The crowds cheer Jesus today as He enters the city of
Jerusalem, waving branches and crying out "Hosanna to
the One Who comes in the name of the Lord." But even as
this enthusiastic crowd sings the praises of Jesus,
there are other people, who are not a part of the
celebration. They are working on a plan to have Jesus
put to death. The cheerful crowd will soon disperse and
go off to their homes, but the enemies of Jesus continue
to work on a way to have Him executed.
This is the way the Gospels basically paint the picture
for us. There are those who love Jesus, support Him,
believe in His message and stay true to Him even if they
temporarily deny Him, as did Peter, or are unsure what
to say or do when He is arrested. On the other hand,
there are Jesus' enemies who have been looking for ways
to bring Him down for some time. These two groups are
rather easy to write about, those who are for Him, and
those who are against Him. I stop to think about how
Jesus might possibly have thought about these two
groups.
For his apostles, disciples and other followers it would
easy for us to imagine the Lord's love and care for
them, these ones who heard Him, believed in Him and
accepted His message. It's not difficult for us to
understand His closeness to these people. But imagine
what it must have been like to have to deal with your
enemies, those who have opposed you for years, those who
can't wait to see you crucified. What must it have been
like to deal with people such as these? You speak of
love, they only hate. You speak the Truth of God and
back it up with miracles of healing and even bringing
some from the dead back to life, and they accuse you of
blasphemy and acting under the power of Satan. You
accept all who come to you, but they will never ever
accept you because even as they proclaim that they
uphold the Law and live in pious attention to God, their
minds, their hearts and their ears are closed and shut
against the Son of God.
Despite their hatred we know that Jesus loved these ones
too, that He would die for these ones too, and that His
prayer would be that their hearts would be converted, if
not today then perhaps later and they would repent and
believe and be saved.
So, we have the disciples of Jesus and the enemies of
Jesus. But I propose there is a third group of people
who are neither supporters nor enemies, and they are not
spoken of in the Gospels because it would be difficult
to do so and it's not at the heart of the matter, so we
don't hear about this group. But I suggest that the
third group of people were also on Jesus' mind during
His public preaching and even on his mind during this
last week of His natural earthly life. That group would
be those who were indifferent to Jesus, the people who
really didn't care one way or another about Him. They
were neither friend, nor foe, they just had no opinion
or thought or care about the Nazarene.
Now part of this group was likely indifferent to Jesus
because they didn't know Him, or know much if anything
about Him or His message. It's understandable these
kinds of people would be indifferent. But there were
others, surely, who did know, who had heard and seen,
who could tell you something about Jesus. And yet, they
just didn't care. They had more important things to
worry about—their families, their jobs, their health,
putting in a new lawn at the house they just bought and
planning for their upcoming cruise to Lebanon, a
vacation they had been looking forward to for months.
They were busy people who had a lot to do because "life
ain't easy and if you don't take care of the business
things can go wrong very quickly. And if you do take
care of the business you deserve some time to relax and
take it easy and have a little fun, don't you? Life is
short so you'd be wise to make it as good as you can
because you won't get a second chance, will you? Sure,
Jesus is okay and all of that but who has time for it?
Both the wife and I are working and the kids have school
and sports and we want to get the kitchen remodeled
before summer. That's a lot to do. We don't have a lot
of time for religious stuff now, do we? But we did like
the parade in Jerusalem last Sunday. We might go again
next year."
So, I wonder which weighed more heavily on our Lord's
heart: was it the hatred of His enemies, or the
indifference of those who didn't care? He came to bring
pardon for sins. He came to share divine life with those
who were in desperate need. He came to offer eternal
life in Paradise with His Father and the Holy Spirit. He
came not only to teach what genuine love is all about,
but to share that love with all those who were willing
to receive it.
So I wonder which caused Jesus more grief, more sorrow,
a deeper sadness—was it the opposition of His enemies,
or was it the indifference of those who just really did
not care, those who had other business to attend to and
didn't have any interest in what He had to offer?
The world won’t help us here. The world is
ever-increasingly indifferent to Jesus. It’s highly
unlikely that any of our co-workers will mention Holy
Week or Good Friday, so there’s no support or
encouragement there. No shops, factories or government
offices will close on Friday, so it’s business as usual
for them. Everybody goes to work without a question, and
even two of our three Catholic schools are open for
classes on Good Friday. One of them is having their
Spring Musical on Holy Saturday. And I have heard the
reply, “But we have services at school on Good Friday.”
Shouldn’t our kids be with their families in their own
parish churches for services? But of course, moms and
dads are at work and in the evening, everybody is too
tired. We close our Catholic schools to honor dead
American presidents but not the death of Christ our
King. Nobody says, “Well, sure we’re open on Presidents’
Day and Memorial Day but we say the Pledge of Allegiance
and read a few speeches from Washington and Lincoln.”
Our Catholic schools are closed on those days because
the world closes its schools on those days. And so, even
in this way we teach our children lessons about values
in the world. What then, dear friends, what in the
world, what in the world, will encourage you to love and
serve your Lord? And how much does the world influence
our faith?
We're not the enemies of Jesus, and we're certainly not
full-fledged members of the group that is indifferent to
the Lord. But does that make us fully engaged disciples
whose lives are completely in love and service to Christ
and our neighbor? Maybe we, too, suffer from a certain
amount of indifference to the Lord. Maybe we, too, avoid
standing at the foot of the cross. Maybe we, too, have
allowed a certain complacency to gain hold in our lives,
and we have grown cold in our love for the Lord, or
we've allowed our faith to weaken because of other
people, or events, or temporary pleasures or simply
because we have not nourished it and professed it. Maybe
we do not care for Christ as we should.
If we think we still need Jesus, and if wish to share
more deeply in what He desires to offer us, then let us
use this week as a most effective tool and aid and guide
to shake off any complacency that we may have been
carrying, so that instead, we who have been baptized in
Christ may truly put on Christ and walk with him these
days at home and in church to Calvary and then the glory
of the Resurrection.