Palm Sunday bridges Great Lent to Holy Week with a Feast about our King. The only problem is, just as the Jews then betrayed Christ during Holy Week, we betray Him everyday when we live as if we are our own king. This can be the year we change and allow Him to be our King, not just in word but in deed.

Transcript:

My brothers and sisters, we have finished Great Lent. We celebrated Lazarus’s raising yesterday, and today another Feast of the Church. We are celebrating our king, our savior, our God. He has come to save us, but if we are honest with ourselves, many times we do not live as if God is our king.

Now, don’t be confused. I know we live in United States of America. We don’t have a king. Biden is not our king. Charles is not our king. Constantine is not our king. Christ is our king. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we live normally as if we are our own king. We live according to our will. We live according to as we say, our own truth. Well, as we’re going to experience this week, this holy week, God is truth. Christ is truth. We cannot have our own truth. We can only have Christ.

And so for these 40 days of Great Lent, the church was asking us to reflect upon our own sinfulness, something that our society doesn’t really appreciate, something that our society quite frankly thinks is a waste of time. How many do we encounter in our society who live the belief, I’m just find the way I am. I don’t have to change. God loves me just the way I am. And it’s true God loves us, but God wants more for us. It’s true, we are fallen, we are sinful. None of us is perfect. God doesn’t expect us to not make mistakes. But what he asks of us my brothers and sisters, is that we actually live as if he is our king. We are asked to live as if he sets the rules, not us.

Another thing that is very foreign for us in the United States, we are a government of the people by the people for the people. We make our own rules as Americans. But as Christians, God makes our rules, we don’t make our own, because he is our king. But it’s more than just following the rules. Our king is here to protect us. We are celebrating today, Christ as the king entering into Jerusalem as the victor, as the one who’s going to destroy Hades. He’s going to destroy death, and we’re going to follow him every night this week on the path. But already in the gospel, we see a glimpse of selfishness. Already in the gospel, we see that they are worried because he’s gaining too much attention.

And it says in the gospel that because of this, they even wanted to kill Lazarus again. Because the elites, those in power couldn’t stand the idea that someone else was king. Let’s not fool ourselves. We live under the same delusion. We live frustrated that we cannot set our own rules. And all we have to do is open our will to God. Allow him to lead us, to guide us, allow his way of life to become our way of life. This is the journey that awaits us this week my brothers and sisters, to walk with him, to allow him to be part of us, and to allow us to be part of him. That is the great gift that he has given us in holy communion. He is a part of us and we are a part of him. And so this week, as he goes to his passion, we also are going to go to our passion. We are going to experience death with our Savior this week.

And how do we do that as Orthodox Christians? The death of our will, in our fasting, in making a commitment to come to church every night this week. Every night. It’s only one week in the calendar year to come and walk with Christ. And to give up ourselves for him, not for me, not for our family, not for our friends, but for Christ. So come and join us. Be with him as our king, and then he will save us like we’ve never experienced before. Glory to God for all things.