“Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.”

 

The hymn of Palm Sunday offers three important concepts for us. The first is that even before Christ’s passion and resurrection, He showed us God’s power over death. By raising Lazarus, who had been in the tomb for four days thus confirming his death, he provides for the believers the opportunity to see what is to ultimately happen in the coming days, and is therefore, the precursor of Christ’s Resurrection.

In the raising of Lazarus we witness both the Divine and the Human aspects of Christ. In His Resurrection we witness and share in the restoration of humanity by God. This act confirms for us as believers, the power of God and the victory of life over death.

As St. Paul proclaims, ‘death no longer has dominion,’ and thus, great joy reverberates in the hymn of today. This brings us to the second point. Who cannot help but share in this great joy and imitate the child-like wonder as we hold in our hands the branches of trees and palms. As we look upon the palm crosses that we place with our icons at home, in the coming year, we must strive to remember this great joy found in the innocence of a child, eyes wide open to that which God offers to us. The excitement of a child is contagious. We as adults must remember this because all too often we become cynical and skeptical about life, even the simplest aspects of life. The hymn today reminds us that as we greet Christ we do so as children and rejoice with simple believe and faith.

As we proclaim the coming of Christ today with the words, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord,” we are reminded of the third point. Just as we hold the palms in our hands as an act of faith we must take that same act of faith and proclaim it from the depths of our beings. We are the voices that herald the coming of Christ. We are the faithful who gather to worship as a community, not as individuals, but as family, young and old. By offering the same words heralded millennia earlier, we attest to the truth Christ offered to us in His teachings and miracles. Most importantly, we affirm the truth of that which is to come, His Resurrection.

As we proclaim the coming of Christ today with the words, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord” let us be strengthened for the days to come. May all of us be find the peace of our Lord through the prayers, hymns and readings of the services throughout Holy Week so that we may with one voice proclaim the great joy of the Resurrection receiving the Paschal light into our lives to enlighten our hearts with God’s divine love.