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.
Today many of these days have simply been forgotten. We now have a calendar celebrating national days like St Patrick’s or St David’s - named after remarkable pioneer missionaries they 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.
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 traditional 'church' days.
Some of these ‘renewed’ Christians felt that the whole system 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.
‘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.
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. We should arrive in Easter week accepting with gratitude 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.
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?
No comments:
Post a Comment