Today we have gathered at the beginning of our liturgy outside in the Resurrection Garden to meet Christ on the Mount of Olives. Today He returns from Bethany, having raised Lazarus from the dead, and shared a meal with Saint Lazarus and Saint Martha and Saint Mary Magdalene, and been anointed by her with oil of spikenard. After this, He proceeds of His own free will toward His holy and blessed Passion, to consummate the mystery of our salvation. He who came down from heaven to raise us from the depths of sin, to raise us with Himself, we are told in Scripture, above every sovereignty, authority and power, and every other name that can be named, now comes of His own free will to make His journey to Jerusalem. He comes without pomp or ostentation. As Isaiah says: He will not cry or lift up His voice, or make it heard in the street. In His incomprehensible power, Our Lord is meek and humble; He makes His entry in pure simplicity.

Let us strive with all our energy to accompany Him as He hastens toward His passion, and imitate those who met Him, not by covering His path with garments, olive branches or palms, but by doing all we can to open ourselves before Him in worship by humility and trying to live to please Him. Then we shall be able to receive the Word at His coming, and God, Whom no limits can contain, truly abides in us.

In His humility Christ entered the dark regions of our fallen world which is held under the illusion of power by Satan. Christ is glad that He became so humble for our sake, glad that He came and lived among us and shared in our nature in order to raise us up again to himself. And even though we know that He has now ascended above the highest heavens – the proof of His power and divinity – His love for man will never rest until He has raised our earthbound nature from glory to glory, and made it one with His own in heaven. The Heavenly Man became man to make us heavenly.

So let us spread before His feet, not garments or palm branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but let us spread ourselves, clothed in His grace, indeed clothed completely in Him. We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before Him. Now that the crimson stains of our sins have been washed away in the saving waters of Baptism and we have become white as pure wool, let us present the Conqueror of death, Who is Christ, not with mere branches of palms but with the real rewards of His victory: our selves, our souls and bodies, spread before Him as reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto Him. Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches as we join today in the children’s holy song: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel.

Let us show Him honor, not with olive branches but with the splendor of merciful deeds to one another. Let us spread the thoughts and desires of our hearts under His feet like garments, so that entering us with the whole of His being, He may draw the whole of our being into Himself and place the whole of His in us. He is coming Who is everywhere present and pervades all things; He is coming to achieve in us His work of salvation. He is coming Who came to call to repentance not the righteous but sinners, coming to recall those who have strayed into sin. Let us not be afraid, for God is in the midst of us, and we shall not be shaken.

My brothers and sisters, let us receive Him with open, outstretched hands, for it was on His own hands that He sketched you. Receive Him who laid your foundations on the palms of His hands. Receive Him, for He our human flesh in all ways except sin, to consume what is our sins in what is His. “Be enlightened, be enlightened,” as Isaiah trumpets, for the light has come to us: the glory of the Lord has risen over us.

What kind of light is this? It is that which “enlightens every man coming into the world.” It is the everlasting light, the light inaccessible, the timeless light revealed in time, the light manifested in the flesh although hidden by nature, the light that shone round the shepherds and guided the Magi. It is the light that was in the world from the beginning, through which the world was made, yet the world did not know it. It is that light which came to its own, and its own people did not receive it.

Brothers and sisters, the Cross of Christ is the glory of the Lord. He, the radiance of the Father’s glory, even as He said when He faced His passion: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him, and will glorify him at once.” This glory is His lifting up on the cross, for Christ’s glory is His cross and His exultation upon it, for He says: “When I have been lifted up, I will draw all men to myself.” Let us be drawn to Him this Holy Week. Let us answer the call to watch, to wait for the Bridegroom. That when He comes He finds us awake, with our flasks of oil full from love for Him. That when He calls, He admits us to the wedding banquet because, full of oil which is His mercy, Which He has given to those who are merciful, He knows and recognizes us, and wants us to live with Him forever: He Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

(Adapted from a homily by S. Andrew of Crete, d. 740.)

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