Home > About > Inspiration

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Speaking God’s Troubling Word

Isaiah 50:4-7
“My face I did not shield from spitting.”

The speaker of today’s first reading is a victim. He speaks, but his people beat him, pull out the hairs of his beard, slap and spit at him. Why? He suffers all this because he has spoken God’s rousing word. Every morning God speaks to him and enables him to speak to others. This word gets him into trouble.

But the speaker does not quit. Nor does he curse God who gives him these words. He remains firm, committed to the word God gives him, even in the face of resistance.

Although Isaiah wrote about the difficulties faced by faithful Israel in the midst of enemies, Christians read through these lines and see the image of Jesus. He received God’s word, spoke it with eloquence and suffered at the hands of his enemies.

Do your words ever get you into trouble? Does it happen even when you say the right thing? If so, you stand in a long line of those who suffer because they are servants of God.

This Friday we will come forward to show our love for the crossed Jesus Christ. Christians can face the agony of suffering as it befell Jesus and as it comes to us because we know there is something more.