In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

We celebrated yesterday the raising of Lazarus. Today we are with the Lord as He is entering Jerusalem. When we are serving as we are now, we are not just remembering these events as they were a long time ago. We are not really there physically, but in our hearts we are there. As the Gospel is being read, we are present with the Saviour when He is entering Jerusalem.

I remember a long time ago when I was young there used to be a television programme called “You were there”. It used to try to take you back to events long, long ago. When we are in church, serving the Divine Liturgy, hearing the Gospel, and hearing the words of life from the Saviour, Himself, we are there. We are in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, when the Saviour is entering into the temple. That’s why Orthodox Christians are carrying their branches (or pussy willows in some parts of the world because there are no palm trees growing). We are with the Lord liturgically. We are hearing the words of life. We are with Him. He is with us. We are carrying our palm branches. We are with the Lord in Jerusalem.

We hear the Apostle John say at the end of the Gospel for today that the people are coming to Jerusalem shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord”. After they put the Lord on an ass, they are putting their clothes on the ground, and so forth. They are doing this, and why? The Apostle John says that it was because they had seen the resurrection of Lazarus. If they didn’t see it, they had heard about it.

Then in a few days, we find that the same people who were doing this were crucifying Jesus. We are going to be there, too. In a few days we are going to be in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion. We are going to be present as Jesus is condemned to death, and He is crucified. (Of course, we are also going to be present when He rises from the dead, too, but we are getting too far ahead here.)

You and I are here with those crowds of people in Jerusalem. The question we have to ask ourselves is a question similar to that question that people thought that they had answered then, and that is: Who is Jesus Christ to us? Who is He to me? To Judas, and to certain other people: these priests, and other people who were very politically motivated (because He does such a sign at the raising of Lazarus), Jesus must be the Messiah; He must be the Christ; He must be the Anointed One sent from God to release the Jewish people from their slavery to the Romans (as they had been oppressed by the Greeks, and others, before). They were certain that it was a political leader that they were going to be greeting today, and that He was going to assemble an army, throw out those Romans, and establish a theocratic kingdom on the earth in Palestine.

By this time the Jewish people had forgotten what is their real purpose in the world (which the purpose that the prophet Isaiah reminded them of). They forgot again, just as we do. We are not different. They forgot that they were supposed to be a light shining in the world to draw attention to the truth of the one creating, loving God who saves everything that He creates, and who loves all that He creates. The Jewish people were supposed to be a sign of this, a sign that God loves them. Because of various circumstances of life, like we have, they forgot. They began to protect their faith from everyone else outside, and even from themselves.

We Orthodox Christians are not so different from that. We are the legitimate inheritors of that same faith; we are the legitimate spiritual descendants of this people. We are participants with them in their betrayal every time we neglect Christ, every time we turn our backs on Him, every time we try to reduce Him to something that He is not. Who is Jesus Christ to you, and to me? Who is He?

Jesus Christ, as we heard the Apostle say yesterday, is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus Christ, the Word of God, by whom everything is made, and is being made – that is WHO HE IS. And who is He to me? Someone to be feared? Just some political figure or a philosophical idea? No. He is the living God who directs everything in creation. He is in charge of my life. He is in charge of my life because He loves me. He wants us – you, me, all of us – to love Him in return in the same way. This is what everything is about.

That is really why you, and I are here today. If there’s another reason why you, and I are here today, maybe it’s time to re-focus, and remember that the first thing is that Jesus Christ loves you. He loves me. He is my reason for being. He is my everything. I would say personally that if that were not the case for me, I don’t see how I could have lived through all sorts of things that I have lived through in the course of my life. I certainly don’t know how I could have lived through things that I have experienced more recently if it were not for the fact that the Lord, Himself, in the course of my life convinced me that He loves me. He keeps reminding me that He loves me. It is possible for me, therefore, to carry on no matter how difficult and painful things might be.

The Lord, who is the Giver of life, is WHO HE IS. The Lord, who loves us, and sustains us, and gives us life in His love, is WHO HE IS. If people in other times, or even in the present time, will say: “Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord; Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matthew 21:9) to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, for another reason (even for the wrong reason), it doesn’t change anything. He is still WHO HE IS. It is our responsibility to live our lives according to WHO HE IS, according to Who He continues to show Himself to be to us – our Love, our Life, our Everything.

It is true that by our failures, by our laziness, by our negligence, and so forth, we do contribute to the suffering of the Saviour, to the Crucifixion. Often we are really not better than Judas, whom we like to sneer at during this week (which is not so nice). Nevertheless, it is important for us to remember that the Lord, who loves us, was ready to forgive Judas, but Judas did not open his heart, and accept that forgiveness. Forgiveness was given to the Apostle Peter, and to the other Apostles who ran away, afraid, because they turned about, repented, and said: I’m sorry. The Lord came back for them.

Judas was too broken, somehow, and he was too out-of-focus. We can’t psychoanalyse it. Whatever it was that was wrong was wrong enough that he could not, and would not turn back to the Lord. This same Lord, who forgave the Apostle Peter, was ready to forgive Judas. Don’t forget it would have been possible for Judas to repent, but he did not because I think he probably felt too condemned. We are told that he took from the treasury. It seems that he treated Christ as a political event.

Our Lord, who loves us, who is Everything to us, who is with us at all times, in every stage of our life, in all conditions of our life, is worthy of our prayer. He is worthy of our singing “Hosanna”. He is worthy of our faithfulness, our loyalty, and also our repentance. He, who loves us, who is with us today, is about to give us Himself as food for our life. He is about to refresh us. He is about to renew us. Even if we abandon Him, and are unfaithful to Him, He is never that way to us. He is always ready to be with us, to give us what we need.

Today, as we are holding palm branches, standing in His presence as He is entering Jerusalem and coming to the temple, let us ask the Lord to renew our love for Him, and renew our sense that He is truly with us. Let us ask Him to help us to live according to that love, with greater and greater confidence, allowing that love to take away from our lives that fear which paralyses us. Let us ask Him to replace this fear with strength, energy, and the light of His love so that in everything more and more and more we may truly, and sincerely glorify Him, together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and Life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America