A great day… Palm Sunday, it seems, was greater than people often imagine.

Let us try to reconstruct the course of that day.

It was the morning after the Sabbath. Word had reached Jerusalem that on this very day, Jesus of Nazareth would enter the city. Jerusalem was in an uproar—He was coming, the One who had just raised a man dead for four days.

Yes! The Lord was coming. He had departed from Bethany and was making His way through the Mount of Olives toward the city. Many of His disciples were following Him.

Passing the palms of Bethany, the travelers approached the “house of figs”—Bethphage.

It was to this village that the Lord sent two of His disciples to fetch a donkey and a colt, for, as He said, they were “needed of the Lord.”

The apostles brought the donkey and the colt, covered them with their garments (a sign of royal honor—see 2 Kings 9:13), seated Him upon the young colt, and the procession set forth.

At first, there was nothing grand or ceremonious in it. Perhaps the apostles were expecting a miracle, but they had not prepared anything themselves. The garments on the colt may have symbolized kingship, but only unintentionally.

Later, they recalled the prophecy of Zechariah:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee; he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass” (Zechariah 9:9).

The procession of the Meek One soon turned into a royal celebration: the people, gathering in ever greater numbers, began spreading their garments along the road, breaking off branches of olive, fig, chestnut, and palm trees, and casting them before Him.

“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"—so cried the Lord’s disciples, and the people took up their words. By this time the sun had risen high in the sky, and as the procession reached the summit of the Mount of Olives, the golden-lit city came into view.

The sun shone so brightly that it was difficult to look upon the gleaming marble pinnacles of the Temple.

The city was beautiful, adorned with what Tacitus once called its “royal mantle of towers,” and the joy of the crowd grew louder.

And the Lord rode on, scattering mercy and miracles along the way—healing the blind.

But the sight of Jerusalem did not bring Him joy.

When the Lord beheld the city, He wept: “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!"—He exclaimed, while the astonished crowd looked on, not knowing what to think or say. Then His words were cut off by weeping.

And when He was able to speak again, He added only: “But now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”

This was the final cry of the glory of the Lord from the Mount of Olives—before the Shekhinah¹ vanished from the sight of the people forever.

It was a prophecy… And how terribly it was fulfilled forty years later.

Four years before the great war, a madman appeared on the streets of Jerusalem, crying out: “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against bridegrooms and brides—against this whole people…

Woe! Woe to Jerusalem. Woe to the city. Woe to the people. Woe to the holy temple.”

This “voice” was an echo of Christ’s own words—and five years later, not one stone was left upon another of the “miracle city” or the golden temple.

After months of slaughter and starvation, during which mothers ate their own children, it seems not even a remnant remained of the once-mighty and frenzied population of the great city.

Now the Lord’s procession met a counter-procession coming out of Jerusalem.

Shouts and greetings rose like the tide. Even the children cried out: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” The scribes and Pharisees, bitterly, drew the Lord’s attention to the children: “Hearest thou what these say?” And He answered: “Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” (Psalm 8:2 [LXX numbering: 8:3]).

The Pharisees also pointed to what they considered the “delirious” rabble, saying, “Rebuke them.” And He replied, “If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”

This, too, was a continuation of the prophecy about those days, when—as both Flavius and the prophet Habakkuk had said—“the stones themselves cried out from torment, and the beams from the wood answered them.”

As the procession neared the city, the excitement grew. “Who is this?” asked pilgrims from distant lands—Greeks.

“Jesus, the prophet from Galilee.”

And Jesus, dismounting at Mount Moriah, entered the city and the temple through the Shushan Gate.

The temple was in the same disorder as it had been three years earlier, when Christ had driven out the merchants.

In the courtyard mosaics, the money-changers had again set up their tables to profitably exchange foreign coins for the “sacred shekel” (the shekel ha-kodesh—half a sacred shekel, as in Exodus 30:13).

Nearby stood the sellers of oxen and sheep. Coins clinked, deals were struck…

And the Lord drove out those who bought and sold, saying: “It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (cf. Isaiah 56:7, Jeremiah 7:11).

This, too, was a prophecy: if the temple was now merely a house of thieves, the time was drawing near when the zemarim would turn it into a den of murder.

Evening had come, and the Lord, surrounded by thousands, stood in the temple. The chief priests, Pharisees, and scribes were in turmoil: “The whole world is going after Him.”

Then Greeks from among the proselytes to Judaism approached Philip and said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.”

Andrew and Philip brought this request to the Lord.

Ambassadors from Abgar of Edessa came forward with a letter from their king, offering the Lord refuge within Abgar’s kingdom…

And Jesus made it known to the world that His hour had come.

He spoke of His death², but His listeners did not understand Him; blind, they could not see the light.

The description of the great day of Palms has taken much space—and necessarily, the conclusion must be brief.

What strikes us most in the image of the Lord on Palm Sunday?

His quiet meekness… He goes to His death, and yet the nearness of the end lays upon Him only the seal of deep compassion for a senseless people—for the blind guides who led them.

In the days that followed, His words—especially those against the scribes—became fiery and searing, born of that same great compassion. But today, He is only meekness.

“Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek,” say both the prophet and the Gospel.

“I am meek and lowly in heart,” the Lord says of Himself. And He left this meek image to the world in His icon “not made by hands,” which was, on this very day, sent to Abgar.

And upon the children—the people of the future—rests His meek blessing.

Is it not then clear how the soul ought to honor the Lord on Palm Sunday?

May the Lord bring forth in us meekness: that great desire not to think of ourselves; to forgive others their evil, both against us and in regard to life as a whole; a desire to renew the world with quiet love, to raise up our neighbors unto resurrection, and to offer—even our very life, in humility and meekness, after the example of the Lord—as a humble sacrifice for the spiritual growth of the Church.

The meek shall inherit the earth.

To the meek is given the victory—the “land of the Lord” shall be theirs both “there” and here, in this vale of suffering. Let us then receive holy meekness as the Cross of Golgotha itself, that we may rise again by the power of Him who is Risen.

1916

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