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Palm Sunday
What it is, Why Christians Honor Palm Sunday
According to each of the four gospels, Palm Sunday is the day when Christ triumphantly entered Jerusalem. Western Christianity celebrates Palm Sunday as the beginning of Holy Week, while Eastern Christianity celebrates it as the end of Lent. During the entry of Jesus Christ into the city, the crowd waved palm branches.
In most Christian rites, Palm Sunday is celebrated by blessing and distributing palm branches. Sometimes palm leaves are woven into crosses.
The first Palm Sunday was celebrated in the fourth century. It wasn’t until the ninth century, though, that western Christianity was introduced to it. It is recorded in the gospels that Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem and the people welcomed him as their king, hoping he would relieve them from Roman oppression. He was crucified days later.
Palm branches were common in the Holy Land and symbolized victory and goodness during ancient times.
In the Gospels, Jesus Christ rode a donkey into Jerusalem, and the celebrating people laid down cloaks and small branches of trees in front of him, singing Psalm 118: 25 — 26. We bless you from the house of the Lord.
Donkeys are symbolic of peace in Eastern tradition, unlike horses, which are symbols of war. A king would have ridden a horse when he was bent on war and ridden a donkey when he was bent on peace. Hence, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem would have symbolized his entry as the Prince of Peace, not as a war-waging king. In other words, there have been two meanings (or levels of biblical hermeneutics): a historical meaning according to the Gospels, and a symbolistic meaning.
Many mainstream Christian denominations distribute palm branches to their congregations during Palm Sunday liturgies, including Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican, Moravian, and Reformed churches. They hang them alongside Christian artwork (especially crosses and crucifixes) or keep them in their Bibles and daily devotional books. In the days preceding the next year’s Lent, known as Carnival or Shrovetide, churches often place a basket in their narthex to collect these palms, which are then ritually burned on Shrove Tuesday to make the ashes to be used on the following day, Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent.
Many Christian denominations give palms to members of the congregation, often children, to carry as they walk in a procession around the church. On Palm Sunday, the faithful of the Church of Pakistan, a united Protestant church, carry palm branches into the church while singing Psalm 24.
Copyright ©️ Michelle R Kidwell
March.19.2024
