Palm Sunday '23
Palm Sunday is one of the few days in the Calendar on which two liturgical colors are observed. We begin with the festal red, reflecting the triumph of martyrdom and the illuminating, refining fire of the Holy Spirit. We end with the penitential purple, a return to the sober reality of our need for a Savior and patiently waiting for deliverance. Our two Gospel Lessons this morning are the basis of this duality, revealing first the triumphal entry of Christ and then proceeding to the rejection of the Messiah by those He came to save. The Holy Week that begins today leads us to mark this duality within ourselves and how we are those who both hail Him and revile Him, who know we need Him and yet who will do anything to avoid Him.
On Palm Sunday, I am reminded of the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s reflection on the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem when He asked: “How did [Christ] manage to live without anxiety for the next day-He who from the first instant of His public life when He stepped forward as a teacher knew how His life would end, that the next day was His crucifixion, knew this while the people exultantly hailed Him as King (ah, bitter knowledge to have at precisely that moment!), knew when they were crying, ‘Hosanna!’, at His entry into Jerusalem that they would cry, Crucify Him!, and that it was to this end He made His entry; He who bore every day the prodigious weight of this superhuman knowledge-how did He manage to live without anxiety for the next day?” Nothing is hidden from Christ–He knows how this week is going to end.
His passion is not an accident of history–He is not a victim of tragic circumstances. His actions are deliberate–He acts continually to save those whom He knows will reject Him.
Jesus allows the people to hail Him with cries of ‘Hosanna.’ We will recall that the word ‘Hosanna’ means ‘Please, save us.’ Likely, they thought that the arrival of a great prophet on a donkey, in the manner of David and Solomon of old, signaled that they would soon be delivered from the Romans, their most identifiable enemy. But, as Jesus knows, that is not their real enemy. He answers their prayer of ‘hosanna’ by going to the Temple and cleansing it. He does so because this is the actual answer to the prayer to be saved. If the house of prayer was restored, and the life of prayer renewed and embraced, then Rome no longer posed a threat–it would have begun to be defeated in the same breath. But this, of course, was not the salvation anyone wanted. They wanted the yoke off of their necks but not a transformation of the heart with the shame and repentance it would require. By the end of the week, the same people who prayed for deliverance from their enemies would ally with them to murder the man who did not give them what they wanted. Knowing this, however, Jesus still gave them a good gift for their imperfect prayer; He took their prayer more seriously than they did even as they began in the same moment to reject Him.
Jesus answers the prayer of ‘hosanna’ because it is good will to save, to create the beginning of salvation under even the most imperfect and non-ideal conditions. This includes even the prayer we offer half-heartedly, to which when answered we respond with full-throated contempt. The salvation offered to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, however, is but the foreshadowing of the salvation He will offer on Good Friday. Just as He makes the most out of the misguided motive behind the people’s ‘hosannas,’ so He will make life itself arise even from the fearful, violent cries of ‘crucify’ in just a few short days. On Palm Sunday, we are brought to see the goodness of Jesus to answer our prayers with a willing heart that is not diminished by the knowledge that we will use the same voice to call for His blood. He is able to see each of these things as they are; the full horror of our impending betrayal does not invade or qualify today’s work of cleansing the heart to make it fit for a better prayer. Even when He knows we will reject Him, He does not cease to offer Himself for us.
Our temptation, though, will be to rush through Holy Week. The brief festivity of Palm Sunday will tempt us to think that “Easter is pretty much here; what’s a few days difference?” Holy Week comes at the end of Lent to show us that a few days can make a very big difference, can turn praise to condemnation and loyalty to denial. We will want to avoid remembering this, but this is not what the Lord has shown us to do. As Kierkegaard observed, Christ did not let the knowledge of tomorrow and its anxieties overshadow any of His days. In every miraculous sign, healing, and teaching He has given us since His Nativity, He knew that these days would come and it did not diminish His presence among us. And our complicity in rejecting Him still has not diminished His presence among us, nor His goodwill to come to save us, to make us present in Him and with Him, if we will but sing ‘hosanna’ this day with an imperfect, but willing heart.
For, as we sang this morning in the procession: “Upon the Mount of Olives, He prayed to His Father: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak: Thy will be done. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak: Thy will be done.”
