Palm Sunday: Humility and Glory

Credit: "The Icons of Holy Week", Jonathan Pageau

Sermon April 28.  Palm Sunday
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Palm Sunday, Christ’s royal entry into Jerusalem, is an image of humility and glory.  God’s majesty shines through the humble King of Kings seated on a young donkey. Having raised Lazarus, He is celebrated by the huge crowds as the Victor over death, as we hear in the festal troparion.  He is on His way to become the King of Glory though the extreme humility of the passion, the cross and then the glorious resurrection. This is the procession with the invisible but tangible banner IC XC NIKA, which is stamped on the  prosphoras, and means “Jesus Christ is the victor”. He is the victor over death, first with Lazarus, secondly in His own coming to resurrection, and thirdly with the ultimate raising of all of humanity. For this reason, today’s entry is an image of Christ’s second coming, as the Holy Fathers say. 
 
The general resurrection, mentioned in today’s festal troparion, is of crucial importance for us who call ourselves Christians to understand what Christ has done. We must ask, how different is the world after this sacred week?  People are still dying, what has changed for those who believe in the Saviour?  There is a vast panorama of different people who interact with Christ in the coming days of this Holy Week but the church focuses on one human being especially.  There is so much to learn from this person about faith, life, and death.  This person is the Good Thief. His life would have been a waste, just like the life of countless others, yet his faith saves him.  He can see with the eyes of faith, and this enables him to see what the world cannot see; the bloody, dying Man next to him on the cross is the King of Glory, one of the Holy Trinity. The Good Thief’s zombie-like meaningless existence as a criminal on this earth in this moment changes into a blooming flower of paradise forever.  Whenever there is connection of faith and life with Christ, death disappears. Rather, to a Christian, physical death is now no different to falling asleep. Are we terrorized every night in going to bed that we might not wake up?  No, of course not! That is the Christian’s attitude to death. Christ’s kingdom of humility and glory has never disappeared.  We only need to see beyond the human weaknesses of our brothers and sisters to the beauty of God’s image energised by Christ at the Mystical Supper in the Eucharistic Liturgy.  
 
This is illustrated by a story told by the former governor of Victoria, Davis McCaughey, when he opened the Millennial Conference celebrating a thousand years of baptism of Rus, in 1988.  He told of a man he knew in Paris in the 1950s. He was rather surprised that this man would not walk past a homeless person without always giving a bit of money.  McCaughey asked, why do you do this?  The man replied, very seriously, what if he is Christ?!
 
Palm Sunday and Holy Week teach us to see Christ in the church and to see Him everywhere, in everyone. Amen.