Palm Sunday marks the church's entry into Holy Week, and also marks or re-enacts in
some ways, Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. What might you see on Palm Sunday? Well, in
a lot of churches, the congregation might gather outside. Everyone has Palm fronds or
maybe you bend them into Palm crosses. That was a thing that I did a lot growing up in
Sunday school. Those palms are actually kept and then burned the next year for the ashes
for Ash Wednesday. The time of the liturgical year wraps in around itself. You may be congregating
outside to walk in together. You may start in the church, but either way, the service
begins with the reading of the passage of the triumphal entry.
When we came to Palm Sunday, we started the day with a procession around the block, which
in that particular setting of New York City is always really special, because there's
people out and about. Our neighborhood includes the famous Zabar's Grocery Store. There's
always people patronizing that business, and we have a police precinct around our block.
We usually stop to pray with them and for them. We will always stop and pray for neighbors
who happen upon our procession. Then we make our way back into the church and we begin
the service. It's always special to have the procession be a time where we can reconnect
with some of the neighbors.
Whenever I think about Palm Sunday, I think about what I like to call liturgical whiplash.
It goes from one extreme to the next. It's the day where we remember Christ's triumphal
entry into Jerusalem, right? Then have you ever thought about the idea of a triumphal
entry? Part of it makes me think like, we don't really remember how the story ends.
We celebrate with all the people with Jesus as they lay the palms on the road. That's
what they would do for a conquering king. Palms representing power and might, and there's
a little bit of resurrection in there too. Google it.
By the time we do this procession, and we usually start outside the church and march
in, and celebrate in, and sing our way in, waving palms, maybe enthusiastically or not
so enthusiastically. By the time we get into the service, it takes a very different turn.
He did a number of things on that day. He went into the temple by the next day and drove
out those who misused the temple. It's quite today of mixed feelings. It's called Palm
Sundays. It is also called Passion Sunday, because the passion of our Lord is red on
that day. I have parishioner act in different characters in the Passion narrative.
Palm Sunday is another opportunity for us to hear of the passion. The story of Jesus's
condemnation to death, and his trial, and his actual death. Listening to that story
again, and leaving the church in most cases after that event in silence, as we prepare
for the rest of the events of Holy Week.
We hear the reading of the Passion Gospel. A lot of people can find this really jarring.
At one minute we're saying Hosanna, and then the next minute we hear crucify him. I think
that that jarring nature of the two gospels is a big part of the point. We're confronted
with the fact that we are so quick to betray, to betray each other, to betray what we believe
about our faith. Again, we're fallen creatures. It's written into the deepest levels of the
human heart to rejoice, and then to deny in subsequent breaths.
It's a day of mixed feeling. We are rejoicing and shouting Hosanna to Jesus, Hosanna in
the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
At the same time we are reading, crucify him, crucify him. Why? What has he done?
That what happens on Palm Sunday is this visceral transition; almost the same transition that
happens at the end of Christ's life, where we go from hope and expectation and joy, to
the realities of what happens in betrayal and in the passion and in the cross.
After the reading of that gospel, that we have moved from this time of preparation to
this time of reality. This time of entering into, once again, God's story about his betrayal,
and his crucifixion, and his sacrifice for the world. It's meant to impact us, right?
The difference in mood, and tone, and emotions between Palm Sunday and Easter and kind of
the triumph, the triumphant entry and all that that entails. When we say every week
blesses the one who comes in the name of the Lord, we're referencing Palm Sunday. To see
and feel the difference between that and the other important days of the week is always
a special time, a special aspect of Palm Sunday, for me.
For us it is the beginning of the Holy Week. The liturgical color changes to red and stays
red until Easter. When we change it to white. That red there signifies the blood that Jesus
shed on the cross for our sins and for our redemption.
Before we made what's called the Triduum or the great three days of Monday, Thursday,
Good Friday, and the Easter vigil, the heart of the prayer book system of spirituality.
It was very, very common that people would come to church on Palm Sunday and then the
next time they would go to church would be on Easter Sunday.
You would get the story of the passion the week before, and then you would get Easter
on Sunday morning. Things are a little bit different now with the 1979 Prayer Book, but
that's still part of our heritage.
Liturgical whiplash is sort of the name of the game for a Palm Sunday. It represents
not only our transition from lent into Holy week, but the transition of Christ's life.
When the disciples come in with Jesus, they believe that he's coming in as a conquering
king. The crowds rush out to greet him because they believe that he is bringing freedom and
liberation and justice to Jerusalem and to the whole people of God in Roman Palestine.
Yet by the next day in the temple, and by more days of teaching, they realize that maybe
Jesus isn't doing what they were hoping he would do. Maybe he's doing something different
in entering in, and they get whiplash. We get whiplash. Then Christ has this beautiful
dinner with his friends, who then betray him and abandon him. Jesus goes through this whiplash
as well. We sort of enter into Holy Week all sort of rubbing our necks and hoping that
there's an out. Hoping that we make it to next Sunday.