It's Palm Sunday, which as Sundays go has a bit of a personality disorder. Starting with 1959 with the Roman Catholic Church and cascading throughout the west in the Revised Common Lectionary the reading of the Passion Gospel, originally set for the FIFTH Sunday in Lent came to land on this Sunday...which already had a Gospel reading, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. (You can read the latter Gospel done in its own rite at the beginning of Mass here, and the Passion Gospel for today here).
The Passion Gospel came to be read here to cover those who didn't darken the doors of a church outside of Sunday, since the NEXT Sunday is reserved for the Resurrection, and with everyone else pulling the hard slog of Holy Week, ONE MORE reading of the Passion Gospel at the Paschal High Mass might be a bit much. It was judged much better to read it on the previous Sunday, showing a triumphal entry resulting in one of the most intensely unsettling narratives in Scripture.
And perhaps that is how it should be.
St. Paul wrote this to his struggling flock in Corinth perhaps less than thirty years after the Crucifixion the following:
But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Cor. 2.7-8)
Our Lord entered Jerusalem to shouts of acclamation...definitely to the notice of the Romans and the religious authorities. Even if He came into Jerusalem on the most lowly of transport, it still would have filled the Romans with unease that trouble was brewing in an already unstable province and the religious authorities with unease that they had a direct challenge to their authority that would also bring the Romans down on their heads. This collective anxiety bubbled over in less than a week in Judaea and Rome collaborating to execute this man, even if they despised each other and did not at first see eye to eye on the matter.
Behind it all was not keeping a lid on Rome's ascendancy or protecting Jewish religion and culture (although these interests did play a role in the events). The Enemy of all saw God Incarnate making a bit to break the Rebellion's stranglehold on Humanity. The Accuser, the Adversary, the Destroyer realized that the Almighty was no longer content in enticing people back to Life through the Law and the Prophets, but that God had taken flesh to dwell among Humankind, a direct threat against the principalities and powers of the age whose desire was to wreak as much havoc and misery amidst Creation that they could. This Jesus, who drove them out from people they possessed, who filled them with abject fear on sight, who successfully threw temptation back into their Prince's teeth was becoming a huge problem, and they used the best weapon they knew to counteract the threat.
They threw Death at Him.
There was something they did not understand. While initially successful in removing Jesus from the living, in subjecting Him to the most horrific death possible at the time as an object lesson to any who would contest their power over everything, they triggered the plan of redemption that was staring them in the face.
God the Word, in Jesus Christ, had perfectly united Divine and Human nature so that when the Human part was killed, the Divine was able to restore it, free it from the sentence of Death declared in ages past, and raise it from the Dead, no longer subject to Corruption and Death, breaking the hold of the Enemy on Humanity. Had the Enemy understood this, then it would never have engineered the Sacrifice that dealt the final blow against its most effective tool, separation from God.
Salvation in the Highest, Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord.