On the sixth Sunday of Lent, as we prepare for the days in the desert to end and we embark on the Triduum, leading to Easter, John tells us of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. He describes how the crowd goes out to meet Jesus, celebrating Him with palm branches and singing, “Hosanna!” John further reports how the disciples “did not understand this at first” (Jn 12:16). Despite their years with the Lord, they did not correlate what they were witnessing with what they learned in the Old Testament: “See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, Meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass” (Zech 9:9).
In his commentary on the Godsplaining podcast, Father Joseph-Anthony Kress discusses this event and how relevant it is to us today. Father observes how relatable the disciples are to us. Even these men who knew Jesus, who understood Him and loved Him, didn’t fully understand that the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, while representing that of a king, would also lead to his great and brutal sacrifice.
Father reminds us that we are often like the disciples. God breaks into our lives, allows struggles, and reveals our weaknesses, and even though we trust in Him, we don’t understand how He is working. We witness and watch and pray, but just what is happening to us and why remain mysteries. Because we are faithful, however, because we believe in His great glory, we follow the Lord.
As we enter into this most holy time of the year, may we continue to watch and wait for God to reveal Himself to us. May we be ever obedient and attentive to His voice, to how He is moving in our hearts, so that not only may we unite our sufferings and perpetual deaths with Him, but also so that we might be resurrected with the glorified Lord at Easter.
The following is an exerpt from Father Joseph-Anthony Kress’s commentary:
“The concluding lines of this Gospel show that His disciples did not understand what was happening. They didn’t understand it at first. When we hear that, we think…they didn’t realize what he was doing, but once it all started, they got it, they got it. It says here they didn’t understand it until after He was glorified. ‘His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done this for him’ (Jn 12:16).
I can picture His disciples when He gets on that colt; people are waving their palm branches and singing, “Hosanna!” [but] they’re still baffled at what was happening. It’s not like they were able to lean into it and [understand]. You can still see them following Jesus in confusion. They didn’t fully understand everything until His glory. I feel a lot of comfort and encouragement [from this]. There are many times I continue to follow Jesus and I’m just confused. I can’t make sense of these things and yet, I still find myself following Jesus—maybe at times joining in with the crowds and crying out Hosanna and maybe sometimes falling short.
Even His disciples in these really key moments of His final approach into Jerusalem moving into the Passion narrative…had no idea what was happening. [Like them we] we might be afraid and confused…[and] there are times when we don’t understand and maybe we’re baffled. But we continue to follow Jesus and our faith just like His disciples did because we’re confident in the glory that awaits us. In that glory of the Lord, we too, will understand the things that happened. In His Providence we will be able to see with unveiled faces.”
To Live Gladly 