This week I counted 33 different species flowering here on my property! Most of those aren’t exactly cutting flowers, but there were enough blooms to snip and arrange into a celebratory bouquet to help my house reflect the joy we are all experiencing tonight as we cry, “Christ is risen!” 
I’m too busy celebrating (or sleeping) to say any more right now, except for,
“Indeed He is risen!”
“When St. Paul preached in Athens, the world was thronged with crosses, rooted outside cities, bearing all of them the bodies of slowly dying men. When Augustine preached in Carthage, the world was also thronged with crosses, but now in the very centre of cities, lifted in processions and above altars, decorated and jewelled, and bearing all of them the image of the Identity of dying Man.
“There can hardly ever have been — it is a platitude — a more astonishing reversion in the history of the world. It is not surprising that Christianity should sometimes be regarded as the darkest of superstitions, when it is considered that a thing of the lowest and most indecent horror should have been lifted, lit, and monstrously adored, and that not merely sensationally but by the vivid and philosophic assent of the great intellects of the Roman world. The worship in jungles and marshes, the intoxication of Oriental mysteries, had not hidden in incense and litany a more shocking idol. The bloody and mutilated Form went up everywhere; Justinian built the Church of Holy Wisdom to it in Byzantium, and the Pope sang Mass before it on the hills where Rome had been founded. The jewelled crosses hid one thing only — they hid the indecency. But original crucifixion was precisely indecent. The images we still retain conceal — perhaps necessarily — the same thing; they preserve pain but they lack obscenity. But the dying agony of the God-Man exhibited both….”
-Charles Williams in The Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church
6th century Byzantine mosaic in the apse of the basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, Italy. Photo in the public domain, on Wikipedia Commons.
I don’t know if I have ever before considered the difference between the betrayals of Judas and Peter. In a recent podcast for Holy Week Sister Vassa Larin gave a talk on this subject that I found very moving.
Judas is most famous for handing Jesus over to the authorities for the price of 30 pieces of silver. Right up until that momentous event he had been the disciple who had the responsibility for “the bag,” that is, he was the treasurer for the company of Jesus and his friends.
In the Gospel of John we read this telling account:
Then, six days before the
Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.
But Jesus said, “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always.”
What Sister Vassa points out is the lack of love for the Lord that Judas shows here. She gives an example from modern life, to help us imagine: What if you are a mother whose son brings you flowers, and all your husband can say about the gesture of love is, “What a waste of money!” What would that tell you about his own love for you? And how would you feel?
We don’t know why Judas had failed to respond to the love of Christ and to reciprocate, but it seems that even at that last supper where he was present with the other disciples, Jesus was giving himself to Judas until the end, humbly washing his feet right along with the others, and offering him in particular a piece of bread from His own hand. As Jesus was speaking about how they ought to love and serve one another, He was doing the same. But Judas did not get it. In the words of Canticle Nine for Holy Wednesday, “…in exchange for money he rejects fellowship with Christ….how hast thou forgotten what Christ taught thee, that thy soul is more in value than the whole world!”
Afterward, when he saw that Jesus was condemned, he regretted what he had done, but Sister Vassa says it seems to be for ethical reasons that Judas regrets it, and not because he sinned against someone he loved. He distances himself from his sin and from the Lord even in his words, not using the name of Jesus but only referring to him as “innocent blood” that he had wrongfully betrayed. Judas immediately gives in to despair and commits suicide. He did not have the loving connection to Christ that would have been the starting point for going in a different direction, back to the fold where he had previously been loved and accepted. As Sr. Vassa says, “Even if you betray someone, love enables you to weep and repent; there is a connection, a personal relationship that still exists even when you fall short.”
Peter, on the other hand, soon after saying that he would lay down his life for Christ, three times denied that he even knew the Lord. He was cut to the heart when Jesus looked pointedly across the courtyard at him, and he realized he had done just what the Lord had warned him about earlier that evening. Peter went out and wept bitterly, which is an appropriate response if you have betrayed and hurt someone you love.
And if you are the betrayed? Some of us may have to share this experience of the human condition, as Christ did. Only God can forgive sins, but as much as possible we would want to respond as our Savior did to Peter, and be glad if those who sin against us are repentant and come back.
Sister Vassa: “When Peter is restored by the risen Lord, the conversation is not about saying sorry, it’s not explicitly about pardon or forgiveness, ‘Let’s get down to analyzing what you did wrong.’ No, it is about affirming love. Three times Christ asks, ‘Do you love me?’ The Lord does not say, ‘What do you have to say for yourself? What have you 
done?’ Peter is allowed thrice to affirm that which is salvific for him; that’s what saves Peter. It’s not even faith; love precedes faith.”
During Holy Week there are many doors through which we might enter to be with the Lord, many personal stories we can relate to, some more than others, but all of which are instructive. Let’s stay with Him, Who is Love. Thanks to Sr. Vassa for her wisdom, and I will close with a longer passage from her podcast:
We can’t forgive sins – only God can forgive sins. “Your sins are forgiven you!” We are so used to hearing that, we almost take it for granted, but this was not clear to those who hadn’t met him yet. This was an incredible gift.
Most of us don’t know what it’s like to live without constant forgiveness. If there were no forgiveness, there would just be suicide. Where do you place those failures? What do you do with your sins? Just how dark would it be? Let’s contemplate the great self-giving and forgiveness going on this week, amidst the great darkness and betrayal and falling short, all the evil in the world crashing down on our Savior who’s not avoiding it. He’s taking it all on, accepting it, walking through it, letting it crush him, letting it kill him, and then he’s descending into the very hell of us, and bringing our humanity out in new life and having overcome all of that darkness. Let’s open our hearts up to this.
A palm frond was waiting for me when Kate and I arrived home last night from the road trip, thanks to my thoughtful friends who picked up an extra one at the Ma
tins for Palm Sunday service I’d missed. But I forgot to take it to church this morning, so it remains where they saved it, on the windowsill above my kitchen sink.
During the whole of Divine Liturgy today almost everyone held a palm branch, even the clergy and choir, while carrying their usual books or babies, etc. The little girls all know how to weave the leaflets into a sort of mat. There were enough fronds for me to have a second one, and I was handed a branch of pussy willows, too. I tried to hold it alongside my palm, but the soft willow buds one by one were sliced off when they slid between the sharp leaflets of the palm frond, so that the floor around me became littered with them.
We were remembering the first time that Jesus was hailed by people carrying palm branches, a symbol of victory and peace. We learned in the homily this morning that it was common for more than a quarter-million people to be in Jerusalem for Passover, and these 
people had heard about Lazarus being raised from the dead. Suddenly Jesus was acclaimed by multitudes — and children are particularly mentioned as joining in with shouting — who spread tree branches and their coats on the streets before him to ride on; it was quite the scene.
But Christ didn’t come to be enthroned as an earthly leader, as most of the crowd assumed, or to rule as they do, by external power. He wants to deliver us from the death in our souls and to rule by His Holy Spirit in our hearts. St. Andrew of Crete (8th century) encourages us to spread before the Lord not branches which wither, but ourselves, “clothed in his grace, clothed completely in Him.”
When it was time to take my goddaughter Mary up for communion, I left my branches on a bench, because Mary is a wiggly child and I didn’t trust myself to securely hold her and them at the same time. Keeping her in my arms, I picked up the palm frond again when we made our procession out the doors and around the church singing:
By raising Lazarus from the dead before Thy passion,
Thou didst confirm the universal resurrection, O Christ God.
Like the children with the palms of victory
We cry out to Thee, O Vanquisher of Death,
“Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!”
Little Mary was happy 
to hold the branch while I carried her, and to wave it around as we walked in the pleasant air, passing under wisteria blooms. Even outdoors on the porch, giant palm branches were decorating the pillars. Inside, green altar cloths were temporarily covering the purple, but later in the day they were removed. Tomorrow we enter Holy Week.
The fact of Lazarus’s being raised from the dead, and its reminder of Christ’s resurrection that we will be celebrating in just a few days, the experience of His grace in which we are clothed — all these realities will sustain us during the many services and the heart preparations of this week. The joy of the Lord will be our strength.
Gladsome Lights 
