As Christ triumphantly and yet so humbly entered Jerusalem, the children and those of ‘child-like faith laid palms and garments on the road and cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” Others and those without faith, those who did not believe the prophets, saw in Jesus only a political figure, attributing to him their own desires and fears. Many thought that Jesus was going to inaugurate a new dynasty of the Kings of Israel, along the lines of King David and Solomon, a temporal kingdom: “Finally, we’ll overthrow those usurping Romans!”
In our day, this practice of making Jesus into what we want Him to be continues: Many people read into the Gospel their own interpretations, others try to ‘modernize’ the Gospel, to make it what they consider to be more ‘relevant’ for the modern era. The Gospel is interpreted to apply to particular socio-political problems or a particular constituency’s take on issues like poverty or justice. Others take what they want from the Christian past, disregarding the rich and well-documented historical record of faith passed down generation by generation through the ages to the present. The sign that greeted me and other seminarians at Yale, was “reimagining the faith.”
The person of Christ defies those who would “re-imagine” Him or His words. His own words, actions, and miracles, prevent us from viewing Him as simply a prophet or the greatest of teachers. By raising Lazarus from the dead, from non-existence into being (he was four days dead!), Christ demonstrates His power over death, that He is the Giver of life. He reveals His glory as God Himself. And this is why the Jewish leaders sought to kill him from that point on. Only God can forgive sins and give life. Christ gives life and forgives sins and they condemn Him and desire to kill Him.
A watered-down Christianity, as we see in many groups outside of Orthodoxy, is fodder for those who would discredit Christianity in its other forms, throwing out Christianity as a whole and seeking instead extremes of neo-paganism on the one hand and Islam on the other.
Christ God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Christ came to inaugurate a new kind of kingdom, a new spiritual kingdom, fit for the new spiritual race of man that He became incarnate and suffered death to give us. Those looking for peace or justice through political and humanist means and apart from Christ are deluding themselves. Christ is our peace. Christ is our life. Christ offers us friendship with God. He is our reconciliation. Man will never achieve peace unless they come together in Christ God, the Prince of Peace.
The only true reconciliation, the only means of truly uniting us one to another, is through true communion with Christ God, participation in the life of God the Holy Trinity. This restoration to new life in Him, means freedom from enslavement to the passions, freedom from all the vain humanistic attempts to save ourselves (or the world). Any human attempts to obscure the Gospel or make it more ‘palatable’ to modern sensibilities will always fail because it is not the truth that God has revealed, the Truth of Who He is; bottom line: it fails to address the needs of the human soul.
Upon His entry into Jerusalem, Jesus launches no revolt against the Roman authorities, He does not try to take Herod’s throne. Instead, throughout His earthly ministry He does the following, indicative of the new kind of Kingdom He inaugurates for us: He gives sight to the blind, multiplies the loaves and the fishes, makes the lame to walk, heals the lepers, and casts out the demons. He forgives the sins of those who come to Him in faith and, He raises Lazarus from the dead. For all these acts of mercy, the Jewish authorities are indignant. Those who reject Him don’t want a new spiritual race of Adam; they’re looking for a ‘military Messiah.’ Instead, Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem on the foal of an ass, a colt. The Jewish authorities, with some notable exceptions (Nicodemus) must have been very disappointed and even more confused; this was not how it was supposed to be.
Those awaiting the Messiah with their child-like faith saw Christ’s miracles and glorified God for this revealing of Christ’s true divine glory. But those who rejected Christ out of fear and pride, saw the same miracles and sought to put Christ to death, viewing Him as a threat to their wicked practices. The prophet Zechariah saw this coming. As we heard at Vigil for the Feast, he admonishes Israel, saying, “Do not fear, O daughter of Zion; behold thy King cometh unto thee: he is just and having salvation…lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foul of an ass.” (Zech. 9:9)
St. Gregory Palamas writes, “Your king… does not arouse fear in those who see Him. Nor is He an oppressor or evildoer accompanied by shield-bearers and spearmen… His banner is humility, poverty, and lowliness.” (Veniamin, St. Gregory Palamas: the Homilies)
The message of Palm Sunday, of Christ’s Triumphal entry, is this truth: Christ is the Messiah, the Holy One, the King of Israel, God incarnate. He has entered into human nature. He has come to Jerusalem to accomplish the final life-saving acts of that redemption that will lead Him and us to the cross, the grave, and the glorious resurrection on the third day.
This is radical—the notion that God is humble and would love us to such an extent that He would become incarnate, one of His own creation, while remaining God, is radical: “a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.” Christ God demonstrates this humility in the enemies He vanquishes—Satan and his demons, sin, and death in us.
By means of repentance and godly submission (obedience to Christ and the Church), we learn to give up those vestiges of our former life, our life apart from God, our passions and our own stubborn willfulness, our desire to have the Gospel and Orthodox Faith on our terms. We follow our Lord, God, and Savior to His holy and life-giving Passion. We too take up our cross in humility and self-denial, the mantel of what it means to be an Orthodox Christian—to be in the world but not of the world, to love as Christ and die to self. We live as inheritors and progenitors of the Faith once received and in continuity with all God’s promises fulfilled.
We do so today by re-doubling our efforts to repent, by readying ourselves for salvation. We do so by participating this week in the holy services, taking their lessons to heart, and journeying with Chirst voluntarily, as if this were the last week we had to live: we prioritize our life with God, who is our life and the life of the world. We apply the truth of the revealed Gospel to our lives that we may celebrate Holy Pascha in faith, and that with Christ, we too may be raised from death and become co-heirs with Him, our King and our God.
I encourage you to make Christ your priority this Holy Week, to receive Him as He comes to us, that this Holy Week can be a time for renewal and growth in your life, uniting you further with Him who is Life itself, the vanquisher of death. In this way, Christ’s victory over sin and death will be accomplished in us. To that end, we pray for that child-like faith of the children with the palms of victory, who cry out to Him on this day, “O Vanquisher of Death: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord!” (Troparion of the Feast).
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Entry of Christ into Jerusalem/Palm Sunday
April 28 2013
