Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday is a moveable feast in the church calendar observed by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians. It is the Sunday before Easter. In the Western church it must always fall on one of the 35 dates between March 15 and April 18.
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Symbolism
The feast commerates the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his execution. This was the only day in which Jesus Christ set aside His ministerial role to make a political statement before His covenant people. Many Christians and Messianic Jews regard this event was the terminus of the first 69 weeks of Daniel's Prophecy of Seventy Weeks, and thereby a very holy day. Even setting this aside, the nature of the entry and its circumstances are usually deemed enough to warrant a special feast.
In ancient times, the palm branch was a symbol of triumph and victory. (Leviticus 23:40 - Feast of Tabernacles, and Revelation 7:9) It was also a custom in all lands to cover, in some way, the path of someone thought worthy of the highest honour. Consequently, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowd greeted him by waving palm fronds, and carpeting his path with them, thereby giving the day its name.
The prophecy often cited as having been fulfilled by the Triumphal Entry reads as follows:
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the [Euphrates] River to the ends of the earth.
(Zech. 9:9-10, NIV)
Day of Week
On the tenth of Nisan, according to the Mosaic Law, the lambs to be slaughtered at Passover were chosen. Because of the link of this to the Triumphal Entry, some new interpretations report that the event was not even on Sunday, because Nisan 10 would not be a Sunday if the Crucifixion occurred on Friday the fourteenth. This day in the year of the Passion saw Messiah presented as the sacrificial Lamb. It heralded His impending role as the Suffering Servant of Israel (Isaiah 53, Zechariah 12:10).
Observation in the Liturgy
Originally the Roman Catholic Church officially called this Sunday the Second Sunday of the Passion; in 1970 the formal designation was changed to Passion Sunday, a change that has caused considerable confusion because the latter term had heretofore been affixed to the previous Sunday, or the fifth within Lent. Concomitant with this revision, the entire week before Easter was redesignated Passion Week (formerly called "Holy Week" officially, and still usually referred to as such by the general public). In the Passion Week liturgy, on Palm Sunday palm fronds (or in colder climates some kind of substitutes) are blessed outside the church building and a procession enters, singing, re-enacting the entry into Jerusalem. These palms are saved in many churches to be burned later as the source of ashes used in Ash Wednesday services. The Roman Catholic Church considers the palms to be sacramental's.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Palm Sunday is often called the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalemm
The Troparion of the feast indicates the resurrection of Lazarus is a prefigurement of Christ's own Resurrection:
O Christ our God,,
When Thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead before Thy
Passion,
Thou didst confirm the resurrection of the universe.
Wherefore, we like children,
carry the banner of triumph and victory,
and we cry to Thee, O Conqueror of Death,
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is He that cometh
in the Name of the Lord.
In the Russian Orthodox Church, the custom developed of using pussy willows instead of palm fronds because palm fronds were not readily available. It is not determined what kind of branches should be used, so some Orthodox believers uses olive branches.
- Matthew 21:1-11
- Mark 11:1-11
- Luke 19:28-44
- John 12:12-19