Even if we can’t physically be present in a church right now, Easter’s coming all the same. We’re gratefully catapulted into a season-long celebration of the fullness of life offered by our Risen Lord.

Today’s readings carry the sorrow of the world. The false accusations, denials, betrayals, and beatings Jesus faced are heartbreaking.

It has become a nearly dogmatic element of contemporary religious education to assert that Jesus is our friend. We teach this to children, herald it in devotional meditations, sing it in hymns, and hear it wafting down from pulpits far and wide.

That is when one of the Twelve, the one named Judas Iscariot, went to the cabal of high priests and said, “What will you give me if I hand him over to you?” They settled on thirty silver pieces. He began looking for just the right moment to hand him over.

In my childhood, we came home from the long Palm Sunday Mass hungry from the Communion fast that began at midnight, greeted by the scent of Sunday pasta sauce wafting from the kitchen.

Early in my marriage I had the habit of becoming extremely drowsy whenever my wife wanted to deal with a difficult issue. It was a highly inappropriate psychological coping mechanism, and I had the hardest time overcoming it. Try as I might to appear alert and interested, I kept falling asleep. Needless to say, that did little to endear me to my wife.

To me, the whole point of being a Christian is so that I will never have to stand on the side of Jesus’ torturers. If I am true to my faith, then such depravity and inhumanity will be impossible for me. If I follow Jesus’ way of love, then I will never be in Pilate’s camp, washing my hands of one I know to be innocent.

We stand at the beginning of our celebration of the Passion of our Lord. We have followed him through Lent, and now we turn to him and ask him to show mercy on his people.

Palm Sunday tells us that . . . it is the cross that is the true tree of life.