I find the story of Palm Sunday to be a series of lessons—hard lessons—of the fickleness of people and of the forgiving and loving nature of God.
Jesus knew—He knew—that the people who were celebrating His entrance into Jerusalem would, within days, cry out for Him to be crucified. Imagine that for a moment. It is one thing to have an event in which you feel valued and appreciated – and then have people snub you. It is quite another to be at the event where people express appreciation for you and to know, right there in that moment, that those same people are going to call for your death.
How would you react?
I don’t know about you—but I can imagine a number of reactions I would have. I can imagine looking at them and saying to myself—or worse, out loud—“you hypocrites – oh yes, you are all nice now, but in just a few days, you’re going to be asking the Romans to kill me.” I wouldn’t find joy in this moment—no, I would be angry.
But not Jesus. He enters the moment—in fact, He tells those in authority that He can’t silence the crowds—if they were silent, the rocks would praise him. This is a moment designed for praise—a moment the crowds need. He didn’t need their praise, but they need to praise Him.
There is a lesson here. We need to live more in the present moment. We should anticipate the future and plan for it, but, we shouldn’t miss the joy and wonder contained in this present moment.
A second lesson Palm Sunday holds for us is that we were designed to worship, adore, and praise God. How often do we pray prayers of praise? How often do we just worship and adore God? How often do we carve out time for this? Begin now. Between now and Easter, make space in your day to truly worship and thank God for the gift of life—and for laying down His life to give us eternal life.
A third lesson of Palm Sunday is that we, as humans, are much too easily and often swayed by what others think and say. The crowd worships, we worship. The crowd disparages someone, we follow suit. And, we don’t question ourselves. We don’t pause and review the facts and review our emotions, we just go along. We need to pause and consider how often the crowd is wrong—how often our emotions lead us astray. Being in step with the crowd is often the wrong place to be.
Don’t miss out on the lessons of Palm Sunday. And, don’t miss out on celebrating this very Holy Day!
For Palm Sunday, one hymn that always comes to my mind is “Ride on, Ride on In Majesty” written in 1827 by Henry Hart Milman. Here are the lyrics:
Ride on, Ride on in Majesty
Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
O Savior meek, pursue thy road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.
Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
o'er captive death and conquered sin.
Ride on! ride on in majesty!
The angel-squadrons of the sky
look down with sad and wondering eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.
Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
the Father on his sapphire throne
expects his own anointed Son.
Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
Let me top this off with the lyrics of another hymn that was written for this day, “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” written by Theodulph of Orleans in 820, translated by John M. Neale in 1851.
All glory, laud, and honor
To Thee, Redeemer, King,
To Whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.
Thou art the King of Israel
and David’s royal Son,
Now in the Lord’s name coming,
The King and Blessed One.The company of angels
Is praising Thee on high;
And we with all creation
In chorus make reply.
The people of the Hebrews
With palms before Thee went;
Our praise and prayer and anthems
Before Thee we present.To Thee before Thy passion
They sang their hymns of praise;
To Thee, now high exalted,
Our melody we raise.
As Thou received their praises,
Accept the prayers we bring,
For Thou delights in goodness,
O good and gracious King!