(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Mass-Blog-for-Palm-Sunday-2026.mp3)
Nobody who draws up a will or a Family Trust likes surprises. The Guarantor of the will to which all faithful souls are beneficiaries made sure each provision of it was done by His Son as Executor. As we read the Passion Narrative this Palm Sunday (Matthew 26:14—27:66), note all the deliverables the prophets anticipated and documented centuries before the Gospels were written—starting with Jesus’s humble but heroic entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, as foretold by Zechariah (Zechariah 9:9). Even the responsorial psalm written by Jesus’ earthly forefather King David was on Christ’s lips as he hung from the cross (Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24).
Between those events in Matthew’s Passion narrative, we have:
Judas, the betrayer who sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver, as foretold in Zechariah 11. Hundreds of years before this turncoat’s birth, a Judas type is described as the worthless shepherd who forsook his flock and cast his wages into the temple treasury. Also, through Psalm 55, we learn of a close friend and counsellor who betrayed David.
Then Jesus, with the sleepy apostles accompanying him during his passion in the Garden of Gethsemane, tells them their faith in him would be shaken (as foretold in Zechariah 13:7, in which it is said the sheep would scatter).
Next, when one of Christ’s followers draws a sword to defend Jesus from arrest, the Master says, “How would the Scriptures be fulfilled which say that it must come to pass in this way?”
The mistreatment Jesus then undergoes before crucifixion is detailed in Isaiah 50:6—“I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who tore out my beard; my face I did not hide from insults and spitting.”
Of Jesus’ silence during this torment, Isaiah wrote: “Though harshly treated, he submitted and did not open his mouth; like a lamb led to slaughter or a sheep silent before shearers.” (Isaiah 53:7),
Of Christ’s crucifixion between two criminals (thieves/robbers) Isaiah 53:12 continues that he would be “numbered with the transgressors,” fulfilling the divine plan for the Messiah’s identification with us sinners.
So, in this Sunday’s Passion, maybe even more than in the other Gospel accounts, we see Matthew taking great pains to remind us Jesus’s passion and death were well documented in the ancient Divine Plan of the Old Testament. Such research for the record makes sense, coming from a former tax collector for whom documentation was key to balanced accounting.
But leave it to Luke, a physician who sometimes had to effect unorthodox treatments beyond the books, to document a final miracle from the cross in Luke’s own gospel account. Our crucified doctor of souls heals the spirit of the good thief dying next to him. This wasn’t mentioned by Matthew, nor was it foreshadowed by the ancient prophets. We can therefore imagine that this repentant criminal’s defense of Jesus against the other thief’s taunts took even the Executor of his Father’s will by surprise. Next, we can imagine that the amazed Jesus, benefiting from the only moment of joy in this whole account, then made this man an eternal beneficiary of God’s will, along with all the other souls the Christ came to save (“Today you will be with me in paradise.”)
Surprises as part of God’s painstakingly planned will? We aren’t the beneficiaries of just any old legal document. We share in a Special Needs Trust designed to accommodate humanity’s unpredictable nature. Our Guarantor rejoices in improvements in the free will He granted us.
Let’s go back to Luke’s gospel. The Good Thief wasn’t the first beneficiary of Jesus’ amazement at human unpredictability. Let’s remember the Gentile Centurion who amazed Jesus by trusting that God would save his ailing servant—WITHOUT Jesus even entering the centurion’s home. The Centurion and the Good Thief were granted equal access to God’s Kingdom, thanks to their amazing faith.
Bottom line, we’re the beneficiaries of God’s well documented and freewheeling will—and nobody had to die but its Executor to fulfill it. This Sunday after we participate in the reading of the Special Needs Trust made possible by our Guarantor, it’ll be our turn to be amazed once more.
–Tom Andel
Tom, I appreciate how you tie together the various individuals who intersect Jesus’ path. Each approaches Christ through the lens of their profession, just as we do today. Yet each is led beyond it—what they once professed evolves into a profession of faith. So we stand with them: ordinary people, shaped by our roles, yet invited to witness that the plan is real, the Executor has fulfilled it, and the inheritance is already flowing—waiting for us to receive it.
And to share it with our fellow beneficiaries! That’s the beauty of the Knights. Our membership represents a deep cross-section of the disciplines that make our society work. Add a bit of faith and watch the goodness grow!
I started reading the Bible, starting with the whole Old Testament, cover-to-cover. When I reached the New, I was immediately blown away–starting with Matthew 1, the amazement doesn’t stop. If we know our Jewish roots, it’s jaw-dropping how everything ties in! You could easily go on to write books, and many have. As Catholics (me from birth), I think we are missing a full appreciation of just how perfectly God’s plan has unfurled throughout history and continues to this day.
Mike, Jewish author and scholar Dennis Prager explained beautifully the value of the Bible to an atheist who believed his own humanitarian value system was sufficient without it. Prager told him that if our society were to let Bible study die out, the values atheists call “humanitarian” would die out as well. It’s like pulling flowers from the soil out of which they sprang. They may look great for a while, but eventually they’ll wither and die. The miracle of the Bible is how applicable it remains to our 21st Century lives. We take that for granted. We even quote from it without even realizing it. It is our society’s grounding. Our own country’s government is based on rights with which we are endowed “by our Creator.”
I’ve definitely quoted the Bible without knowing it! It’s always such a good reminder of Gods wisdom he shares with us when that happens.
I am always amazed during this solemn holy season how the wisest of the wise during Jesus’ time, the Scribes and Pharisees, whose main task was to study and teach from the ancient texts and prophets, how they could miss the event they waited for hundreds of years? Talk about swing and a miss!
Just goes to show how human pride can upset the apple cart of life. In our time we must take care not to miss the main focus of our existence and the very reason God made us.
Being in his presence for eternity!
The scribes and pharisees considered themselves the wisest of the wise, but through Matthew, Jesus aims a mirror at them. He forces them to see the truth–that when it comes to his Father’s law, they’re all talk, no action. The actions they DO take are against God’s laws–the very laws their kind killed the prophets for citing. In Matthew 23 he tells them that if they had been alive in the days of the prophets, they’d do to them the same things they were about to do to him:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”
Holy Week is a good time for our generation to examine itself in the mirror of the Gospels.
Yet another mirror of the Old and New Testament that seems obvious now, but one that I had not caught my attention before!
Thanks Thomas!