HOMILY FOR PALM SUNDAY
Entry of our Lord into Jerusalem Our Lord Jesus Christ often went to Jerusalem, but never did He enter it with such glory as after the resurrection of Lazarus, which is commemorated prior to His passion. Until this time He specifically shunned all honors and firmly forbad His disciples to spread the word among the people that He was the long-awaited Christ the Messiah, king of Israel; now, however, He lovingly accepts royal honors from the people and triumphantly enters into Jerusalem.
Why did He not shun the honors this time, but for greater ceremony allowed Himself to be mounted upon an ass? According to the holy Church Fathers, it is because the time had come to reveal openly and publicly that He was the genuine promised Messiah, so that when the Jews rejected Him, they would not be able to justify themselves on the grounds that He had not revealed Himself to them as Christ, son of David.
Why did He mount an ass which had not yet been ridden by anyone, i.e. was untamed? This is because in the East the ass was a symbol of peace, and kings rode on them in times of peace. And the fact that it was untamed signified that Christ will rule not only over the Old Testament people, but also over people not yet enlightened by belief in the One True God.
Thus, with His triumphant entry into the holy city of Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus Christ terminated His public service to the chosen people and intimated His rule over all people. The preaching of the humble Christ ended, and the reign of Christ the King began.
At vespers for Lazarus Saturday we heard a touching canticle: “Having accomplished the 40 days beneficial to our soul, let us ask to witness also the holy week of Thy Passion, O Lover of mankind…,” i.e. the Great Lent, which symbolized Christ’s teaching of salvation through repentance, is now over, and His preaching of the Heavenly Kingdom, whose loss we commemorated on Cheesefare Sunday, – likewise. During the Great Lent we repented, we ascended a spiritual ladder, seeing before us examples of great sinners (St. Mary of Egypt) and great saints (St. John of the Ladder, St. Gregory Palamas). And now we have finished the labor of the holy 40 days and are faced with the path of “the holy week of Thy Passion.”
The entire life of an Orthodox Christian believer, at the center of which stands the Church, is full of symbols and images. The ecclesiastical year begins with the creation of the world and ends with the image of the Heavenly Kingdom, i.e. the Eternal Pascha. The daily services, ending with the Divine Liturgy, symbolize in miniature the same as the entire ecclesiastical year. Each separate service contains elements of the Old and the New Testaments. For example: the proskomedia represents the Nativity of Christ; the midnight service represents Christ’s coming at midnight, i.e. the Last Judgment; the Great Entrance at the Liturgy represents Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, etc. Thus both the Great Lent and the Lord’s entry, which we now commemorate, follow a strict chronological sequence.
And what lesson does this teach us?
Just as the majority of the chosen people, by refusing to accept Christ as the Messiah, became God’s adversaries, so we, too, can find ourselves in the same category, if our spiritual life at the end of the Great Lent remains the same as it was before. And, as though demonstrating the consequence of opposing God, we move into Passion Week, which commemorates how Christ was killed by the God-opposing people, who thus became not only God-opposing, but God-murdering.
As though averting us of this danger, on Palm Sunday the Church gives us palms, or in our tradition – kitty willows. Our festive palms serve as an expression of our faith in Christ. However, we should remember that the palms which we now take into our hands will soon dry up. We should bear in mind the source of their freshness: each branch lives on the nourishment it receives from the root, and if it is torn away from the root – it withers. This well-known circumstance in the world of nature is an image of our soul and its life. The root of our spiritual life is our faith in Christ, the Son of God. This faith should be alive and active, and not like the one possessed by the formerly chosen and later God-murdering people of Israel. Even they had some kind of faith when they shouted: “Hosanna to the son of David!”; however, only four days later they cried: “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” Even the devil has faith, but no deeds to go along with it!
Thus, if faith has motivated us to hold these palms in our hands, then let us also show the fruits of spirituality in our lives. Seeking and receiving the absolution of sins in the sacrament of confession, let us not hold anger against those who offend us, but let us endure it all. Let us ponder all that took place in the garden of Gethsemane, in Jerusalem, on Golgotha. Let us keep the branches of our spiritual life flowering and fruitful.
“Value virtue and do not be concerned with happiness, – says St. Isidore of Pella, a Church Father. – Happiness quickly vanishes, while virtue is an immortal treasure.”
May the Lord help us all spend Passion week without squandering the spiritual treasures that we have amassed during the 40 days of Lent, and may we reach with great spiritual joy the great feast of Christ’s Resurrection. Amen.
Protopriest Igor Hrebinka