Putting the Passion in the Palms

Sunday was officially The Sunday of the Passion with the Liturgy of the Palms in the Church Year .  The events of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem to the adulation of the crowd waving palm branches and crying Hosanna in the highest were contrasted with the events of Good Friday and the passion of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. 

When I was growing up, I can remember that these two events were ‘celebrated’ on different days.  Palm Sunday recounted the entry into Jerusalem and the passion of Christ was marked on Good Friday – which it still is today.  I attended the United Church of Canada in the first part of my life and in my memory, Palm Sunday was reserved to mark the events of the entry into Jerusalem.  When I started attending an Anglican Church at the mid-point in my life – as I measure it at this point – I was surprized that the two events of Palm Sunday and the Passion were celebrated together and then the Passion was marked on Good Friday – where, to my mind, it rightly belongs. 

I must confess that, in the years that followed which included my formal theological training, I did not explore, what seemed to me, a strange convergence of the two Gospel narratives.  The issue was never addressed and I also did not raise it.  However, I have always thought that it made more sense to keep them separate as I had experienced it in my earlier life.  Well, with circumstances being what they are this year i.e. churches being closed due to the COVID -19 pandemic and with us being thrown on our own devices for worship albeit with lots of material available on-line and other places – ironically there is an embarrassment of riches in this context -  I decided to make the best of the opportunity and investigate how this came about in the current liturgy of our church.

It says in scripture, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened, I sought and knocked on Google’s door and it did open.  I came across an article from the United Methodist Church in the United States which addressed this issue. The author is not named but it is under the publication Discipleship Ministries https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/why-palmpassion-sunday-and-not-just-palm-sunday.   The author notes that he or she was one of the representatives of their denomination that was involved with the change which came about with the development of the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) which is used today in most churches.  The article puts to rest the rather common belief that this change was made so that church goers who perhaps were lax in their attendance on Good Friday worship services would hear the Passion story.   The reader is assured that this was not the case.  Rather, it was to address the perceived need to re-establish the dual event as a connection between Lent and Holy Week:

As a result of all this work by all these Christians, worldwide, over all this time, we are where we are now -- with a recovered Palm/Passion Sunday as the hinge between a recovered Lent and a more intense Holy Week.

Behind this was the goal of re-establishing and addressing the need to strengthening the discipleship of the followers of Jesus Christ by building on the Lenten observances and the foundational events of Holy Week:

The recovery of Lent was not simply about re-syncing our current calendars with more ancient ones. Instead, it was primarily about recovering the church's mission of discipling people in the way of Jesus, and realigning our worship practices to support that mission.

These are very lofty goals; however, I believe that something vital has been lost as a result.  By binding the two events inexorably together it does not enable the worshiper to experience the full impact and importance of the events of that triumphal entry of Jesus who was fulfilling the scriptural role of Messiah or king riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).  We need to have the full effect of being one of the crowed massed along the route hoping against hope that here is the long-awaited saviour who will address all the wrongs we have suffered in our lives.  Here is the anointed one who will make right all the wrongs in our lives and magically give us a new creation, a New Jerusalem.

Unless we have that experience as fully as possible, we will not have the full impact of being one of the masses that will turn on that failed saviour with the rage of our disappointment when those unrealistic expectations are unfulfilled.  We will never have at least a taste of the experience being part of the crowd that cries “crucify him”. 

If we are honest with ourselves will we admit that each of us would be with that crowd; or perhaps we would “only” be with Peter and would deny knowing him when push come to shove.

Blessings on your journey this Holy Week.