ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Bishop Basil of Amphipolis

Palm Sunday

1 April 2007, Oxford

Jn 12:1-18

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

Today we celebrate the Lord’s Entry in Jerusalem - the earthly Jerusalem, not the heavenly Jerusalem which he will enter only after his Resurrection. And in front of us we see the blessed branches that it is the custom to use instead of palms to recreate the atmosphere of triumph that marked that day. Why triumph? Because the Messiah has finally arrived, the political leader who will bring an end to one hundred years of Roman rule and restore theocracy – the rule of God – in Israel.

At moments like this powerful emotions are in play. Crowds are formed, and even children are caught up in the excitement. But the services of this day make no mention of the obviously political elements in the story. They take us away from these misguided expectations and place the Entry into Jerusalem in a broader context.

And they do this by linking it on the one hand with Lazarus Saturday, yesterday’s feast, and on the other with the Resurrection that we will be celebrating in a week’s time. Saturday and Sunday are consciously turned into a two-day feast. The hymn, ‘We have seen the Resurrection of Christ …’, which properly belongs to matins of Sunday, is moved back to the matins of Saturday, while the Evlogitaria of the Resurrection, again a Sunday text, are anticipated on Saturday and repeated on Sunday. The matins sequence, ‘Holy is the Lord our God’, is also anticipated and doubled up in the same way.

The effect of this is to link closely the Raising of Lazarus, the theme of Saturday’s celebration, with the Entry into Jerusalem, which now becomes not so much a commemoration of a historical event, as the beginning of Christ’s path to Crucifixion. Lazarus’ resurrection is integrated into the journey that leads ultimately to Christ’s Resurrection.

This is what is being done liturgically. But what is the existential meaning of raising of Lazarus? Where does this miracle find a place in our lives? We should bear in mind that Christ’s miracles of healing always operate on two levels: the physical and material level, and on spiritual level. Both the person undergoing healing and those who see the healing take place are being invited to see ‘more than meets the eye’.

For example, when Christ heals the man blind from birth, we are being invited to ask ourselves whether we might not have been blind from birth. And when he enables someone to hear, we are being invited to ask ourselves if we are actually able to hear the Word of God. If Christ enables a woman to walk upright for the first time in many years, we are being invited to ask ourselves if we are really able to experience inwardly Christ’s Resurrection.
The same is true of the Raising of Lazarus. Indeed, there have been various literary and artistic attempts to convey what it might mean for someone to die and be brought back to life, only to have to face death again. For most, this is not a happy thought. At best, it is deeply ambiguous.

But from the point of view of the Gospels – and of the texts of the Feast – the Raising of Lazarus points beyond death to life, eternal life, just as the various healing miracles point beyond themselves to spiritual healing and rebirth. In other words, the story of Christ’s miracle is not just an extraordinary, one-off event. It suggests to us that we are all dead, and need to be brought to life.

This is pointed to by the unusual doubling that takes place in the first verse: ‘Then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.’ We would normally expect to read ‘where Lazarus was, whom he raised from the dead.’ This would be enough to identify Jesus’ friend. But ‘which had been dead’ is inserted as well. And this turns out to be the case in the textual tradition as well. Not all the most ancient Greek  manuscripts have the phrase, ‘which had been dead’, and it is possible that it was added at some early point in the manuscript tradition.

The point is that this addition brings to mind another ‘death’, that of the Prodigal Son, of whom his father can say: ‘For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ The son is not literally dead, but spiritually dead, and through repentance he has been reborn.

It also brings to mind a passage from John 5 that is read at most funeral services: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall bear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.’ The operative expression is ‘and now is’. Christ is not talking only about some future event, the time when he will come again in glory, but about an event that can take place now, in our present lives. Christ has come to bring us the possibility of resurrection now, the possibility of an inner movement from death to life, and an anticipation of the final resurrection at the consummation of all things. Palm Sunday is given a place in the movement of mankind from death to life.

And yet there is also a dark and ambiguous side to the events of Palm Sunday. We are told that the religious authorities – the chief priests – actually sought to kill Lazarus: ‘… they consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death.’ (That is, in addition to Jesus.) We will be mistaken if we think that the problem is theirs alone. There is something in all of us that resists rebirth, whether in ourselves or in others. What other explanation is there for the death of the martyrs? Anyone who is reborn in God and into the freedom that this brings with it is experienced as a threat – because the powers of this world no longer have control over him. For someone who has freed himself from the Prince of this world, even ‘death hath no more dominion’.

Let us remember then that the link made between the raising of Lazarus and Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem means that the two-day feast points not just to the Resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection of all, but also to the possibility of our own rising from the dead now. It points to the possibility of resurrection as a present, existential reality.

And let us not forget the darker side of both events. First, the fickleness of the crowds when their passions are in play, so that enthusiastic support is followed by condemnation. Second, the desire of the religious authorities to kill Lazarus, because he was evidence of Jesus’ ability to bring a dead person to life, and thereby move the world on towards its proper goal – resurrection.

And let us not forget as well to look for these darker aspects in our own lives and hearts, all the while taking comfort from Christ’s victory over the final enemy, death. Amen.