March 24, 2021
Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday?
Why do we celebrate one or the other? Or Both?
Palm Sunday traditionally is celebrated the Sunday before Easter when we remember Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem when Jesus entered into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey and the people chanted “Hosanna!” and laid palm branches at his feet. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, it’s a joyful day before Jesus is arrested and crucified.
In the 1970’s there was a conversation and some disappointment around Palm Sunday. Church leaders were frustrated that people were going straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. People stopped going to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Services before Easter. There was concern about what it would mean for Christians to skip essentially the suffering of the cross on Good Friday, and the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. Because after all, you cannot truly have Easter without the cross.
So in response to the lack of people participating in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services., the leaders in the Church decided to incorporate the reading of the entire Passion narrative that would traditionally be spread between 3 worship services into one service. This was so that everyone would hear the full story, including the suffering of Jesus on the cross.
At our congregation we do both, we do a processional Gospel with the Palms and then move in to the Passion with a dramatic reading of the Passion.
Though, I wish everyone was able to attend all three Holy Week services, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday I’m realistic and know that life in these times is crazy and that is not always a realistic expectation for everyone. So I am thankful for Passion Sunday so we hear the full story of Jesus suffering and death on the cross before we celebrate Easter.
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