Palm Sunday
| Year | Western | Eastern |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 | April 1st | |
| 2008 | March 16th | April 20th |
| 2009 | April 5th | April 12th |
| 2010 | March 28th | |
| 2011 | April 17th | |
| 2012 | April 1st | April 8th |
| 2013 | March 24th | April 28th |
| 2014 | April 13th | |
| 2015 | March 29th | April 5th |
| 2016 | March 20th | April 24th |
| 2017 | April 9th | |
| 2018 | March 25th | April 1st |
| 2019 | April 14th | April 21st |
| 2020 | April 5th | April 12th |
Palm Sunday is a moveable feast which actually falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates an event reported by all four Canonical Gospels Mark 11:1-11, Matthew 21:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19 - the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion.
The difficulty of procuring palms for that day's ceremonies in unfavorable climates for palms led to the substitution of boughs of yew, willow or other native trees. The Sunday was often designated by the names of these trees, as Yew Sunday or by the general term Branch Sunday.
In the New Testament
According to the Canonical Gospels, before entering Jerusalem, Jesus was staying at Bethany and Bethphage, 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 the village over against them, in order to retrieve a colt that had been tied up but never been ridden, and to say, if questioned, that the colt was needed by the Lord but would 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. Both John and the Synoptics state that Jesus then rode the colt (or in Matthew the colt and its mother) into Jerusalem, with the Synoptics adding that the disciples had first put their cloaks on it, so as to make it more comfortable. The Gospels 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 the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David. ... (Psalms 118:25-26). 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. Many of the pre-Christian mystery religions, particularly that of Dionysus, report that their central human-divinity figure entered a major city in this triumphal fashion. 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 John more 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 (e.g. Leviticus 23:40 and Revelation 7:9). Because of this, the scene of the crowd greeting Jesus by waving palms and carpeting his path with them has given the Christian festival its name. It also shows the freedom wanted by the Jews, and their desperation to have political freedom. It should be emphasized at this point that most Jews do not recognize Jesus as a 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 Feast of Tabernacles.
Prophetic interpretations
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. -Zechariah 9:9-10
Matthew quotes this passage from Zechariah when narrating the story of Jesus' entry to Jerusalem. His interpreting or even misunderstanding the repetition in the Hebrew poetry as describing two different donkeys: gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey, is offered by some Biblical scholars as a reason for Matthew's unique description of Jesus riding both a donkey and its foal.
A widespread Jewish belief states that the Mount of Olives would see the coming of the Messiah (see Josephus, Flavius, Bellum Judaicum, 11,13,5 and Antiquitates Judaicae, XX,8,6). This belief is based upon Zechariah 14:3-4:
Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle./ And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east [...]
Therefore, it describes a revengeful warrior Messiah, who may be interpreted as your king [...] righteous and having salvation (Zechariah 9:9). The image of a revengeful warrior Messiah is much highlighted by the use of palm branches and by the fact that Jesus, once in Jerusalem, first visited the Temple. The palm branches and the visitation, later the purification, of Temple send to 1Maccabees 13:51: On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred and seventy-first year, the Jews [led by Simon Maccabeus] entered it [the fortress of Jerusalem] with praise and palm branches and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel. The great enemy in Jesus days on earth was the Roman army; and one can imagine that many Jews saw the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem as the advent of a revengeful Messiah who will wipe out the Romans from Holy Land.
But, then, there is the problem of the donkey. The Babylonian Talmud preserves a question asked by the Persian king Shevor: Why doesn't your Messiah come riding on a horse? If he lacks one, I'll be glad to provide him with one of my best! (Sanhedrin 98a). Indeed, why should the Messiah come on a donkey? The answer stays in the symbolism of the donkey, which in some Eastern traditions seems to be seen as an animal of peace, versus the horse, which is the animal of war. Therefore, it was said that a king came riding upon a horse when he was bent on war and rode upon a donkey when he wanted to point out that he was coming in peace. Thus, the king riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey complies with the epithet gentle or lowly (Hebrew anî - poor, afflicted) and strongly implies the message of peace. This message of peace was always fundamental with Jesus, but it is not clear how well understood was it in those days. In fact, John declares: These things understood not His disciples at the first (12:16). It is highly probable that the public enthusiasm of the day saw the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem more like a declaration of war against Israel's enemies than a message of peace. In the book Sanhedrin from the Babylonian Gemara it is written that the Messiah will appear as a poor man on a donkey only if the Jews are not found deserving of salvation. Otherwise, the Messiah will ride on a horse. Since all humans are sinners, including Jews, it is obvious that the Messiah will always ride on a donkey. However, this is a Christian belief and not supported in Judaism (Jews, for example, do not believe in original sin).
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).
The first day of any Old Testament feast was always considered a Sabbath regardless of what day it fell on. Passover always begins on Nisan the 14th. If Nisan the 14th was a Saturday, then Preparation Day (Matthew 27:62) was Friday the 13th, or Good Friday. Could this be the origin of Friday the 13th being unlucky? In any event, that would mean that the events of Palm Sunday actually occurred on Monday, being five days before (John 12:1,12).
If Nisan the 14th was a Friday, however, then Jesus was actually crucified on Thursday, Preparation Day, with Friday being a special Sabbath, a high holy day (John 19:31), and the events of Palm Sunday would be Nisan the 9th, late in the day, (Mark 11:11), but still Sunday. Thus the days later that week would be Thursday, Preparation Day, Friday a special Sabbath followed by Saturday a regular Sabbath.
So either Jesus was crucified on Thursday or the events of Palm Sunday happened on Monday.
Observance in the liturgy
The Roman Catholic Church traditionally 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 hitherto been affixed to the previous Sunday, or the fifth within Lent. It is now called "Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion." On Palm Sunday, in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as many Anglican churches and most Lutheran churches, palm fronds (or in colder climates some kind of substitutes) are blessed with an aspergilium outside the church building (or in cold climates in the narthex when Easter falls early in the year) and a procession enters, singing, re-enacting the entry into Jerusalem.
The procession may include the normal liturgical procession of clergy and acolytes, the parish choir, the children of the parish or indeed the entire congregation as in the churches of the East. In Oriental Orthodox churches palm fronds are distributed at the front of the church at the sanctuary steps, in India the sanctuary itself having been strewn with marigolds, and the congregation processes through and outside the church. In some Lutheran churches, children are given palms, and then walk in procession around the inside of the church while the adults remain seated.
The palms are saved in many churches to be burned the following year as the source of ashes used in Ash Wednesday services. The Roman Catholic Church considers the palms to be sacramentals. The vestments for the day are deep scarlet red, the color of blood, indicating the supreme redemptive sacrifice Christ was entering the city who welcomed him to fulfill- his Passion and Resurrection in Jerusalem.
In the Episcopal and many other Anglican churches, the day is nowadays officially called The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday; however, in practice it is usually termed "Palm Sunday" as in the historic Book of Common Prayer, ny way of avoiding undue confusing with the penultimate Sunday of Lent in the traditional calendar, which was "Passion Sunday."
In the Church of Pakistan (a member of the Anglican Communion), on Palm Sunday the faithful carry palm branches into the church, as they sing Psalm 24.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church 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 the latter were not readily available. It is not determined what kind of branches should be used, so some Orthodox believers use olive branches. In Imperial Russia, there was a formal procession into Moscow on Palm Sunday. The Tsar, himself on foot to show humility, would to lead the Patriarch, who was seated on a donkey, into the city. There is a famous painting of this by Vyacheslav Shvarts (1868), which can be seen here. Also a drawing in the Mayerberg Album (1661) can be seen here
Traditions
It is customary in many churches for the worshipers to receive fresh palm leaves on Palm Sunday. In parts of the world where this has historically been impractical substitute traditions have arisen.
Spain
In Elx, Spain, the location of the biggest palm grove in Europe, there is a tradition of tying and covering palm leaves to whiten them away from sunlight and then drying and braiding them in elaborate shapes.
A Spanish rhyming proverb states: Domingo de Ramos, quien no estrena algo, se le caen las manos ("On Palm Sunday, the hands drop off of those who fail to use something new"). Before the advent of consumption society, Palm Sunday was a day to wear new clothes or shoes, according to each's possibilities.
Malta
All the parishes of Malta and Gozo on Palm Sunday (in Maltese Ħadd il-Palm) bless the palm leaves and the olive leaves. Those parishes that have the statues of Good Friday bless the olive tree that make on the statues of Jesus pray in the Olive Garden (Ġesù fl-Ort) and the Betrayal of Judas (il-Bewsa ta' Ġuda). Also many people take a small branch of olive to their home because say that olive keep away from disease and negative thoughts (għajn ħażina).
Poland
In many Polish towns and villages (best known are Lipnica Murowana in Małopolska and Łyse in Podlasie) etc. are organizing artificial palm competitions. There are palms even 15 meters long as well.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
External links
- An Order of Service for Palm Sunday
- Palm Sunday as the terminus of the first 69 weeks of Daniel's Prophecy of Seventy Weeks.
- Palm Sunday prophets and processions and Eucharistic controversy
- Palm Sunday according to the Byzantine Rite Tradition
- Palm Sunday Description of Feast and Icon (Greek Orthodox)
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