God wants us to die before we die.

In the first Gospel proclaimed for our Palm Sunday liturgy, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey with palm branches being spread on the road…When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.  “Who is this?” people asked.

Palm Sunday presents us with a very unusual version of who Jesus is.  St. Paul in the second Scripture reading proclaims:  “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality to God something to be grasped, rather he emptied himself taking the form of a slave…he humbled himself.”

This is the kind of God Jesus preaches and imitates.  God is the one who identifies with and enters into the experience of the people He loves.

God is sending a message through Jesus in this Palm Sunday celebration that states that nothing human is abhorrent to me. 

All of life –even the most horrible kind of suffering, even death – is something so precious that God wants to be in solidarity with it.  God wants to embrace it and transform it.

That’s who our God is.

So, what is it that this same God wants from us?  Jesus wants us to die with him, only the death he’s talking about is not the one when our earthly life is over.  The death in which our God is interested in is the death of our egos.  He wants us to die to our egos.  He wants us to die to that part of us that wishes to enthrone our own selves, that part of us that dreams of being on top of the ladder, to be No. 1, to be among the elite in a self-centered fashion.

God wants us to die before we die.  This is such an important component of our spiritual journey.  As we enter into the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus during these days of holy week, may we also pray over our sharing in this paschal mystery of dying and rising.  The dying we embrace during these days is the dying to our demons, our sinfulness, and our self-centeredness.  For us to share in the risen life of Jesus, we need to die to all that is in us that does not reflect the Gospel message of Jesus.  Plain and Simple, how do I live more fully in the service of others, how do I wash the feet of God’s poor?

Who is God?  Again to quote Paul, “Christ Jesus though He was in the form of God did not regard equality to God something to be grasped, rather he emptied himself taking the form of a slave…he humbled himself.”

Who are we as the disciples of Jesus?  Our God wants us to embody the humble actions of Jesus:  The God who emptied himself, the God who humbled himself, the God who sat on a donkey.

Have a blessed day.