Death on Palm Sunday. The day of a person's death is not accidental, just like the day of birth. Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. Festive worship
In the troparion of Palm Sunday, it is sung: "... we are like the children of victory who bear the sign." The banner of our victory is not a battle standard, but a willow branch - a symbol of the victory of life over death, faith over despair, love over hatred. This is also evidenced by the festive gospel reading. Archpriest Sergiy GANKOVSKY comments
Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. 17th century northern letters
1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead.
2 There they prepared a supper for him, and Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those who sat with him.
3 Mary, taking a pound of pure precious ointment, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the world.
4 Then one of His disciples, Judas Simon Iscariot, who wanted to betray Him, said:
5 Why not sell this oil for three hundred denarii and give it to the poor?
6 And he said this, not because he cared for the poor, but because there was a thief. He had a money box with him and wore what was put into it.
7 And Jesus said, Leave her; she saved it for the day of my burial.
8 For you always have the poor with you, but not always Me.
9 Many of the Jews knew that he was there, and they came not only for Jesus, but to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
10 And the chief priests determined to kill Lazarus also, 11 because for his sake many of the Jews came and believed in Jesus.
12 On the morrow, the crowds of the people who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 13 took palm branches, went out to meet him, and exclaimed, Hosanna! blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, King of Israel!
14 And when Jesus found a young donkey, he sat on it, as it is written:
15 Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion! Behold, your King is coming, sitting on a young donkey.
16 His disciples did not understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that this was written about Him, and they did it to Him.
17 The people who were with Him before testified that He called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead.
18 Therefore the people met him, for they heard that he had done this miracle.
(John 12:1-18).
Commented by Prot. Sergiy GANKOVSKY, Rector of the Church of the Hieromartyr Vladimir in Korolyov:
What do today's readings from the Apostle and the Gospel have in common? At first I noticed only one thing - "The Lord is near". To His people, to Jerusalem, to His death and glory, to us. And “the multitude of the people who came to the feast” therefore shouts “Hosanna!” to Jesus, because He is near. But what does each of them, of us, expect from such closeness, from meeting with the Lord?
For some of those who were then standing on the road to Jerusalem with palm branches, it seems close to the fulfillment of all their hope, hope in the Messiah, who will free them from the enslavers, fulfill “all righteousness” (Matthew 3.15), restore peace and justice, and confirm their faith. But these hopes, these justice and faith, are their hope and justice, and not God's. Not mysterious and boundless, and therefore unpredictable and terrible, they are waiting for a meeting with the Savior, but the fulfillment their ideas and hopes, but simply - their own idea of a miracle, which does not allow to see the life-giving love of Jesus for a person, but entails only to marvel at the resurrected dead, because "that's why the people met His, for they heard that He had done this miracle." They are waiting for the king, but God has come, having taken on Himself the “shape of a servant” (Philippians 2.7), not at all like the kings of the earth come, not in glory and triumph, but in meekness and humiliation.
And therefore, although the exclamation “hosanna” (הושיע נא) literally translates as “save, we pray,” we actually pray for our own, and when we receive God’s, we do not accept it.
Of course, the Lord knows that the tragedy of the descendants of fallen Adam lies in the fact that theoretically we are ready to seek “first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matt. ” to the main thing, to what makes life worth living. Just as the traitor-disciple saw only the senseless waste of the precious world in what was in fact the preparation for the Sacrifice of the Savior, so the whole of Jerusalem was tragically misunderstood: they met the earthly king, but the Heavenly King appeared!
And then it becomes clear why the cry “Crucify Him!” resounds almost immediately after rejoicing, because God "did not justify" our hopes. And we immediately forget that God does not create something because it is good, but, on the contrary, it is good, because it is He who creates it.
God comes to meet us, not to meet our expectations. And then the second thing becomes noticeable, which unites today's readings of the Apostle and the Gospel - joy. On the day when the Church with horror and trembling celebrates the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, reminding where and why Christ is going today, sitting on a donkey, on the day when, looking at the city from the Mount of Olives, the Savior weeps for him and for these people, because that they chose death and not life - on this day the apostle Paul tells us words that seem out of place, almost blasphemous in the face of what lies ahead for the Son of Man: “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice” (Phil. 4.4.). Only this joy is different - in one case - the exalted jubilation of the crowd, and in the other - the quiet joy of meeting with the One Whom I have been waiting for a long time. Joy in the Lord very rarely resembles worldly joy. Let us remember that in His Sermon on the Mount, our Lord calls us to rejoice, “when they reproach you and persecute you and slander you unjustly in every possible way for Me” (Matthew 5:11).
What are we looking for, now standing in the temple? Success, sorrowless life, health? Have we not managed to notice in our long or short church years that the closer the Lord is, the stronger the opposition of the forces of evil, the more powerful their pressure? Don't we know that as soon as we overcome the passions raging in us, even for a single moment, the forces of hell rise up against us, and as a result, those who just recently shouted "Hosanna" begin to gnash their teeth furiously. No wonder Archpriest Alexander Elchaninov remarked: “Only the first steps of approaching God are easy; elation and enthusiasm ... are gradually replaced by cooling, doubt, and efforts, struggle are needed to maintain faith ... ". Someone continues to fight, and someone considers himself deceived, "not receiving a sign", abandoned to the mercy of fate.
And therefore, so that our joy does not turn into bitter tears of “foolish virgins” (Mt. 25.3) - the daughters of Jerusalem, let us not forget that it is not for this reason that “the Lord is coming on a free passion”, so that we live easier and easier, and then, to remind us about where our true home is, where our true joy lies, and where our true “treasure” is hidden (Matthew 6:21).
Today is the eve of Passion Days, and yesterday, when the whole Church was remembering the resurrection of the righteous Lazarus, at the liturgy, instead of the usual Trisagion, we heard: “You have been baptized into Christ, put on Christ.” The Church sings this hymn on the eve of Passion Days, not only paying tribute to the ancient custom of baptizing new converts at Easter, but first of all reminding the faithful to be with God, to sit on the right and on the left side of Christ in His glory (Mark 10.37), as the apostles asked about it, one can only be “baptized”, plunged into the sorrow of the Passion of the Lord, sharing, to the best of one’s ability, His sufferings with the Lord, in order to later share with Him the joy of the Resurrection.
In the troparion of Palm Sunday there are also such words: "... we are like the children of victory bearing the sign." With these words, the Orthodox Church compares her children with the standard-bearers of victory, with those who proclaim to the army, and the people, and to the soldiers of the enemy, and to the whole world, the formidable and joyful news of the fall of the enemy fortress, of the end of the battle, of victory.
The banner of our victory, the symbol of the victory of the Church, is not a battle standard, but a small twig of willow, similar to the green olive twig that the dove brought to Noah's ark as a sign of the cessation of the flood, as a symbol of the reconciliation of God and man (Gen. 8.11), as a sign of hope and forgiveness. And today we, “like the children of victory,” stand in our churches, holding in our hands, so little resembling combat, the banners of the victory of life over death, faith over despair, love over hatred!
We have passed the long Lent of Forty. We, albeit in a small way, but nevertheless defeated our eternally unsatisfied flesh; albeit in a small way, albeit in the most insignificant, but in the past days of fasting we have tried to overcome the sin that afflicts us. And these tender, slightly green willow shoots are a symbol and a sign of our determination to stay with God to the end, to be faithful to Him "even to death, and the death of the cross" (Phil. 2.8).
Some of us may think that we remembered the victory too soon. Not Life and Eternity, but "Death and Time reign on earth." And yet it was precisely in these tragic days, a few hours before the execution, that the Lord said to His disciples: "...be of good cheer: I have conquered the world" (John 16.33). He says so because the victory, of which we are all now the standard-bearers, is accomplished, according to the apostle, “in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12.9). And it is not strength that breaks strength, it is not the conqueror of legions and armies who enters the Holy City, but “Your King is coming sitting on a young donkey” (John 12:15).
This is how the Lord Himself speaks about this to His disciples: “... you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 16:20). What outwardly looks like a triumph and victory, in fact, goes through a mournful path to Golgotha. What appears to the envious soul of Judas as a senseless waste of the precious world, in fact, is preparation for the sacrificial slaughter of the One about whom it is said: “... behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1.29). Finally, the very death of the Crucified becomes a guarantee of the life of the perishing world, because, as St. John Chrysostom reminds us again and again: “Hell hoped to seize the mortal body, but found God. Hell hoped to seize the ashes, but met Heaven. Hell hoped to seize what it saw, but attacked what it did not see!”
06:36 — REGNUM
Today the Orthodox Church celebrates the entry of the Lord into Jerusalem - Palm Sunday. As we said before, the path of Christ on earth can be characterized as "one man in the field." The characterization is true of all His works on earth. He also went to arrest and death alone, none of the apostles was taken and tried, because the “judges” could not figure out, understand that the seed had already been sown, shoots would soon begin, which, however, would then be aggressively weeded out.
« Behold, the hour is coming, and it has already come, that you will scatter each one in your own direction and leave Me alone; but I am not alone, because the Father is with me". No matter how many crowds sometimes accompanied Jesus, He never really had any helpers. There were disciples whom He taught until the last hour. And the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, from which many of the witnesses expected more - declaring Himself King - ended exactly the same as before. Quite traditionally for Himself, he dispersed the merchants, disrupted their business, forced them out of the Temple, and then, in the cleared place, set about the usual: to heal and teach. The next day, while continuing to teach people, the evangelists report, He told two parables. The first is about two sons: One man had two sons; and he, going up to the first, said: Son! go and work today in my vineyard. But he said in response: I do not want; and then, repentant, he went. And going to another, he said the same. This one said in response: I am going, sir, and did not go. Which of the two carried out the will of the father?.
The second immediately after this one about the evil vinedressers: “ Listen to another parable: there was a certain owner of the house who planted a vineyard, surrounded it with a fence, dug a winepress in it, built a tower, and having given it to the vinedressers, went away. When the time of fruits drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers to take their fruits; the vinedressers seized his servants, nailed one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than before; and they did the same. Finally, he sent his son to them, saying: They will be ashamed of my son. But the vinedressers, seeing the son, said to each other: this is the heir; let us go and kill him and take possession of his inheritance. And they seized him and led him out of the vineyard and killed him. So when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do with these tenants?? Both parables denounced the then ostentatious religiosity, in fact they boiled down to one thought. Those who call themselves believers, obediently, in words promised to do the will of God, but in reality they only settled down on the fruits that religion gave. And they got so used to feeding on them that they didn’t let anyone near them who even obviously spoke from God.
Christ summed up His parables by saying, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that bears its fruits.". “People” does not mean any ethnic group. It is not said that some people will be chosen "from above" and given patents for the use of the correct religion. Any group of people that gives the expected results will be the same people, and not those who once again say " I am going, sir, and did not go". As it says in today's apostolic reading, " my brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is glorious, whatever is virtue and praise, consider these things.". It is the collective, “brotherly”: honesty, justice, virtue, listed by the apostle, that are capable of producing these fruits. Not for this did Jesus teach the apostles that they would later be glorified as saints and for this reason they should have prayed. He did not prepare the righteous, preoccupied exclusively with their own salvation. He sowed the seed that was to grow into a people capable of collectively doing the same works that Christ did.
Today's Church feast prescribes to remember the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem. His very return to the city was a risky step, not approved by the apostles. If not for the death of a friend, perhaps He would have waited some more time. Rumors about the resurrection of Lazarus, confirmed by witnesses, added to Jesus' popularity among the people, who, it is said, "keep listening to him". Therefore, despite the ongoing aggressive questioning of His religious leaders, they could not arrest Him in public, and Christ had another week to continue teaching, and He took advantage of these days. Understanding the inevitability of His execution, Jesus also saw that the time had come to leave the apostles alone, not being afraid that they would scatter to their homes and forget about everything: “ Truly, truly, I say to you, if a grain of wheat, falling into the ground, does not die, it will remain alone; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit».
Knowing how everything would end, Jesus also understood that, being with Him, the disciples still remain dependent, incapable of making decisions. But a little more, and together they will make up His Body, not separately, but only together. But not only the apostles, of course, He prepared for this. Much of what Jesus did in His last days on earth was "for the people"(John 12:30). The people, too, should have known that nothing would end with His death. Everything was just beginning. The "growers", who promised to perform the work, did not cope, hastening to get rid of the "heir". But instead of one heir immediately became many.
The Church is entering special days today - days full of rejoicing and tragedy. On days where there is almost no border between "HOSANNA!" and "CRUCK!"...
How terrible it is to yearn and desire an earthly king and not consider the Living God before you! There are frolics, exclamations, bed clothes all around... And Christ goes through all this - to His death.
He knows that the hands that hold the flowers today will hold the stone with hatred tomorrow. And the eyes that today keep a smile, in a few days will light up with an unkind fire and bleed.
He spoke to them about the Kingdom of Heaven, and they were only waiting for the satisfaction of their earthly problems! He proclaimed to them about Divine Love and He Himself was Love, and they ruthlessly trampled on this love!
Sermon on Palm Sunday "The hour has come," says the Lord, "the Son of Man shall be glorified." But this glorification will not be through the brilliance of political glory... His glorification will be through death!
Disappointment awaits everyone who expects only earthly victory from Christ. They wanted to put Him on the brilliant royal earthly throne, he chose the Cross and Death. Death, through which Eternal Life will be revealed to all mankind!
Today's holiday is difficult and tragic. They open the doors of Holy Week - the most intense, most dramatic time of the church year. We stand with the vayami today, and the Lord wants so much that none of us will ever turn away from Him. So that we stand at His Cross, and not warm ourselves at the fire of earthly life.
The Lord does not extort our love for Him. He is waiting for a free, joyful, inspired response to His Love! Love is always movement and this movement must be mutual!
Dostoevsky once very vividly said about his life path: “My Hosanna passed through a huge crucible of doubts!” The path of each of us is a fiery crucible of doubts, illnesses, sorrows, tears, unexpected trials, anxieties and unrest. And what a joy that we are in the Church! The Church is the most precious experience of Eternal Life, which begins today, now, here and extends into the Kingdom of Heaven. Faith gives us inspiration! Gives strength and courage to carry our life's cross.
A believing person tries to "keep his mind in hell," as God said to St. Silouan of Athos. But at the same time, with joy and great, deep hope, he thinks about the future transformed Cosmos, when “God will be all and in everything” and where “the eye does not see, and the ear does not hear, and it does not rise into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love His".
But in order to inherit Eternal Life, one needs gigantic labor, an incredible effort of the soul, a huge sincere love for God and neighbors.
Once a student came to his elder and asked: “How do you know that I am a living person and not a dead one?”
“You are alive,” said the elder, “if your heart has not yet been covered, like grave earth, with vanity, indifference, despondency, boredom!
You are alive if your eyes can still cry, and your soul can sympathize!
You are alive if in your Heaven, with the letters of humble and quiet stars, the most important word is embroidered - LOVE!
... It's scary if all the capacities of our soul are occupied by only one thing - by ourselves. Fasting was supposed to help us open our hearts to our neighbor, open our hearts to Eternity.
Father Ephraim of Vatopedi, who recently brought the Belt of the Theotokos to Russia, said remarkably: “We, monks, will contribute to the cause of spiritual help to our people not by going back and forth, disclosing, preaching, but by experiencing Christ ". This is the whole meaning of our spiritual, heartfelt work, both monks and laity - to experience Christ experientially!
Now we are standing with vayami in our hands. “God is the Lord and appear to us! Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord!” But through the joy of today's holiday, the prayer of the Garden of Gethsemane and the lamentations of Golgotha are already heard. And with every moment, with every breath, the distance between “HOSANNA!” and "CRUCK!"
But God needs to go through all this: both the betrayal of the disciple, and the prayer for the Chalice, and the mockery of ignorant soldiers and the cries: “Come down from the Cross!” He needs to go this way for us and for us!
And He will not come down from the Cross. Through the Cross and death He will pass to His Resurrection!
And each of us - such is the law of spiritual life - will also someday pass through the steps of his Passion Week. And no one will escape crucifixion, no one will bypass their Golgotha.
But after her - and this is the whole point and all our hope and all our hope - there will definitely be EASTER!
Sermon by the rector of the Holy Transfiguration Church in Kharkov, Fr. Victor (Burbela) on the feast of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem on April 9, 2017
Today we celebrate the great twelfth feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. Jesus visited Jerusalem many times during his earthly life, but never before had he come to that city in the way he did this time. This was his last coming to Jerusalem before he was captured and crucified on the cross.
But on this day, when he approached the outskirts of the Holy City, accompanying His people and the multitude of people who were going to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, and the inhabitants of this city, having heard about the approach of Jesus, went out to meet Him to greet Him with honors . They went out because by that time Jesus was very famous all over the country and especially in Jerusalem. And everyone came out to look at this man who did such things, spoke such words that no one could do or say. People marveled and rejoiced that they had such a prophet.
But there were those who did not rejoice, but envied, there were those who denied all miracles because of their own pride and inability to see the obvious and recognize it as real.
What did the Jews expect from Jesus?
Those people who went out to see Jesus saw in Him not just a preacher, they saw in Him their savior from Roman rule. At that time, Judea was under the rule of the Romans, and all the people were striving to be freed from this slavery, and they thought that Jesus, who can work such miracles, is the one who is able to free them in our human understanding, in the political.
They were especially convinced by the last and loudest miracle, which produced a great shock - this is the resurrection of Lazarus, whom many knew personally, he lived in Bethany and was a friend of Jesus. As the Gospel of John says, one day Lazarus fell ill, and when his illness became irreversible, he died while still quite young. When he was still alive, his sisters Martha and Mary sent a messenger to Jesus to tell him that Lazarus was very ill and that Jesus would come and heal him. But Jesus hesitated. But then He still went to Bethany. But before He came, Lazarus died.
When Martha learned that Jesus was coming to him, she went out to meet Him. According to Jewish tradition, when a person died in a village, it was the sorrow of the entire village. And even if people were not close to the deceased, it was considered right to come to the house of the deceased and mourn with relatives and friends. So there were many people in the house of the late Lazarus. When Martha went to meet Jesus, many people followed her, thinking that she went to the tomb of her brother to weep. Seeing Jesus, Martha fell at His feet, saying, if You were here, then my brother would not have died. In response to these words, Jesus said: Your brother will not die, only believe. Martha answered: I know that he will rise on the last day, on the general resurrection from the dead. To this Jesus said: I am the Resurrection and the Life, therefore he who believes in Me, even if he dies, will be resurrected, and he who lives by faith in Me will never see death. And Martha answered: I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, coming into the world.
These words of Christ were a revelation to the people about their Divinity. And when they approached the tomb in which they buried Lazarus, by that time the second sister Mary came there, and Jesus, seeing that the sisters were weeping, and He himself also wept. And he ordered the people to roll away the stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb. At that time, in that area, dead people were buried in stone caves and a large stone was rolled to the entrance, these were some kind of tombs. The deceased person was completely wrapped from head to toe in a long cloth, having previously been anointed with fragrant oils, then they were placed in a coffin.
Jesus' command to roll away the stone from the tomb confused everyone present, because this was usually not done, only in rare exceptional cases. First of all, because for the Jews of that time, touching a dead body was considered a desecration. Moreover, Martha says to Jesus: Lord, for the fourth day he has been lying in the tomb, he already stinks, the body decomposes so that the smell can be heard here. But Christ insisted that the stone be rolled away, and standing at the entrance to the cave said: Lazarus, come out. And as the evangelists describe, the deceased came out, completely entwined in funeral shrouds, and stood at the entrance to the tomb, so that everyone was horrified, not understanding what was happening. And Jesus commanded to untie him, and this miracle of the resurrection of a man who had already died, whose body had corruption according to the law of our nature, made a very strong impression on people who knew Lazarus and were at his funeral, and now saw him alive.
After this miracle, many people believed in Jesus as a prophet, and the elders, scribes and Pharisees, who claimed that Jesus was not a prophet, but a false prophet, were put to shame. Moreover, seeing Lazarus resurrected, many who knew him, who learned about this miracle, believed in Jesus as the Messiah expected by all Jews. This event was the apogee of the totality of all his miracles performed during the years of His preaching, and therefore many people, all together, came out to meet Him, as it is fitting to meet kings, victors in wars: they spread their clothes along the path along which Christ was to go, and those who did not have outer clothing cut off the branches of date palms, saluted Jesus, waving them, and also strewed His path with these branches. And with one voice they shouted: Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who goes in the name of the Lord.
But Jesus was not happy with this jubilation
However, Jesus was not proud of such a meeting, as many of us would be proud, He did not bow in response to greetings, how can we nod to people who greet us with jubilation, proud of our glory. And He grieved, because He knew what would happen, that after a few days the people who solemnly welcomed Him as a king would demand: Crucify, crucify Him!
An absolutely amazing picture appears before us. Why is it that a huge number of people who believed in Jesus Christ, whom they met as the Messiah, suddenly changed their minds so quickly, and suddenly began to ask for His death and execution? Probably because they did not expect from God what He would like to give them. They expected from Jesus what they wanted, earthly, temporary, tangible, what they needed here and now, what their mind prompted them to do.
But Christ spoke to them about the eternal. He said, "My kingdom is not of this world" Jn. 18.36. And since His Kingdom is not of this world, it means that the laws of this Kingdom are different, the goals in this Kingdom are different, the logic of being in this Kingdom of God is different from the logic of being in our ordinary earthly life. That is why the people did not understand Him. Giving him support when he entered Jerusalem, they thought that immediately he would raise a rebellion and overthrow the Roman dominion, become their king and by his miraculous appearances produce bread and circuses for them. What else does a person need? Meal'n'Real.
Therefore, when Christ said that he did not come for this, but so that everyone would live forever, they did not understand Him, and were angry with Him that they did not receive what they expected. And they crucified Him. And what?
For 2000 years, all nations have learned about Jesus, and the Good News about Christ has reached us. But we have seen His glory not only from the pages of the Gospel, we know Him not only from the stories of our ancestors, priests, and preachers. We know that He is God by personal experience. We meet His word with joy, because we know for ourselves that everything that God says brings good to a person.
Nevertheless, unfortunately, there come periods in our lives when we renounce God, become indifferent to Him, live aimlessly, not understanding the meaning of our eternal stay. And all this turns our life into vanity and hell.
Why do people still not believe? Yes, for the same reason. Because they seek and demand from God not what is inherent in Him and the order of the universe according to the Divine plan, but they demand what they want. And if they say: Lord, Thy will be done, but the heart says: but not now. now let my will be done for now. And this obscures to us the correctness of setting the goal of our life.
But what to do? A person comes to confession, he understands the commandments, he tries to keep them in his life, he partakes of the holy Mysteries of Christ in order to be united with God by his Eucharistic union, so that the Body of Christ becomes a particle of my body, my nature, so that the Blood of Christ taught at the Eucharist will flow and in my veins, and from this the logic of my life has changed, so that my thoughts are not just a human conclusion, but Divine revelation, so that the events around me take place not only because I do this, but because God acts so that my environment is not like me, but like God, teaching me the right meaning, purity, abstinence.
When is God in the soul?
But it often happens that after coming to church, having confessed, taking communion, a person leaves the church, immediately forgets who he is, forgets that he is a Christian. Days, months, years and even decades pass in this forgetfulness. And the man says: God is in my soul. But I want to ask a question: where did He come from, how did you drive Him there? After all, God lives only where there is no sin, where there is no condemnation and curses, where there is forgiveness, where there is prayer, where there is abstinence of the tongue, mind, heart, where there is a clear understanding that the meaning, and life, and breath is God. Where there is this understanding, there are other goals in life. A person who knows that he is eternal, that he differs from all creatures created on earth by a higher mind, a philosophical mind, a feeling of the soul, warmth and love in his heart, if he differs in all this, then this is given to him in order to comprehend the world completely on another level, to comprehend oneself, why am I here, why am I here, what will happen next, and the one who comprehends unambiguously comes to the conclusion: if we remove God from our life, full of suffering, hard work, illness and short-term, then we can come into absolute madness. Then the question is, why all this? Why build something, why study, why work, if everything passes, and even the joy of creation, especially with age.
Everything passes, everything changes, only God does not change. And when a person has decided that there is no God, then what is the point? It finds meaning only in temporary purposes, with the approach of which, or with the approach of disease or death, everything loses its meaning altogether. Therefore, the conclusion that Christians draw is life. A Christian sees no meaning in death, there can be no meaning in death. Meaning is only in life. And today Christ says: I am your Way, I am your Life, I am your Truth.
Each of us has our own truth, and we are all right in our own way, at the household level, social, family. But there is a truth, in the light of which it becomes clear that defending only his own truth, a person acts insanely, because he cannot see the Truth. Christ addressed the people not in order to take away their personal truth from them, but in order to fill this truth with truth, and when we fight for our earthly goods, as we do it every day, remembering that there is God, then these blessings will not be achieved in an unrighteous way, by infringing on others, by violence against them or by deceiving them, but they will be achieved by righteousness.
If we listen to the commandments, if we think about the words that Jesus spoke to people, including us, then our earthly meanings will gain eternal growth, then our mind will be able to protect eternity. And if we want to feel in ourselves what the Kingdom of God is, then we must learn the laws of this Kingdom, take the book of His commandments, and live as He spoke.
And then our life will not pass according to the logic of self-exaltation, that's how smart I am, how well I thought of it, but according to the logic of the Divine. And then a person will begin to understand why he lives. And with this understanding, he will begin to see how he lives, to figure out what is right and wrong with him, then he can know the correct goal of his life, he can distribute the time of his life so that there is enough time to be a man and please God, and not to ruin your soul, and to find the resources of gray matter in yourself in order to think that the whole world around us, and ourselves, and all nature, everything testifies, everything screams about God, everything breathes in Him and Him.
How blind and deaf do we need to be in order to silence the voice of God within ourselves. The person who says that God is in his soul often deceives himself. It is not God in his soul, but the voice of God in the form of conscience, this natural feeling given during the creation of man, the feeling of unity with God, reminding from the inside that God exists.
But a person does not cultivate this feeling, he does nothing to be at least a little like his Creator, and confuses the call of God with God himself.
And today we are all standing in the temple, in our hands we have willows as the same symbol as date branches were for the Jews. We do not grow dates, but willow grows. And today we have come, like those people two thousand years ago, to meet Jesus before His suffering on the Cross, saying: Lord, come to our city, and to our family, and to my ear. But if we want God to come to us, then we should not demand from Him earthly things that are corruptible and wrong, but we need to ask Him for wisdom in order to know how to live.
First of all, seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and everything that you need, everything will be added to you by itself, for before your petition, I know what you need, the Lord himself tells us. God is a loving father, and gives to everyone who asks, but will a loving father give his child something that will surely harm him? Of course not. Likewise, we who came to the temple on this day with palm branches or willow branches, ask God to come into your soul, and listen to what He says, and apply it in your life, and then you will see God living and active in the world and in you. Amen.
"Palm Sunday", "Verbnitsa" - the sixth week of Great Lent, the last Sunday before Easter, the feast of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem. On this day, Jesus was greeted with palm branches and songs of praise. In Russia, palm branches were replaced by willow. We consecrate the willow, decorate it, it is a talisman, the personification of life and growth.
When is Sunday on Saturday?
Palm Sunday Eve - Lazarus Saturday - the day when Jesus healed Lazarus a few days after his death. Since then, Christianity has been celebrating the feast of the Resurrection of Saint Lazarus. On this day, it was customary for Russian peasants to go to the forest for willow before sunrise. The brought twigs were immediately decorated with paper flowers, fruits, often a paper angel, a "verb cherub" was hung from the twigs. They went to church to sanctify the willow on the same day for the evening service or on Sunday morning. The consecrated branches were placed in the front corner on the goddess or placed behind the icons. In Siberia, a special “teremok” was made of straw for willow, which was decorated with rags, ribbons, and then hung in front of the icon.
"It's not me who beats, the willow beats, the willow whip beats to tears"
As soon as they returned home from matins, all household members would certainly hit each other with consecrated willow branches, saying: "Beat the red willow to tears, be healthy." This custom had a magical character: during contact, the willow transferred its life-giving forces to a person, filled him with energy. So, when children were whipped with willow, they said and conjured: “As the willow grows, so do you grow”, thereby transferring the properties of the plant to the child. Willow and its blossoming earrings, the appearance of which was the first visible manifestation of spring, in the popular imagination was the focus of fertility, plant strength, and health.
Egoriev's day
As children were whipped, so on the day of the first pasture on the pasture, on Egor's Day, they hit with a consecrated willow to protect animals from death, the evil eye, snakes, wolves, to ensure a good offspring, as well as to pacify the cattle, make it obey shepherd. Then the branches were stuck in a barn under the roof, “so that the cattle would not wander,” or let them float on the water, sometimes burned in a furnace, or fed to livestock. But throwing away the willow after the first pasture was a sin. Sometimes the consecrated branches were kept for a whole year behind the images until the next Verbnitsa, and only then they burned and put up a new consecrated willow. Also on Yegoriev's Day, after pasture, the branches could be broken and scattered across the field, and the buds could be crushed into grain intended for future sowing, thereby affecting the forces of nature, increasing the harvest.
"Lambs", "grandmothers", "katushki"
In order for the sheep to breed and not be transferred, but to multiply, they were fed with specially prepared loaves and bread, inside of which willow buds were baked. In some places, kidney-shaped cookies were baked according to the number of cattle and poultry in the house, and in other local traditions, for all family members. It was customary to consecrate cookies along with willow. In the Kostroma province, it was called "lambs", in Moscow - "lambs", "grandmothers" or "akatushki", in Ryazan - "nuts", "kytka".
Hail of the young
In the Penza province, there was a rite of hailing the young. At midnight on the eve of Palm Sunday, young people went around the houses where the newlyweds lived and shouted at the gate: “Open, open, young, beat with a willow, give more health than before.” The young man had no choice but to unlock the gate, after which the crowd entered with a song: "There would be a harvest of bread, multiplication of cattle." All those sleeping in the hut were lightly hit with a willow, saying: “We beat to be healthy,” and also: “Get up early, beat the ram.” The young one was whipped last, when she bowed, seeing off uninvited guests.
Willow healer
Willow in the popular mind was able not only to give life-giving power, but also to protect against diseases and heal from them. Palm buds were swallowed as a prophylactic against various ailments. They ate nine palm buds, considering it a cure for fever. Barren women were also advised to eat consecrated kidneys, after which they gave birth safely. In the Kuban, willow was used in the treatment of childhood diseases. To do this, early in the morning before sunrise, they went to the river, where they cut three bunches of willow, nine branches each. Then at home they put one bundle in hot water and bathed the child at the window that faced east. At noon, the second bundle was lowered into the water and the child was bathed at the window where the sun stood at that moment. At sunset, similar actions were performed with the third beam in front of the window, looking at the setting sun. After that, all the branches and water, accompanied by a prayer, were poured into the river. It was believed that after these ablutions, the disease would go away. Also, sick cattle were fumigated with willow, ground it into powder and poured into wounds, made a decoction from it and drank, used as lotions from tumors and bruises.
Willow amulet
A willow branch from time immemorial pre-Christian pagan times was endowed with magical supernatural properties: in addition to enriching and healing, it was able to save, protect from lightning, storms, and evil spirits. According to legend, a willow thrown against the wind can turn away a storm, and thrown into a fire can pacify it. It was widely believed that the willow would protect the house from thunder and lightning, since the willow in the beliefs of the Slavs is the tree of the Thunderer, Perun, which strikes with cleansing fire. Palm branches, despite the Christian symbolism, were also attributed to witchcraft power, they were associated with poetic inspiration, sorcery, witchcraft. So, according to legend, in the spring the devils warm up on the willow, and after it is consecrated on a holiday, they fall into the water, and therefore from Palm Sunday to Easter you cannot drink water scooped up under the willow.
- Dignities and clothes of Orthodox priests and monasticism
- Healers and fortune tellers - why do people go to them?
- During confession. Preparation for confession. List of sins for confession. How to dress for confession
- Praise of the Most Holy Theotokos Praise of the Mother of God with an akathist what they pray for