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“Rejoice greatly, daughters of Zion, preach to the daughters of Jerusalem: behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and to save, he who is meek, and always on the yoke and the young stallion” (Zechariah 9:9). More than four hundred years before the event, God's prophet uttered a prophecy about the event that we remember and celebrate today. Our Lord Jesus Christ, having finished His preaching on earth, made a solemn entry into the royal city of Jerusalem, into the city of worship of the true God, into the city par excellence of God. The Lord made this entry as a King and conqueror in order to crown His ministry with a decisive feat: the defeat of death by death, the removal of the oath from the human race by taking this oath upon Himself. He entered the royal city on “the foal of a donkey, but none of all men” (Luke 19:30), in order to return to humanity the royal dignity lost by our forefather, to return this dignity by ascending to the cross. The untamed lot was tamed under the wonderful Horseman. The apostles laid their vestments on the lot; The numerous people who came out to meet and accompany the Lord cried out in delight: “Hosanna to the Son of David! blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 21:9; Luke 19:38). At the behest of the Lord, the Tsar was proclaimed in the name of the Lord - not by chance, not by human consciousness or arbitrariness. The same people, after four days, were already crying out about the King proclaimed today: “Crucify, crucify him, not the Imams of the King, only Caesar” (Luke 23:21; John 19:15). What would it mean when the Lord entered Jerusalem on an untamed stallion? This, according to the explanation of the holy fathers, has a deep, prophetic meaning. The all-seeing Lord already saw the coming final retreat of the Jews. He proclaimed this apostasy even at the time when the law was given to the Israelites at Sinai, he proclaimed it through the mouth of their inspired Lawgiver. “I have sinned,” says Moses about the future sin of the Jews against the God-man, as if it had already happened, “I have sinned!” not that wicked child: a stubborn and perverse generation, do you repay the Lord for this? There is a language that is destructive advice, and there is no art in it, there is no meaning to be understood. Their grapes are from the vines of Sodom, and their rods are from Gomorrah. On the contrary: Let the heavens rejoice with him—the Son of God—and let all the angels of God worship him: let the nations rejoice with his people, and let all the sons of God be strengthened in him” (Deut. 32:5–6, 28, 32, 43; Heb. 1:6). The entry into Jerusalem on an unbroken stallion is a repetition of the prophecy of Moses, a repetition not in words, but in symbols. Moses foretold that the pagans would rejoice in the Lord, and the Jews would be rejected: here the untamed lot, “on which there is no one else anywhere,” depicts the pagans. The clothing of the apostles is the teaching of Christ, which they taught to the pagans, and the Lord sat spiritually upon the pagans, becoming their God. He brought them to Jerusalem, into the bosom of his Church, into the eternal, not made by hands, city of God, into the city of salvation and bliss. The rejected Jews were there in plain sight. They proclaimed with their lips: King of Israel, but in their souls, in their Sanhedrin, they had already decided to kill the Savior. And another meaning is “by casting a lot behind.” It depicts every person led by wordless desires, deprived of his spiritual freedom, tied by addiction and skill to carnal life. The Teaching of Christ frees the donkey from its leash, that is, from fulfilling its sinful and carnal will. Then the apostles bring the donkey to Christ, lay vestments on the donkey; The Lord sits on it and enters Jerusalem on it. This means: after leaving a sinful life, a person is brought to the Gospel and is clothed, as it were, in apostolic vestments, in the most detailed and subtle knowledge of Christ and His commandments. Then the Lord sits on him by spiritually appearing to him and spiritually dwelling in him, just as He is pleased to promise: “If you have My commandments and keep them, this is you who love me: and he who loves me will be loved by my Father: and I will love him and will manifest myself to him... And my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him” (Jn. 14:21, 23). The coming of the Lord is accompanied by a world that surpasses words and comprehension, a world of grace, worthy of its giver, the Lord. This world has no comparison with the natural calm of fallen man, who can feel calm and pleasure from carnal pleasure, who can consider his very insensibility, his very eternal death, to be calm. The Lord sits on the natural properties of a person who has submitted to Him, who has assimilated His all-holy teaching, and leads him, sitting on him, into the spiritual city of God, into the city of peace, into Jerusalem, whose creator is God, and not man. The soul that has lifted up the Lord is greeted by the Holy Spirit. He offers her spiritual, imperishable, eternal joy. “Rejoice, and greatly rejoice, daughter of Zion,” daughter of the holy Church: because you belong to no one but God. “Preach to the daughters of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes, righteous and saving, he is meek, and he is always on the yoke and the young stallion.” You, having felt the grace-filled world of Christ within yourself and become a daughter of this world, have been renewed with spiritual youth and experience the Kingdom of Christ. The passions in you have already been tamed by the grace-filled power of the Horseman who controls you; Your natural properties cannot violate their natural laws, cannot transform and transform into unbridled passions! Borrowing from the Lord all your thoughts, all your sensations, all your activities, you can and must tell the Name of the Lord to your brethren, “in the middle of the church” sing to the Lord (Ps. 21:23). You, as born of the Holy Spirit and daughter of the Spirit, are able to contemplate the spiritual procession of your King, are able to contemplate the righteousness of your King. “He is meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29), and “he will guide the meek in judgment, he will teach the meek his way” (Ps. 24:9). Our God is a Spirit, incomparable with any created spirit, as in all respects infinitely different from all creatures: the holy created spirits are His thrones and chariots. He sits and walks on Cherubim; He sits and walks on those blessed human souls who submitted to Him and offered Him their natural properties as a burnt offering. The King rides on such souls, entering the holy city of God and leading holy souls into it. “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes, the King of Israel." Amen. You might be interested in: