The Drama of Palm Sunday

The Green Branches and the Cross

What now seems like a lifetime ago, I used to be the unofficial coordinator of liturgical music for the Spanish Mass at a parish in Dubuque, Iowa where my wife was then the Hispanic Minister. Palm Sunday was always one of my favorite Sundays to plan for because of the dramatic shift in tone from the beginning of the liturgy to the end. I would always pair the opening reading, which describes Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and the procession in which congregants wave palms with an upbeat, rhythmic song praising God, and then end the Mass with a song emphasizing our need for God’s mercy.

The dramatic scope of the Palm Sunday liturgy—opening with the celebratory entry but then culminating in the Passion narrative in the Gospel reading—really is remarkable, perhaps only surpassed by the grand sweep of the Easter Vigil. On Palm Sunday, we experience a stunning reversal in Jesus’ reception in Jerusalem. Historically, theologians have noted the contrasts and parallels between the two Gospel readings given on Palm Sunday. Consider these reflections from a sermon by St. Bernard of Clairvaux:

How different the cries, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him,” and then, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna, in the highest!” How different the cries are that now are calling him “King of Israel” and then in a few days’ time will be saying, “We have no king but Caesar!” What a contrast between the green branches and the cross, between the flowers and the thorns! Before they were offering their own clothes for him to walk upon, and so soon afterwards they are stripping him of his, and casting lots upon them.

Contemporary biblical scholarship enriches our understanding of this reversal. The Gospel of Mark, which is the source for Sunday’s reading, and the Gospel of Matthew both suggest that Jesus’ disciples mistook him for a political Messiah who would overthrow the Roman occupiers. The crowds gathering to greet Jesus as he enters Jerusalem, filled with the expectations of such a Messiah, give him a royal welcome, identifying his royal Davidic lineage. After the cleansing of the Temple, however, the Sanhedrin set out to have Jesus killed, and after his arrest, the crowds turn against him, as dramatized in Sunday’s Gospel.