(John 12:1-8)
A foretaste of the new life
Between Great Lent which finished the day before yesterday on Friday, and Holy Week which begins tomorrow night, are inserted these two days: Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday. It is like a respite, but also like a foretaste of all the things that will happen during Holy Week, and also like a foretaste of the Resurrection, of the new life.
And for the Christian who truly tries to live in accordance with the will of God, a time comes when the Lord will guide him to such a state as these two days, and will give us a foretaste: foretaste of the Passion and of the Resurrection; foretaste of eternal life; foretaste of that life which is free from sin. It is a foretaste that provides us with the certainty that someday everything will end, that someday all these things that torture us will pass, that truly someday all the things that are spoken in the Gospel will be true also for us: we will be redeemed from sin, from death, and from the old man. We will be resurrected and will live in the Lord.
The Lord as the king enters triumphantly into the city Jerusalem, and small and great are moved—it was ordered this way by Divine Providence—and sing and receive Him as king. And He enters the city sitting on an ass’s colt. The Lord is God and man, and He always knows moderation. But all these things are simultaneously also lessons for us, for us to be moderate and careful.
Christ voluntarily does what He does, not as self-determining, but as the heavenly Father has appointed things. Every harm to us Christians arises from our unwillingness to allow God to guide us.
Let’s give ourselves to God so that He will guide us, fix us, govern us, and bring us to where it is that we should arrive.
Holy Hesychasterion “The Nativity of Theotokos” Publications.
Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos
