On Palm Sunday . . .

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. It’s the last Sunday before Easter and officially kicks off what many churches refer to as holy week—the last week of Jesus’ life before his death and eventual resurrection. And in previous years as a pastor I’ve never made the effort to recognize Palm Sunday. I’m not sure why. When I was growing up Catholic we celebrated Palm Sunday with the distributing and waving of palm branches. But throughout all of my years as a Baptist I can only recall one occasion when Palm Sunday was actually recognized and celebrated, even if not with palm branches. So I sought, this year, to rectify this.

Now the whole deal with Palm Sunday is that it commemorates the occasion of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem just prior to his Passion—his arrest, trial, beating, and crucifixion. In fact, his passion is his reason for entering Jerusalem. He knows what’s coming. And he still, as Scripture says, set his face toward Jerusalem. And the reason it’s called Palm Sunday is that the gospel accounts tell us that as Jesus was entering Jerusalem on a donkey, people broke off branches and laid them on the road as Jesus was proceeding in. And they sang, “Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!” Though the crowd of disciples and other people was likely small, this unlikely contingent of followers were proclaiming Jesus as the promised Davidic king who would also be the Messiah. No doubt they were expecting not humiliation and death for their king but glory and victory as he triumphed over their Roman oppressors. But this was not to be.

So with all that in mind, I thought that this year we ought to celebrate Palm Sunday more explicitly. Much of our attention gets divided between Christmas and Easter and very little attention is usually given to the lesser Christian feasts or holidays. While I love celebrating these other occasions, I’m glad we took the time to put more effort into Palm Sunday this year. We had palm branches for everyone in the congregation and several of the kids in our church danced to the front of the church at the beginning of our service while we sang “Hail Jesus! You’re My King” to hand out the branches. We sang songs that focused on Jesus as our king and his entrance into Jerusalem. And then when we sang “Hosanna” we invited people, if comfortable in doing so, to wave their branches while we sang.

Sometimes I think joy needs to be more concretely expressed and lived. I know that Christian joy is deep and doesn’t always show up in effusive expressions of jubilation but I think it’s also true that we can benefit from the sheer physical gesture of waving branches while praising Jesus. The spiritual and physical are not separate. And even if we don’t naturally express our joy outwardly so that others can see, taking even a moment to practice such an expression of joy can teach us and help us to understand the deeper meaning of celebration and joy, something which the coming of our king and Messiah ought to evoke.

Of course, we also celebrated Palm Sunday because I have been preaching a sermon series that made it even more apropos. This was the third week in my series, “Who do you say I am?” This is the question Jesus asked his disciples just before he first told them that he had to suffer and die. And it’s a question he asks each of us. On our answer hangs our present lives and our eternal destiny. So we’ve been looking at different aspects of that question’s answer: Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is the Suffering Servant and, yesterday, Jesus is the King. On Easter Sunday we’ll be looking at the resurrection and Jesus as the Son of God. And the following week I’ll be looking at Jesus’ ascension and Jesus as Lord. So making more of an occasion of Palm Sunday than usual made a great deal of liturgical sense.

But thinking of the importance of giving visible expression to our joy, as we did on Palm Sunday with our palm branches and praises, another example comes to mind also. Last evening (Palm Sunday evening) was our last session for our adult Bible study. It was a six week study called The Surprising Power of Jesus. The last session was on Jesus’ resurrection and his power over life. What made it special, and what gave it an extra note of joy, was that to really celebrate Jesus’ coming back to life and the victory we have over the grave as a result we counted down . . . 3-2-1 . . . Jesus is alive!!! And then we blew noisemakers and burst party-favours that sent a flurry of coloured pieces of paper raining down on us like snow flurries. And laugh! Boy, did we laugh! It was silly, but did it work! It reminded us of the kind of joy that we have in Christ and that it’s perfectly fine to give outward expression to inward joy. It also made me realize that sometimes we need a little extra incentive to express our joy and delight. We’re not all inclined to show our joy. But then sometimes showing our joy reminds us what joy really is.

So for the first time in years I had the chance to celebrate Palm Sunday. Yesterday was one of the best church services in awhile. It felt joyful. There was a melody of praise and gratitude that ran through our time of worship together. I realize that we can’t determine the worth of our worship by what we feel when we worship, but our worship shouldn’t be entirely exempt of feeling.

Our time in church yesterday—both during our morning worship and our Bible study—also helped me to appreciate once again what it means to be a part of a worshipping people. I was grateful for the sheer joy of having a community with which to celebrate my faith. The sort of joy that came alive in us yesterday wouldn’t have been possible without our coming together. This is because being with one another is a huge part of the joy we experience. We know joy because we know each other. And we know joy in Christ because we are in Christ together with brothers and sisters. And the only thing more joyful than the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem as king, though scarcely recognized at the time, is Jesus' resurrection--but that's a different day!