Palm/Passion Sunday A
Matthew 21:1-11
Matthew 27:11-54 (shorter reading of the Passion)
Dear Partner in Preaching,
As you well know, Palm/Passion Sunday is one of the more cluttered and confusing liturgical days of the church year. When most of us were growing up, it was simply Palm Sunday, and the invitation to march around the sanctuary with palms in hand made it probably my favorite Sunday of the year as a kid. Sometime in the 80s or 90s – earlier, no doubt, in Roman Catholic circles where most of the important liturgical renewal began, but it took longer to seep into the liturgically middle-of-the-road Lutheran congregations in which I grew up – it was changed to Palm/Passion Sunday. I have heard from many parishioners and colleagues their sense that this move has, among other things, minimized the joy and festive character of Palm Sunday and created a rather emotionally gut-wrenching shift from joy to betrayal and grief, all in the space of sixty minutes.
As with most changes, there’s often a solid rationale behind it, and in this case there are actually two. The first and more “popular” (in the “urban rumor” sense) reason offered – although I’m pretty sure I heard this in seminary, too – is that the shift to Palm/Passion Sunday was a response to the decline in attendance of Holy Week services. If folks were skipping Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, they would move from the hosannas of Palm Sunday to the hosannas of Easter and miss the cross entirely – hence, a portion of the Passion story was now to be read on Palm Sunday.
The more liturgically substantive reason offered is that Lent was initially not imagined simply a build-up to Good Friday but rather a season of preparation to follow Jesus as a disciple. For this reason, the various readings of the Sundays in Lent include stories of Jesus revealing who he is to a variety of characters – this year including Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the man who received his sight, and Lazarus and his sisters – with an emphasis on the variety of responses those characters have to him. The reading depicting Jesus’ triumphal entry is meant as the capstone to those readings, inviting us also to shout our Hosannas to the one we have come to know so well and are now prepared to follow. At the same time, this sixth Sunday of Lent functions like a hinge and so also turns us toward Holy Week, and therefore we read a portion of the Passion story. Hence, Palm/Passion Sunday designates the two liturgical functions this single day is pressed into service to perform.
My suggestion this year is not to lament or even try to cover over this confusion, but rather to take advantage of it. Why? Because it was an incredibly confusing and emotionally wrenching week in the lives of the disciples. Further, it has been a rather confusing and at times emotionally wrenching season for our nation and world. Why not, then, allow this day to reflect some of that?
Toward that end, we might recall for our folks that Jesus’ triumphal entry wasn’t a first-century version of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was a meant as a statement. Matthew is clear: Jesus rode into town as a returning king. Moreover, the crowds greeted him as such. The hosannas the people cry have both religious and political overtones. They greet him as the Lord’s Messiah and expect him to overthrow the Romans. And the Romans take note. This helps to explain why, in fact, he was crucified. It wasn’t just an accident. It wasn’t because he simply offended the religious authorities of the day. It was because he proclaimed another kingdom – the kingdom of God – and called people to give their allegiance to this kingdom first. He was, in other words, a threat. And even the briefest of readings from the Passion narrative reminds us of the consequences of Jesus challenge to the powers that be.
The tragedy of the day is that the people are half right. He did come as God’s Messiah. But they misunderstood what that meant – not “regime change” by violence, but rather the love of God poured out upon the world in a way that dissolved all the things we use to differentiate ourselves from others and the formation of a single humanity that knows itself – and all those around them! – as God’s beloved people.
The other tragedy of the day is that the religious and political authorities are also half right. Jesus was a threat. For that matter, he still is. He threatens our penchant to define ourselves over and against others. He threatens the way in which we seek to establish our future by hording wealth and power. He threatens our habit of drawing lines and making rules about who is acceptable and who is not. He threatens all of these things and more. But they are so wrong in thinking that they can eliminate this threat by violence. Jesus’ resurrection – which in Matthew is accompanied by the shaking of the very foundations of the earth – affirms that God’s love is stronger than hate and God’s life is stronger than death. And eventually all will yield to the mercy and majesty of God.
If we venture down this path, Dear Partner, we might find in this day an opportunity to let folks know that Jesus enters fully into the confusion and chaos of our days as fully as he did the tumult in his own. Moreover, he continues to threaten our reliance on anything – our wealth, position, political identity, good works, relationships or, for that matter, our limitations or life tragedies – anything other than God’s mercy. What’s hard about this message is that we all have come at times to seek our identity and secure our future on things other than God. The blessing of this message is that none of these other things are up to the job. No matter what we trust in, we will be disappointed, as only God’s Word can declare us as not just acceptable but as blessed and beloved. Jesus’ journey to the cross shows us just how far he was willing to go to demonstrate to us God’s unconditional love and acceptance. And once you hear that message of grace, mercy, and love, then whether you name it Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday, or just the Sixth Sunday in Lent, there is suddenly good reason to shout our hosanna with all the joy and hope we can muster.
Blessings on, and gratitude for, your proclamation this Sunday, Dear Partner. Your words and ministry both matter and make a difference.
Yours in Christ,
David
One of the complaints I’ve heard is about the abruptness of the turn in the Palm/Passion service. We have a brief liturgy of the palms in the church hall, then march outside and into the sanctuary singing “All Glory, Laud, and Honour, then immediately the Prayer of the Day and the Readings take us to the Passion.
Last year I tried something different. The Prayer of the Day and the first two readings still remained in the same place in the liturgy, but the reading of the Passion happened after Holy Communion interspersed with stanzas from a hymn. This way the people are sent into Holy Week with the words of the Passion.
Thank you for your words. They will help me connect Palm Sunday with Good Friday.
I have had a problem with Palm Sunday for several years. It started with my learning that “hosanna” means “save us” and that being the context of the cries as Jesus entered Jerusalem. Can it be that our understanding of the triumph is based on a mistranslation that occurred as the Greek Septuagint was used by the Gospel writers, and subsequently translated into Latin? If I focus on the cry of hosanna as a plea for help based on expectations of what the arrival of the Messiah would bring, I find it easier to understand how the cry so quickly turned to “crucify him.” But then, changing 2,000 years of tradition, including the Sanctus we sing every Sunday, might prove to be a bit difficult.
Really, really interesting. Few things make us madder than someone we lifted up as a hero but who refused to save us, at least the way we wanted to be saved. Thanks for sharing this insight, Wayne.
I do not find a way to contact you directly so must try to do so here. I would like to “borrow” 2 paragraphs plus another sentence for us in our weekly newsletter. Please let me know if that is permissible. I would be happy to share with you the context in which I would place it.
Thank you
Thanks for checking in Tamela. You’re always welcome to use what you find here and I appreciate your concern for attribution. ~David
The story of Passion/Palm Sunday is a bit more complex and interesting than David imagines. By the 4th century, as Pilgrims could again travel to the Holy Land, they brought back stories of the liturgical pattern which Bishop Cyril had instituted. One, named Egeria, is most famous, her diary discovered in the 1880s in a monastery’s library – she was meticulous in her descriptions of Holy Week commemorations unknown in Europe (Palm Sun. Maundy/Holy Thurs, Good Friday, and Saturday/Easter Vigil. In Europe, Passion Sunday told the Crucifixion story and Easter was the next Sunday – nothing much in between.
By the 8th century, the stories/memoirs of pilgrims had brought these customs back to their home churches. The “Stations” of the Cross were an attempt to make a mini Jerusalem/holy sites inside a church, to replicate what the Jerusalem Christians did in the actual places all through the week.
When the modern liturgical movement began (post WW2), some older forms and patterns were updated or restored. In Episcopal and RC Churches, Palm Sunday was actually added to the older Passion Sunday tradition, but because we didn’t want to change what had been, the two were mixed instead of changing to just Palm Sunday. We could have dropped the Passion narrative, since we told it on Good Friday, but for us that’s usually from John, whereas the Palm Sunday Passion story is from synoptics. Probably, those renewing liturgies didn’t want to lose that perspective. I understand the jarring nature of the day that you describe, but our preaching tradition has made work by talking about the contrast, and how that, too, is very human to have a great parade/celebration go sour in no time at all. Hope this helps! Blessing for Holy Week and Easter.
I admire your ambition, and I admire the resolve behind Passion Sunday. Our congregation continues to gather and worship on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. My personal opinion is that Passion Sunday is a lazy person’s approach to Holy Week.
We celebrate Palm Sunday with first communion. We will hear the Passion of our Lord as the week progresses.
We gather on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as well, but not nearly as many as come on Palm/Passion Sunday and Easter. So what David claims is true in many, many churches. Without the Passion on the Sixth Sunday in Lent people would hear the joyful cries of Hosanna and the victorious cries of Alleluia on the Sundays and hear nothing of the cross. Unfortunately we can’t force anyone to come to church on Good Friday.
I do understand your points, and David’s. I really do. And I do not argue about them. They are one solution to a problem.
If I speak my points bluntly, it’s not to antagonize. It’s only to be understood.
We cannot force anyone to come to church on Good Friday. We can’t force them to come on Palm Sunday or Easter either, can we? We can only do what is right, or at least what we discern God is calling us to do.
I agree with Thomas. It’s been a pet peeve of mine that so many jump from Hosanna to He is risen without going through the cross. I have always threatened that in my last Holy Week in a parish, I would take attendance and then on Easter Sunday would not let anyone come in who was not present for MT and GF. I’ve never followed through and my threat hasn’t helped attendance, so I “settle” for Sunday of the Passion.
I so appreciated this. I, as it appears many on this comment page, do struggle with the quick turn from Palm to Passion Sunday. Your comments were incredibly helpful for me in creating a sermon that connects all of Lent together and moves us forward into Holy Week. Thank you.
Peace.