[AI translation] My Christian Brothers and Sisters! We are once again on the threshold of Holy Week, and once again the familiar events that remind us of the greatest tragedy of the world, the most blatant evil of men, are coming to life in our souls.I am sure that many of us, each time we have followed Jesus through the Passion from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, have been confronted with the same unresolved and incomprehensible question: how is it possible that Jesus was not accepted by men, that He was rejected, that He was killed?
Perhaps we have become very used to this being the fate of Christ. Perhaps we already know very well that it had to happen this way. Yet, if we read the Gospel stories as if for the first time, so that we might be moved by the stimulus of the newspaper, this question involuntarily arises in our souls: how is it possible, how could it have happened that the best of men, the noblest of men, the holy and loving Son of God, was consigned to such a fate here among us? What is the explanation for this?
Now, if one were to answer this question by saying that the wickedness of men, or in a word, sin, is the explanation of it all, we might all agree that it is perfectly true that it is - but that explanation does not say much in itself.
By the word 'sin' we mean a vast, general, generic term, under which anything can be placed, under which we may safely think anything, but which has for that very reason the great temptation to think nothing under it. If we simply say that Jesus was put on the cross by the sin of men, we are very likely to leave ourselves out of the complicity. We must therefore look at what sin, which sin led Jesus to the cross, because only then can we determine whether we personally have something to do with it or not.
Of course, a very rich variety of sin colours the story of suffering. The envious fear of power on the part of the chief priests is there as a prelude to the tragic end, as is Pilate's spinelessness, or the disciples' unbelief. But there is another sin, the most common but the most insignificant: the sin of the daisy-carrying crowd on Palm Sunday, betrayed by the very daisy-cry that the crowd was making to praise Christ as he was about to enter the kingdom.
With exultant joy they greeted the marcher, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the kingdom of our father David, which comes in the name of the Lord. Let us see!
First of all, let us note that, with few exceptions, the same crowd shouted "Crucify Him" on Good Friday as had sung Hosanna on the Sunday before. This crowd was none other than the people of Jerusalem and its surroundings. So the people in general, who had enjoyed so many good things and so many blessings from Jesus, rejected Him. But why did the people reject Jesus?
The Flower Sunday crowd seems to do the opposite of what the Good Friday crowd did, just as the events of Flower Sunday are the opposite of what Good Friday events are. In the story we read, it is not that the people reject Jesus, but that they passionately exult in his glory.
But if we look at the event more closely, we see that this glorification and rejection of Jesus by the people are not as contradictory as they seem. In fact, the glorification and rejection are closely related. So if a human society, a congregation, honours Jesus as Lord and King, and confesses Him, in a word glorifies Him, it does not mean that it has nothing to do with rejecting Jesus, with crucifying Him.
In the way in which Jesus was glorified, as we hear it from the lips of the people on Palm Sunday, His rejection was already included. For what did the people want to express by hailing Jesus as coming in the name of the Lord, and what did they mean by blessed is the kingdom of our father David, which comes in the name of the Lord?
The most glorious point in the whole history of the Old Testament people, the most glorious period, was the kingdom of David, the reign of King David, which the people looked back on with as much national pride as we look back on the glorious reign of Louis the Great or King Matthias. In what a sad contrast to the greatness and power of that time was the time of Jesus, this sad time of national humiliation in the yoke of the dreaded enemy, the hated Roman Empire.
Under the weight of oppression, there was a homesickness in the souls of all the people for the national glory of the past - they longed in all their prayers for the return of the power and glory of David's time. Secretly, there had long been in the depths of their souls the suspicion that it might be Jesus who would take David's throne and bring back the old glory. And now, when Jesus is making a kind of royal entry into the holy city, the old longing is at once bursting openly from the souls, the people rejoicing that here at last is he who is coming, blessed is he who is coming, and blessed is the kingdom, the kingdom of David, which is coming in the name of the Lord.
Well, my brothers and sisters, as much as we may feel that we are dealing here with events far removed from us and outside of us, which we now regard as nothing more than the political struggles of a people two thousand years ago, the reality is that the lesson of this story is very close to us.
The national aspirations of the people of the Old Testament express a general human yearning, a general human yearning for happiness. Just as that people longed for happiness in their own way, so do we all long for happiness in our own way. There is perhaps not a single person in the world who does not wish to be happy.
Let us examine our own souls, what drives us, what controls our lives day by day, hour by hour, and we will see what a powerful driving force the pursuit of happiness is in our lives. The deepest driving force of serious work, like the deepest driving force of the most unbridled amusements and passions, is the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of a happier existence. We strive for ever more comfort, ever more satisfaction, ever more happiness, whether in our private lives or in public life.
Now, we all know that Jesus came down to this earth to make us happy, to make us happy. This is expressed in His very name. This word "Jesus" means in Hungarian "Saviour", or in other words, "happiness-giver". So, people are looking for happiness, and Jesus brings happiness - what perfect agreement there should be between Jesus and people! So how is it possible that these people who are seeking happiness are the ones who put Jesus, the bringer of happiness, on the cross?
It can only be that Jesus offers a different kind of happiness from what people want. The coming of the kingdom of God was at the centre of Jesus' teaching, and the people are living the kingdom of God in the procession on Palm Sunday.
But this expression can be emphasized in two ways: either by emphasizing the kingdom or by emphasizing God. For the people, the kingdom was important; the kingdom of God was also imagined as earthly, with political boundaries, earthly happiness and glory. God is needed in this vision only insofar as he helps to bring it all about.
And when Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God, He means a state in which people accept God as their King and Father, where everything is of God, by God and for God. The people, therefore, long for external, physical happiness, and the happiness that Jesus brings is, above all, a happiness that is most profoundly spiritual.
Here, then, is where Jesus' and the people's concept of happiness clash. This clash not only happened once, but has been repeated many times in the world ever since. This world is looking for happiness, and the gospel is the gospel of the greatest happiness. The problem is that the world and Jesus have a different concept of happiness. They both talk about happiness, but they mean different things by it.
These people on Pentecost do not approach Jesus with any hostility, but on the contrary, they see in him the fulfilment of their old desires, and the whole eulogy is nothing more than a final plea to Jesus to come, to bring about the happiness they desire, to take the throne and restore the glory of the past.
But Jesus would not be deceived. He insisted to the end that He would give nothing less than the greatest, eternal happiness to men. That is why Jesus was married. If he had said, well, then I will bring you the kingdom of David, which you so long for, then Jesus would have been enthroned as king, - but because he thought, I want to give you more and better than what you long for, I want to establish the kingdom of God in your hearts, - that is why Jesus was put on the cross.
Well, my brothers and sisters! Without exception, we are all seeking happiness, now the question is, are we seeking it in the way of the mass on Palm Sunday or in the way of Jesus? What is most important for us, is it the earthly, physical, external happiness, - or the inner, spiritual, eternal happiness?
There are still many people today who worship God only because they believe that it is in everyone's own well-understood interest to be on good terms with this formidable tyrannical power, so that he can secure his favours for himself. Such people need God because the health and well-being of themselves and their loved ones depend on Him. Such people need God in so far as God can help them to obtain and retain happiness on earth.
So many people today come to Jesus Christ, speak and preach His name, because they think that to belong to Him today is a certain advantage in the eyes of men, that it is good advertising for a shop window today, because they think that a baptismal certificate is a moral certificate for getting a job. Do not such people greet Jesus with the same spirit as the people of Palm Sunday who saw their earthly, physical, sensual, material Saviour approaching in Christ on the donkey?
Is the dowsing homage and glorification of such a spirit before Christ worth anything, then? Surely nothing! For now we see clearly from the history of the Passion that if the search for external, earthly happiness is the soul's chief desire, it means that that soul has rejected Jesus in its life.
We humans are undoubtedly in a very difficult situation here on earth. Here we live on the border between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God. By the world, I mean the world that Satan presented to Jesus from the mountain top: 'I will give all this to you if you will bow down and worship me. So by the world I mean the service of Satan, the worship of Satan.
At every moment, in every action we take, we are faced with a choice: we must choose between the world or the way to God. The big question is which way to seek our happiness. Here we must admit that the world undoubtedly has a great advantage over the other way: it is wider, more people walk it, it is apparently easier, more direct and closer than the world.
By choosing the world, one rejects God. So to take God away is not only something that happens in the Passion, but happens again every day. For, after all, he who goes to God at the crossroads of his works rejects Satan, and likewise he who goes to Satan's world at the crossroads rejects God.
So the question why people reject Jesus in general can be answered in this way: because of their worldly spirit, because of their love of the world. This is the first reason for the gulf between Christ and men.
It was the general desire for worldly happiness that Jesus was the victim of at all times, not only on that first Good Friday, but also since then, whenever a soul chooses the world.
I feel, my brothers and sisters, that the question of why people rejected Jesus, the best, the holiest, the truest, is no longer an unsolved question. In fact, knowing human nature, knowing our unquenchable love for the world, it is quite obvious that this is what happened to Jesus. If Jesus were to come today, as he did then, everything would happen to him just as it did then.
So what are we to do? The first and most important thing is to shift the centre of gravity towards God. Our worship, our dowsing and our praising of Christ on Palm Sunday are worthless if we do not examine our souls very seriously.
Let us examine what kind of happiness we are basically seeking? Is it the happiness He wants to give us, or the happiness we want to receive from Him? If, in the course of our examination, we have found that the love of the world is stronger than the love of God, then we must change direction, shift our focus to God.
This change of direction and shift of emphasis, however, cannot happen once and for all, but lasts for a lifetime. Not with the spirit of the people of Palm Sunday, but with the deepest reverence of our hearts, let us cry out to the one who comes: blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the kingdom of God which he brings into our lives!
Amen.
Date: 2 April 1939.