What is Palm Sunday?

What is Palm Sunday?

When Christianity dominated society the church year controlled the calendar. Feast days and fast days, Advent, Lent and Trinity were the basis of community and church activity.  And yet most of those days and rituals and actions had lost any biblical meaning or gospel focus.  Instead they often presented a distorted works-based religion, not the freely offered gospel of grace the Bible teaches. 

Today it’s not that these days have been distorted but simply forgotten. We now have a calendar celebrating national days like St Patrick’s or St David’s (named after remarkable pioneer missionaries now celebrate Irish and Welsh identity); or family days like Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day.  In the UK the remaining religious days include Christmas, Good Friday and Easter Sunday: all marked in the secular calendar even if their meaning is swamped by lie-ins and leisure, spending sprees and family feasts.

A ‘renewed’ church

The Reformation was a vital period 400-500 years ago when much of the church was ‘reformed’ or ‘renewed’ and re-found a focus on Jesus (not priests as our mediator before God); grace (not works as the ground of our salvation); and the Bible (not the church as God’s ultimate authority in the world).  At this time decisions had to be made about retaining or jettisoning these days which were corrupting instead of promoting the gospel. Some of these ‘renewed’ Christians felt that the whole system and church calendar was corrupt and so abandoned it. Others tried to weed out the bad and preserve the good. This was the policy followed by the Church of England under the leadership of Thomas Cranmer. In 1549 he wrote two important essays explaining why some ceremonies were to be retained and others removed.  The first ‘baptist’ churches (the tradition to which we as a church belong) appeared after this in the early 1600s and much of Cranmer’s attempt to reshape the Anglican church was the bedrock understanding of those first baptist congregations who felt the need to begin afresh, freed from some of the distortions and corruptions that had occurred.

Palm Sunday is the traditional day in the church calendar that remembers Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem the week before his crucifixion.  It is called Palm Sunday because in some of the accounts the crowd wave palm branches as a symbol of Jesus’ royalty and fame.  (Matthew 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-15).  Cranmer sought to keep and restore this day as a way of reminding ourselves of Jesus’ full identity. Cranmer abolished the widespread practices that suggested our actions or efforts were required for our salvation.  He wanted to rescue Palm Sunday to be a day to focus on Jesus as the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promised about a ‘Messiah’ – a great king who would bring a wondrous rescue. 

‘Preparation’ Sunday

The arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem is recorded in each of the gospels but the rest of the New Testament makes no reference to it. Jesus’ entry looks back to promises from the Old Testament.  As Jesus fulfills many of these Old Testament promises in how he enters Jerusalem so he prepares us for his fulfilling of the greatest promise, our rescue for God’s glory, when a week later Jesus is crucified and resurrected.  Palm Sunday could be renamed ‘Preparation Sunday’ as Jesus orchestrates his entry into Jerusalem to fulfill promises and prepare us for his fulfillment of the greatest promise of them all.  

One of the ways Cranmer sought to restore Palm Sunday to this biblical meaning of ‘preparation’ was to adapt the traditional prayer for the day.  The adaptation was more than translating it from Latin into English so it was commonly accessible. He seriously changed the meaning of the prayer away from being about how we earn salvation and to how Jesus earned our salvation for us.

The old Latin prayer can be translated as:

Almighty and Eternal God, You Who had Your Son, our Saviour, take on human flesh and undergo the Cross, in order to offer to the human race an example of humility to be imitated, kindly grant, that we might deserve both to possess the teachings of His patience and share in His Resurrection. Amen.

Whereas Cranmer's prayer was:

Almighty and everlasting God, who, of they tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Instead of praying that we may deserve anything Cranmer prayed that we follow Jesus' example of suffering and share in his resurrection. Cranmer knew that we can never deserve anything but are saved only by grace (an unmerited and free gift). No religious performance could ever make us acceptable to God.

Prepared for Easter?

We do not enter into the Easter experience by efforts to deserve God’s blessing on us such as fasting or giving or sacrificing.  They deeply wound the gospel of grace.  And so be careful if you mark Lent in some way.  Make sure it is preparing you for grace and is not subtly about you - your achievement, your self-discipline, your weight loss or your works.  We should arrive in Easter week accepting with gratitude and faith the benefits that Jesus has won for us.  Palm Sunday prepares us for the wondrous fulfillment of all God’s promises in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  It prepares us for grace.

Are you prepared for the fullness of the grace of Good Friday (marking Jesus’ death) and Easter Sunday (marking Jesus’ resurrection)? 

How could you make more of this week to prepare yourself to be awed, and to marvel at the grace of God as he fulfills all his promises of rescue and rule and joy and glory at Jesus’ death and resurrection?