Palm Sunday

For the book by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., see Palm Sunday'' (book).

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.

The feast commemorates an event reported by all four Canonical Gospels (:, , , and ) - the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his execution. Many Christians and Messianic Jews regard this event as 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 the New Testament

According to the Canonical Gospels, before entering Jerusalem, Jesus was staying at Bethany, and the Gospel of John adds that he had dinner with Lazarus, and his sisters Mary and Martha. While there, Jesus is described by the Synoptic Gospels as sending two unnamed disciples to Jerusalem, in order to retrieve a colt that had been tied up but never been rode, and to say, if questioned, that the colt was needed but will be returned in a short period of time. The Synoptics and John state that Jesus knew people in the area, such as Simon the Leper, and so it could be argued that the presence of the colt had already been organised by Jesus' associates. The Gospel of John, however, merely says that Jesus found the colt wandering in Bethany.

Both John and the Synoptics state that Jesus then rode the colt into Jerusalem, with the Synoptics adding that the disciples had first put their cloaks on it, so as to make it more comfortable. The Canonical Gospels then go on to describe how Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and how the people there lay down their cloaks in front of him, and also lay down small branches of trees. The people are also described as singing part of Psalm 118 - ...Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David. ... ().

Where this entry is supposed to have taken place is unspecified; some scholars argue that the Golden Gate is the likely location, since that was where it was believed the Jewish messiah would enter Jerusalem; other scholars think that an entrance to the south, which had stairs leading directly to the Temple, would be more likely (Kilgallen 210).

Symbolism

It was a common custom in many lands in the ancient Near East to cover, in some way, the path of someone thought worthy of the highest honour. The Hebrew Bible reports that Joshua was treated this way, and many of the pre-Christian mystery religions, particularly that of Dionysus, report that their central human-divinity figure entered a major city in this way, usually before their death and resurrection.

Both the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John report that people gave Jesus this form of honour. However, in the synoptics they are only reported as laying their garments and cut rushes on the street, whereas it is John that specifically mentions palm fronds.

The palm branch was a symbol of triumph, and of victory, in Jewish tradition, and is treated in other parts of the bible as such (, and , for example). Because of this, the scene of the crowd greeting Jesus by waving palms, and of carpeting his path with them, has given the Christian festival its name.

Jesus and Joshua are the same name in Hebrew, and Jesus' parallel to Joshua is usually seen as indicative of Jesus being seen as the Jewish Messiah. Those who see Jesus as a creation from Midrash tend to point to Joshua as the origin of this part of the New Testament narrative, while those who see Jesus as a myth, derived from syncretism of other religions, tend to consider the parallels with figures like Dionysus as more likely the origin.

The song that the people are described as singing, Psalm 118, happens to be the benediction song for the passover meal, and hence is seen as foreshadowing Jesus's Passion as a symbolic passover sacrifice. Amongst those who see the events as being a literary invention, this is by design of the authors of the Gospels, while among those who believe the events are historic, this is seen as an example of Biblical prophecy.

Claims of Prophecy

Christians often interpret a passage from the Zechariah as a prophecy which was fulfilled by the Triumphal Entry:

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 River to the ends of the earth. -

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. 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 sacramentals.

In the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, the day is officially called The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday; however, in practice it is usually termed "Palm Sunday".

In the Eastern Orthodox Church and, Palm Sunday is often called the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, and is the beginning of Holy Week. The day before it is Lazarus Saturday, remembering the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. On Lazarus Saturday believers often prepare palm fronds by knotting them into crosses in preparation for the procession on Sunday.

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, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and Ukrainian Catholic 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 use olive branches.

Tradition

It is customary in many churches for the patrons to receive palm leaves on Palm Sunday.

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