stare it down

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, or if you follow the lectionary, the Sunday of the Passion, and on this Sunday, we are used to a lot of action.  It's busy, it's occupied, there is a focus on things happening.  Rapid action, boom boom boom.  If it's the Sunday of the passion, it's all action, Christ being led away to his death, being crucified for the sins of the entire world, being nailed to a cross, being beaten and scourged, and finally being lanced through the side by Saint Longinus.  All that happens.  And if it's Palm Sunday, it's the triumpal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, moving into the space surrounded by crowds, waving palm branches and shouting Hosanna to the son of David.  These things are all action packed, which is why the most striking thing comes in the stillness.

The stillness is at the end of the Gospel reading that we had from Sunday, the reading about Palm Sunday from the Gospel of Mark. 

Jesus entered Jerusalem, and went to the temple.  He looked around at everything,

but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

 After the rush of Palm Sunday, the crowds, the hosannas, the palms, the cloaks, you might almost miss this moment, but it's an important one, it genuinely is.  It might be hard to see, but it's there, as large as life.  And it's important because of what it signifies, and that, my friends, is the total dedication to seeing the mission through.  

If you've never seen it, there's a great Batman movie out there that isn't the Dark Knight, it isn't Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice, it isn't Batman and Robin; it's Batman:Mask of the Phantasm.  Beginning to end, it might be my favorite Batman movie ever.  For those of you who don't know, in the '90s there was a Batman animated series that had a fascinating art deco aesthetic, lots of firm lines and hard edges.  It was moody and brooding, and presented Batman in a serialized, 1940s crimefighting way, locked in a space and time that obviously never existed, with old aesthetics alongside computers; sort of like retrofuturism or future past.  The Mask of the Phantasm exists in that universe, and has Bruce Wayne (who is Batman, spoilers) dating a woman named Andrea.  There's a scene that happens later on in the movie, a flashback before Bruce goes full Batman, where he sees thugs accosting a vendor, and he feels as though he has to step in.  Andrea wants to stop him, but Bruce is compelled to act. Here's the scene.  Let's watch it together, then discuss.

Okay, there are a few things I need to talk about here.  First of all, I love love the narrowing of the eyes moment there.  Bruce Wayne saying to Andrea 'What do you expect me to do, just stand here?'  There are crimes being committed right in front of him, and Bruce can't just stand there and watch it happen.  But it's the narrowing of the eyes, the focus, the determination, the single-minded purpose behind what he does.  This firmness allows Bruce to defeat the majority of the thugs, knocking them out and tackling them as he does.  But if you keep watching, close to the end of the scene, when a thug is driving towards him with a baseball bat, the eyes stop being narrow, the focus goes away.  Bruce's eyes widen as he look over towards Andrea who is concerned, who is troubled, who wants him to stop being involved so he can stay safe.  In that moment, wide eyed, Bruce is struck with the baseball bat, and the confrontation is over.  The thugs ride off with the loot, and Bruce is defeated.  

This is the moment in which he knows that he has to choose.  He can't stay in a relationship with Andrea and be a crimefighter.  As long as there's someone waiting for him, as long as someone cares, as long as he has someone who is watching for him to get home every day, he can't go out and fight crime.  He has to choose, one or the other, and that's all.  The eyes show it: narrowed and focused he can deal with his mission, but wide-eyed and concerned, he can't possibly keep to the plan.  His loss is caused by the divided loyalties, the lack of purpose.

And this is where the Gospel reading comes in.  That moment of stillness at the end of the Gospel reading, Jesus staring down the temple, looking at it with a single-minded purpose, setting his face like a flint towards that space, knowing that that, for sure, is where his death is going to spring from, that dedication is intense.  For those of us who know where the story is going to to (again, spoilers), Jesus is going to be sentenced to death after his role in clearing the temple.  Once he comes back to the temple (which happens the next day after the Palm Sunday reading in Mark), he overturns the tables, casts out the moneychangers, and drives out the den of thieves.  And in that passage, after he harrows the temple, it says 'When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him.' Once Jesus returns to the temple, once he overturns everything, the die is cast, and it's essentially game over for him.

On Palm Sunday, when he walks up to the temple, that's the last time that he will have the chance to turn back.  He won't have another shot, won't have another chance, that's the end of it, it truly is.  After he has overturned the tables, he won't have another shot, his enemies will be seeking his life, and seeking to destroy him.  Jesus has said many times that he has to be killed, that he has to be slain, he must be executed at the hands of sinful men, and his disciples try to talk him out of that mission.  Look at Peter in that passage, trying to talk Jesus out of fulfilling his mission, trying to talk him out of doing what he has to do, and Jesus telling him to get behind him.  That seems an awful lot like the interaction between Bruce Wayne and Andrea, doesn't it?  The difference ends up being that the narrowing of Bruce's eyes stops, while the setting of the face of Christ like a flint towards what he must do continues, all the way to the cross.  

Palm Sunday is a wonderful day partially for this reason - that Christ enters Jerusalem with single-minded determination, knowing that it will be his last time entering that city.  Every step he takes towards that city, whether on a donkey or on foot, shows his determination towards what will inevitably kill him, what will lead to his death, what will lead to his corpse being taken down from a cross and he keeps going anyway. That purpose, that will is what we are lacking, which is why we need him.  If we could, by our own reason or will believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, then the problem would be solved, and we actually woudn't need him at all.  If we could just choose Jesus, could choose God and his commandments, if we could set our faces like flints, narrow our eyes and just get the job done then the problem would completely go away.  But we can't, and we don't.  We are wide-eyed like Bruce Wayne in that scene, with our concerns split, troubled about many things.  We don't have the will to stare down the temple, to commit, to move towards what has to be done for our salvation.  We are always going to be doubleminded.  Palm Sunday shows us why we need Christ.

He rides towards his death.  He stares down the temple, he endures the arrest, the cross and shame, he does not speak up in his defense, but like a sheep before its shearers is silent.  He moves towards the cross, does not despise the shame, and carries the mission, the plan of salvation out to completion.  We didn't do that, and we weren't ever going to.  But that's why we have always needed him.  We did not choose him, but he chose us.  At Palm Sunday, as every Sunday, we remain grateful that he could will and do that wonderful work that we were unable to do.  To see things through, and to complete the mission.