Ode 6. Irmos.

Kontakion . Model melody. Tone 6.

‘The spirits of the Just cried out in joy, ‘Now the new covenant is being granted to the world. And let a people be made new through sprinkling with divine Blood.’

Israel, receive the kingdom of God. And the one who walks in darkness see the great light And let a people be made new through sprinkling with divine Blood.

Sion, send forth your prisoners who have been set free, and lead them out of the waterless pit of ignorance. And let the people be made new through sprinkling with divine Blood.

The spirits of the Just. ****

Mounted on the throne in heaven, Christ God, and on the colt on earth, you accepted the praise of the angels and the hymn of the children who cried to you, ‘Blessed are you who come to call back Adam.’

Since you bound Hell, slew Death and raised the world, , with palms the infants praised you, O Christ, as victor, crying out to you to-day, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David. For no more’, they say, ‘will infants be slaughtered because of Mary’s babe, But for all, infants and elders, you alone are crucified. No more against us will the sword advance, for your side will be pierced by a lance, therefore we rejoice and say, ‘Blessed are you who come to call back Adam.’’

Synaxarion from the Menaion. Then the following.

On the same day, Palm Sunday, we celebrate the radiant and glorious festival of the entry into to Jerusalem of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The One who spread the sky out with a word,

Seated upon a colt now seeks to free

From dumb unreason all the human race.

After the raising of Lazarus from the dead, many people saw what had happened and began to believe in Jesus. A decision was taken by the synagogue of the Jews to kill both Christ and Lazarus. Jesus therefore flees, giving place to evil, while the Jews were planning to kill him during the Feast of Passover. When a considerable time had been given to flight, Jesus came six days before Passover, as Scripture says, to Bethany, where Lazarus, the one who had been dead, was. And there a meal took place at which Lazarus also was eating with him. But his sister Mary poured sweet perfume over his feet. And the next day he sent his Disciples to bring the ass and her colt. And he who has heaven as his throne, mounted on the colt entered Jerusalem. The children of the Hebrews threw their garments over it and, cutting down branches of palm trees and carrying others in their hands, they went ahead of him crying out, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel’. This happened because the All-Holy Spirit moved their tongues to praise and extol Christ. They showed this through the Palms , that is the branches (Baïon is what the Hebrews call the soft branch) which signified in advance the victory of Christ over death. For it was the custom for the victors in contests or wars to be honoured and escorted in the victory processions with branches of evergreen trees. The colt on the other hand signified us, the people from the nations, on which Christ, seated and resting upon it as victor and conqueror, was proclaimed as King of the whole earth. Of this Feast the Prophet Zachary said, ‘Rejoice greatly, daughter of Sion. See, your King comes to you, meek and seated on a beast of burden and a colt of an ass, offspring of a beast of burden’. And David again says of the Children, ‘From the mouth of babes and sucklings you have made sure of praise.’ But as Christ entered, Scripture says, all Jerusalem was shaken and the crowds, provoked to vengeance by the Chief Priests, were looking to make away with him. But he avoided them by hiding and showing himself, and he spoke to them in parables.

By your ineffable compassion, Christ our God, make us victors over the irrational passions, and count us worthy to see your shining victory over death and your radiant and life -bearing Resurrection, and have mercy on us.