On Palm Sunday our reception of Christ into Jerusalem is with cries of great joy and hope and yet we know from the gospel that there is a bitter edge to this joy. The voices that shout “Hosanna!” will soon cry “Crucify Him!”  On the basis that the gospels always teach us something about ourselves, we must recognise this double mindedness in our own discipleship. True, the turning of the crowd against Christ and its demand for his death reveals the fickleness of a mob psychology that we shall, as Christians, discern and resist. However, although we shall not go the way of the mob in their betrayal of Christ, we do well to remember that even St Peter lost his nerve at the time of testing in the courtyard of Pilate and would not confess Christ when his own life was in danger. If, therefore, we want to shout “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday we can only do so with integrity if we are also prepared to take up our own cross and follow Christ on Great and Holy Friday.

Words often come cheap; it is actions that invariably speak louder than words. We need to develop an interior self-awareness and self-discipline so that we do not promise to do something beyond our actual intention to carry this through.  Without this faithful dependability, tested in affliction, we shall be like those hypocrites, the whitewashed sepulchres of which Jesus himself speaks.

Then there is the problem of suffering and realism about that in our lives.  There are some Christians, both heterodox and Orthodox, who jump, as it were, straight from Palm Sunday to Pascha. Some say that the events of Great and Holy Friday are just too upsetting to face them red and raw every year. But isn’t that the point? God is personally present and involved in those dreadful aspects of sin, suffering, evil and death - precisely because they are dreadful. His victorious love must confront the horror if indeed it is to be the strong love that truly overturns death in the resurrection.

There were two disciples of Jesus Christ who knew this from the start, the Mother of God and St John the Theologian. Only the Theotokos and St John, however, remained at the foot of the cross while Christ died. The Mother of God knew that Simeon’s prophecy (that a sword would pierce her own soul) was being fulfilled at Golgotha and that she must stay there with her Son, both in her suffering as well as His, if she was to be made worthy of the Kingdom. Likewise St John, who had lain close to Christ’s breast at the Last Supper, would not desert him now. The “hour”, of which he repeatedly speaks in his gospel, had now come and he must be there at the Cross with his Lord. These two servants of God were no fair weather friends of Christ but rather true cross bearers.  The rest of the disciples would learn this lesson in due course. We also need to learn and relearn this from time to time.

It is important, therefore, as we enter Great and Holy Week to have the right attitude concerning the events of Christ’s Passion together with those services, particularly on Great and Holy Friday, that dramatically present them to us afresh each and every year. When we stand before the cross we shall see not just the bloody and tortured body of God dying for us but also ourselves lifted up on that cross, sacrificing our lives for others. Love begets love.  “Greater love has no man than this than he lay down his life as friends.” That is why Great and Holy Friday matters and why we cannot jump straight from Palm Sunday to Pascha.  Those who receive the light at Pascha must first face the darkness of the Cross.

From this apostolic teaching we learn that Great and Holy Week and Pascha is a personal journey from death to life, from darkness to light, from horror to beauty, from hatred to love.  Christ of his own free will received our darkness so that His Light might overcome it.  If we want this Light, we have to tread the way of the cross with Him. This is how St. Melito of Sardis describes it in one of his Paschal sermons:-

Thou hast given thyself for redemption:/ Soul for soul, Body for body, and Blood for blood,/ Man for man, and Death for death./ O strange and unspeakable mystery:/ The Judge was judged;/ He who loosed the bound was bound;/ He who created the world was fixed with nails;/ He who measures heaven and earth was measured;/ He who gives creatures life died;/ He who raises the dead was buried./ What is this new Creation?/ The Judge is judged and is silent;/ The Invisible is seen on the Cross and is not ashamed;/ The Infinite is contained and does not complain;/ The Impassible suffers and does not seek vengeance;/ The Immortal dies and says nothing;/ The King of heaven is buried and endures it./ What is this strange Mystery?

What is this strange Mystery indeed?  Tell me, tell each other, tell the world! … but only when you have completed your journey, in full that is, from darkness to light on Pascha morning.