Orthodox Christian Holy Week — Today is Palm Sunday Part II
All is not well in Jerusalem.
If you’ve already read Palm Sunday Part I, you know that when we left off, Christ was entering the Holy City meekly, on the foal of an ass, and the people and children were joyously waving palm branches and crying “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord!”
They were absolutely jubilant because they had either directly witnessesd, or heard from someone who had directly witnessed, that Christ, by His word, had raised up their friend and acquaintance Lazarus, who had been in the tomb, dead and decomposing, for several days. Without even realizing it at the time (the Scripture says even the Apostles only “got it” later) they were fulfilling the prophecies of long ago in these moments. What a wondrous time to live!
But all was not well in Jerusalem during those days. Besides those who were jubilant and hopeful, there were others who absolutely did not feel that all of this triumph and celebrating was a good thing.
First we have poor wretched Judas. A disciple of the King of kings Who treated Judas with love and even washed his feet….But Judas just couldn’t let Christ’s love in. Why? He was totally distracted with coins. It seems ludicrous right? The Creator of the Universe, the Priceless One, He Who can create out of nothing and raise the dead, is your teacher and best friend, and your mind is on some metal in a pouch that has no value at all except that which we assign to it.
Mary, Lazarus’ sister, was annointing Christ’s feet and head with precious spikenard, a visible symbol of the fragrant love and gratitude pouring from her heart…and Judas found fault with her. “Why wasn’t this ointment sold and given to the poor?” The Apostle John explains that Judas Iscariot did not ask this because he cared about the poor, but because he siphoned out of the bag. Poor miserable Judas. He Who created the stars in the heavens sat beside him, and all he could think about was how full with cheap metal was the leather pouch by his side. May God protect us!
Christ defended Mary and told Judas to leave her alone. He told the disciples “The poor you have always, but Me you do not have always. She has done what she could to prepare my body for burial.” Christ went on to further commend Mary by saying that what she had done would be known throughout the whole world wherever the Gospel is preached. (As we are now living proof of that statement 2,000 years later.)
Mary must have had a lot of joy in her heart knowing that the love she had for Christ, and the offering she made to Him was appropriate, it was received by Him with love (He Who needs nothing), and He protected her, like a mother protects its chicks, against Judas when he roughly and hypocritically tried to find fault with her.
But Judas’ mind and heart were not on love and gratitude, and the reference made by Christ to His own burial doesn’t seem to have moved him. His mind was darkened and his attention was elsewhere — on paltry coins, greed, so-called wealth, maybe he resented Christ’s rebuke….So, he looked for an opportunity to betray Christ.
Judas’ petty greed would not have amounted to much, had there not been a much larger and more powerful contingency of men looking to get rid of Christ for their own reasons.
And who were these men?
We meet them throughout the Gospels, and they always have something unpleasant to say.
When Christ heals someone with a withered hand, they complain. When Christ tells a paralytic to arise, his sins are forgiven, they immediately call Him a blasphemer. When Christ helps a woman who was bent over for decades, they tell Him He can’t heal on the Sabbath….and on and on. You have to wonder — What in the world is wrong with these people? Don’t they have the slightest feelings of compassion?
Wouldn’t it be normal and natural to be happy for your fellow human who has been suffering immensely from leprosy, blindness, or demonic possession, and now to see them free, well and whole? If the current “mirror neuron” idea is correct, they should have had as much joy as if it had happened to themselves. After all, that’s what love does. Just think of how much joy they could have had, just in sharing everyone else’s happiness as Christ’s compassionate power touched the lives around Him, freeing and healing….what a time to live! One could daily be in awe.
Instead, they ludicrously whine and bicker and plot during the entire three years of Christ’s ministry. One is left to wonder if they might have complained about a “healing on the Sabbath” even if it had been their own mothers who were liberated from suffering and tragedy.
These men clearly had not embraced Moses’ commandments, to first love God with all of one’s soul, heart, mind, and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. If they had been trying to do these two things, they would have recognized their Messiah — the one Moses and all the Prophets foretold — and they would have rejoiced at His arrival! They would have welcomed and celebrated this good news above all good news — the long-awaited deliverance at last! (Actually history relates that by that time most of the men in the Sanhedrin had bought their positions, so that tells us something.)
As for rejoicing with the common people, such was not the case. Instead we read that when many of the Jews went to Bethany to see Lazarus, now risen from the dead, “the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death.” (St. John 12:10)
How strange is that? Most of Jerusalem is rejoicing, but the chief priests and the governing body, the Sanhedrin, want to kill both the Resurrector and the resurrected?
For what? For existing?
“Because that by reason of him [Lazarus] many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.” (St. John 12:11)
How can we begin to understand the mind of these men who when they see goodness have only one intention: to eliminate it.
This is indeed a mystery.
In order to understand their actions, we have to understand their intentions. To understand their intentions, we have to know their ultimate goal. Clearly, in their perception of things, Christ stood in the way of whatever their ultimate goal was. Christ doing marvelous things like raising someone from the dead did not fit the script that they were clinging to. And rather than reassess their script, they stubbornly focused on one goal: Get rid of Him.
What was it that meant so much to these men who opposed Christ at every turn? Was it money like Judas? Was it just that they envied Christ because He was more popular than they were? Did they resent Him because He spoke the truth about their vainglory and hypocrisy? Did they still hold it against Him that He threw over the tables of the money changers in the Temple, thereby eating into their profits?
Yes, yes and yes. But also, they were very preoccupied with an overarching agenda: to overthrow Rome. And this is really the key thing to understand.
This is not Jew against Gentile, many of the first believers were Jews, and those opposed to Christ were Jews. Believers and persecutors alike came from the Gentiles. There are two groups of people, but they can’t be defined by ethnicity, or even by religion at this point. The dividing line was this question: Is your priority to strive for a kingdom and power on earth (personal or national versions), or can you realize we are just passing through here to a Kingdom on high, and choose and act accordingly so you don’t miss out?
That is the crux of everything, even now.
There was a time when the leaders of the Jews approached Christ to “make him a king by force.” (St. John 6:15) Why would they do that? Because He had just multiplied bread in the desert, and, taking into consideration their ultimate goal of planning an uprising, that would be incredibly handy.
If we read the whole sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, we see that this event is a turning point. The Sanhedrin, focused on earthly power and rule, wanted to make Christ “their kind of King.” (Sort of a “magician king” as the antichrist will be.) He refused them, explaining that His Kingdom is not of this world. Had Christ agreed with them, what kind of world would we live in today? There would be no one we could look to for pure truth. But Christ is Truth Himself and He did not fail us!
He answered them very clearly many times that His Kingdom is not of this world, that He wasn’t just all about earthly bread, but He has something much greater to offer us, to become One with Him, to partake of Him. Bethlehem means “house of bread” — to understand that He is the Bread of Life is to enter the heart of this Mystery.
He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. (St. John 6:47–51,56)
This is the promise: Life Everlasting and an unending Kingdom in which death has no power. And it is open to all who desire it, we just have to first make sure we aren’t distracted by a strong desire for “earthly riches and power”, which can manifest in many forms of desires. If we are distracted, putting too high of a priority on the things here below, we can be face to face with the Source of Life and not see Him, or worse yet, try to figure out “how to get rid of Him.”
Despite the machinations of the Sanhedrin, God remains true to His goal to free us, and we will see that as Holy Week continues to unfold.
Next: Monday of Holy Week
