The Nazareth Page - A gospel meditation for your home

March 29, 2026 – Palm Sunday - Matthew 26:14-27:66

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We are now entering the holiest week of the year, our celebration of the death of Jesus. It is described in all four gospels, something that is unique in the New Testament. And no doubt, it was the most important week in the life of Jesus. The culmination of all four gospels is the death of Jesus, what preceded it, what then happened and how it ended.

As we listen to or read Matthew’s account of the passion and death of Jesus, we do well to ask whether this awful sequence of events, this terrible suffering on the part of Jesus, this humiliating and painful death Jesus experienced was necessary. Crucifixion was a kind of death reserved mostly for enemies of the Roman state or criminals accused of terrible crimes. It was not for people who, like Jesus, lived good lives. Who were kind and compassionate and no real threat to anyone.

I think it’s good for us to wonder about such matters because it allows us to gain a deeper appreciation of why the death of Jesus happened as it did. And why our faith in him should not be so matter of fact. It should be both troubling and instructive. It can also lead us to deeper faith in God and the divine mystery in which we live and have our being.

Let’s start with the prayer of Jesus in the garden, on the eve of what he imagines awaiting him.  His first reaction is one of fear and anxiety. But then he accepts what would likely take place and prayed perhaps the deepest and most difficult of all possible prayers at that time, “Not my will but yours be done.” This is clearly Jesus as a human praying to God. He does not speak in the gospels as God, but as a human, created by God, connected with God, responsive to God. He is facing the most trying time of his life. A painful death.

The gospel of Matthew is rich in details of his sufferings. They are familiar to most of us. Not only were they physically deeply painful, but Jesus also faced public humiliation and disrespect. Put simply, he was tortured, both physically and mentally. And making it surely worse, he was mostly abandoned through all this by those closest to him. So, we might ask, “Why? Why this kind of death? Why was this interpreted eventually as God’s plan?”

Eventually it was determined that this was all done “for us and our salvation.” Theologians over the years have offered various explanations, but for the most part, they have been judged inadequate. The only one I have settled on is this: Jesus so loved us and wanted to show us the depths of his love. And what it means to follow him.  Take up your cross.

David M. Thomas, PhD