’t going to lead them in a revolution against the Romans. He wasn’t going to favour one school of Jewish thought over another. Consequently, not getting what they wanted, the crowd turned on Christ and thus the Passion followed.

While there’s some truth in this, it’s not the whole explanation and neither does it approach the heart of the problem. That lies in the nature of crowds which, obviously, are composed of individuals. Consequently we can turn away from the crowd as such and focus instead upon some individual member of that crowd who had celebrated Christ’s entry into Jerusalem but who then, a few days later, called for Pontius Pilate to execute Christ. It doesn’t particularly matter who that individual was. Rather what we’re interested in is what happened to that representative individual during this period.

But in a sense nothing has happened to that individual – and that’s the problem! What I mean is this: when Christ entered Jerusalem it was true that this individual celebrated Christ’s entry and it was false that this same individual wanted Christ to be executed. A few days later, however, it was now false that this individual celebrated Christ’s entry and true that this same individual wanted Christ to be executed. Something which had been true about that individual was now false and something that had been false about that individual was now true. The individual as such, however, hadn’t changed, not at least in any real sense.

To illustrate the point let’s suppose this individual was called Fred and he had a nephew called Bill. Suppose, further, that Fred at 40 was taller than his nephew Bill who was 10. However, ten years later Bill, who was now 20,  had grown and was now taller than his uncle Fred who was 50. Fred hadn’t really changed; he had remained exactly the same height. It was Bill who had done the changing; it was Bill who had grown. As a result, certain things which were formerly true of Fred were now false and this more or less is what has happened to Fred whilst he was a member of the crowd. Where formerly he celebrated Christ latterly he did not. Where formerly he didn’t want Christ to be executed latterly he did. But Fred as such hadn’t changed and nor did any other member of the crowd.

But what can learn from this about our salvation? Well salvation requires real change – Bill-type change. Salvation is not merely a case of us believing certain things to be true which formerly we did not. Yes it includes that, but it isn’t limited to that. Our natures need to be elevated by grace. Our intellects need to be elevated by faith. Our wills need to be transformed by hope and charity. These are all real changes, Bill-type changes, which really affect us and for which we are incomparably better. Furthermore, they only happen when we’re united to Our Lord in baptism and properly disposed to receive the grace the other sacraments offer us.

In a nutshell, the fickle nature of the crowd highlights the need all human beings have for the real change which only our salvation can deliver and which only Our Lord’s Passion can make available to us.

Readings: Luke 19:28-40 | Isaiah 50:4-7 | Philippians 2:6-11 | Luke 22:14-23:56

Image: procession down the Mount of Olives photographed by scottgunn (CC BY-NC 2.0)