Hosanna or Crucify?

Let us turn our attention to those two exclamations issuing from people’s lips. There is today’s exclamation, "Hosanna," and the one we will hear during Passion Week on Great Thursday and Great Friday. Those exclamations are called out in our lives as well. When do we say "Hosanna?" When our soul opens up to God, when we recognize our sinfulness, when we see our sin, and we rush to bring true repentance to God and to change our life, adjusting and regulating it according to Christ’s Commandments, in order to set it on the path of the virtues. Then, truly, "Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord" sounds in our souls. Blessed is Christ, coming into my heart, into my soul, into my life. I am just as ready, O Lord, to come out to meet You, ready to spread out before You the garments of my virtues and the God-pleasing works I have done. When we act in that way, we are saying "Hosanna."

But let’s ask ourselves (and try to give an honest, unhypocritical answer) the question: Does that exclamation often sound in my life? Does not "Crucify Him, Crucify Him" sound out more often in my soul? That is precisely what my soul cries out to God when I continue to stagnate in my sins; when I continue to be indifferent to the state of my soul, and do not care whether it is healthy or sick, or perhaps, already dead; when what is happening around me doesn’t matter to me, when I am concerned only with my own visible success; when I don’t see the person who is right beside me; when I am blind to his needs and I remain callous, selfish, not wanting to even think that someone might be in need of my human warmth, my kind words, my sympathetic glance. In short, when I forget my Christian calling, I join the crowd of those Jews who in anger and hatred cried out to Pilate "Crucify Him, crucify Him."

Such are the vitally important questions the Feast of the Lord’s Entry into Jerusalem poses to us; it calls us to reflect on them on the eve of Passion Week and of our Lord’s passion, to comprehend His love, His enormous sacrifice. Just consider His limitless love for mankind! If was because of that love that He, our Lord and Creator, became like us, His creation. Not only does he become Man, but takes up His Cross and ascends Golgotha, there to be crucified together with our sins, to redeem the sins of each -- those who live, have lived, or are to live on earth. Through that crucifixion, through that sacrifice, we are liberated from slavery to sin and are graced with the possibility of being like unto God. The Lord loves us that much!

… As we enter into the days of Passion Week, into the Passion of our Lord, let us constantly be mindful of it, both at home and at work. To the extent possible, may the sufferings of Christ be our own as well. Let us remember that the Lord entered Jerusalem with tears in his eyes. He wept for the city and for the people who did not recognize His coming. May we not be like those irrational people! How wonderful it would be to see on the Lord’s face not tears, but a look of joy. Joy over the fact that we, His children, are striving towards him; of course children who are sometimes irrational, who commit sins and make mistakes, but his children, who love their Lord and cannot imagine life without Him. May Christ’s eyes be brimming not with tears but joy. That depends upon us alone. Let us strive and apply all of our efforts. "Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!"

~from a homily by Father Victor Potapov, Rector, Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Washington, DC

Dear Lord, at least this week, the holiest week of the year, may I sing "Hosanna!" more than I shout "Crucify!" I love You, my Jesus. Please help me love you more and more. Amen.