Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday:
Jesus Christ Prefigures Our Own Resurrections and Journeys to His
The Great Lenten journey comes to an end on the sixth Friday of Lent, which falls the day before the precursor to Great and Holy Week: known commonly as “Lazarus Saturday.” The day after is, of course, the celebration of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, known as “Palm Sunday.” The fasting from foods does not end at this point, because we simply start a more focuses week-long season of prayer leading to the joyful Resurrection of our Lord. This holy weekend marks that start.
Jesus and His twelve Initiates were on the road to Jerusalem by way of Bethany. Before He was to make His triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Christ learned of the suffering and repose of His good friend Lazarus. As we will read in the Holy Gospel lesson for Lazarus Saturday during Divine Liturgy, our Savior plainly reveals to the universe that He is fully God and fully man; and that He will resurrect the dead and resurrect Himself. Jesus walks up to his friend’s tomb, and by His mere words, commands Lazarus to “come out.” The exclamation is proof enough that this Nazarene has authority over life and death. But before Lazarus was raised, Jesus revealed His human nature—“Jesus wept.” The man mourned Lazarus, dead for four days. “Jesus wept”—it is the shortest yet most profound sentence in the entire Gospel, found in John 11:35. And this action prefigured His painful, agonizing struggle on the Cross. Like any one of us would do, Jesus shuttered as He felt the nails going through His hands and feet. We all know pain and suffering, but not as well as our Lord, Who felt both on the cross while He also took on sin and death.
If we take a closer look at the Divine Liturgy celebrated on Lazarus Saturday, we realize some significant changes. The only day of the week that we sing “Save us, O Son of God, Who art risen from the dead” is on Sundays. Otherwise, we sing “Save us, O Son of God, Who art wondrous in the saints.” Yet, on Lazarus Saturday, we sing “risen from the dead” to constantly remind us why we celebrate Holy Week in the first place: Christ will rise from the dead to defeat sin, and will raise all believers in Him just like He raised His friend Lazarus. We get this constant reminder also from the apolytikion hymn of Lazarus Saturday:
“O Christ God, when thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead before Thy Passion, Thou didst confirm the universal Resurrection. Wherefore, we, like the children, carrying the signs of victory, cry unto thee, the conqueror of death: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord.” (Sung in Tone One)
The first half of this hymn celebrates Christ’s miracle and significance of the raising of Lazarus, and the second half leads us into the celebration of Palm Sunday. The children and all the people behold the Master of the universe come into their midst, shouting, “Hosanna,” a joyful cry that means “save us, we pray.” Having learned of His raising of Lazarus the day before, and His other miracles He wrought in His earthly ministry, the people of Jerusalem knew full well Who Jesus was, is and ever shall be: our Savior. Today, we in modern times join in with those earliest believers not just in worship on this day, but by our worship and belief in Him every single day, starting with the day we became Orthodox Christians. Look no further than to the apolytkion hymn of Palm Sunday:
O Christ God, when we were buried with Thee in Baptism, we became deserving of Thy Resurrection to immortal life. Wherefore, we praise Thee, crying: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord. (Sung in Tone Four)
The blessed waters in which we were submerged in our baptismal days drowned out our sins (thus burying them) and made us ready for our own resurrections on the Last Day. We, too, can pray out loud to the Lord to save us, just like the children and adults on that original day where they lined the streets with palms and other branches. Those have now come to represent Christ’s triumph over Satan and sin, which He would defeat in hell later that week (see Holy Saturday). Thus, we bless palms on this day for our own entry with Christ into His Passion and Resurrection, as we walk with Him step by step in our services. Even the donkey’s colt that Christ rode in on has symbolic meaning: it was an untamed and impure animal according to the Judaic law, but also represented the former savagery and impurity of the Gentiles, the unbelievers. When Christ sat upon it, He revealed their subsequent taming and obedience to the holy law of the Gospel.
Jesus’ very sitting on that colt also fulfills prophecy, as the Holy Gospel lesson on Palm Sunday teaches us. The prophet Zechariah told us in the Old Testament where we could expect to find Jesus on this glorious day: “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” (Zechariah 9:9 and John 12:15). We, the children of the New Israel (all of God’s people who believe in Him), know Christ in the New Testament in many ways, one of which is fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. This is why we gather in Great Vespers to begin the celebration of this Great Feast, where we hear these verses in “O Lord, I Have Cried”:
Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has brought us together; and lifting Thy Cross we all say: “Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord;” “Hosanna in the highest.”
AND
“Today, the Word of God and coeternal Son of the Father, Whose throne is Heaven and Whose foot‑stool is the earth, has humbled Himself, coming to Bethany on a dumb colt.”
Once again, our loving mother, the Church, has given us hymns to fully understand the meaning of this and all great celebrations. When we heed, we are easily enlightened.