Reflection to the Word on Palm Sunday, April 13, 2025
GREET THE KING
LUKE 19:37 Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 19:38 saying, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" 19:39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." 19:40 He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."
PALM SUNDAY has events like the stories about the colt of a donkey, the shouting crowd, the Pharisee challengers of Jesus, the weeping over the city, the cleansing of the Temple from the commercial activities, nonetheless, this day is still called the Palm Sunday:
As the Palm Branches are indeed a great and core part of the message.
Greeting someone with Palm branches was a tradition which was a privilege of kings. It is the same symbolic gesture with the scenery where people took off their cloaks or robes and put it over the street where the colt of a donkey strode along, carrying Jesus, who was hailed as the Son of David, who comes in the name of the LORD GOD.
It was all about the symbolism of being a King, who enters his inheritance.
Palm Sunday received its name because it is written that “the next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!”
It is how its name came around, though actually only the comparably latter written Gospel of John mentions the palm branches, all the other Gospels talk about mere branches of trees without further details. More than likely that the Greco-Roman culture of the Roman Empire strongly influenced the Christian tradition embedded in the Gospel of John, as the palm branch was a symbol of triumph and victory.
We can be lucky to have more Gospels in the Bible than one as it may have been thought by some people in the Greek Orthodox Churches and wherever in the world else, because in this case they can use any green branches whatever they just have at hand.
The options went so far that they used willow instead of the palm branches wherever palm branches were not available, or almost any other green branches of trees as a substitution like box-tree, olive, willow and yew.
In some countries they changed the name of the festivity to Branch Sunday, Willow Sunday or even Yew Sunday. It can be stated that the superficial name change almost erased the original ROYAL symbolism of the story, for something of a SPRING celebration. Often in the Balkan and Eastern Europe, and for some reason in Spain it is called Flower Sunday. In brackets that is how Florida in the US got her name. It is also still a living saying in Eastern Europe regarding Flower Sunday that whosoever loves flowers he can not be a bad man.
The diversity of the accounts of the Gospels regarding green branches is maybe a by -God- preordered- ease on the mind of the churches, because Palm Sunday happens a week before the date of the actual Easter Sunday, which is a moving Holiday every single year, as Easter falls on the First Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.
Every year this moving has a range of around a month from March 21 toward the very middle or the two-third deep in April. That is why we always celebrate Easter and a week before Easter, Palm Sunday on an other date in every year, though it is still the same recurring festival.
The Palm Sunday occurred as a factually historical day as probably thousands witnessed the processional of Jesus, the Galilean leader of the baptizing movement, into and through the Holy City of God, which is Jerusalem. It was also a cross-road day in the salvation history when the promised Davidic-line king was cheered by the crowd, carrying the claim not only for the throne of David in Jerusalem, but also riding the donkey as a peace Messiah, as a Savior .
It was a joyful day, happy people shouting the greetings, as the multitudes who went before him, and who followed kept shouting, "Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"
It was a joyful, but eventful and decisive day, as well, having a great shadow in the sky hovering over it, because now we know, that after the cleansing of the Temple, the mighty in Jerusalem decided that they will stop Jesus and his movement by any means.
All shadows were considered and foreseen, still Jesus continued his processional, exactly as it was prophesied by Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Palm Sunday as a Holiday and a part of the Lenten Season is usually a little bit less in weight than Good Friday or Easter. However the Palms Sunday, as the visitation day of the Lord was a game changer in the line of events that happened during the ministry of Jesus between his Baptism and His Cross and Resurrection.
Actually Palm Sunday should gain a little weight in our meditations, because we are obviously living in the end times, by that I mean an end of a world era or a zodiac part in the great recycling of the universe, and we are now waiting for the Return of Jesus.
And it will be exactly a second Palm Sunday, which is the day of the decision-making one. Either we bless he who comes in the name of the Lord, and sing Hosannah together with the angels in the Highest Heaven, or we do not deserve the grace of the returning King and his Peace Kingdom.
Actually every single day can be a Psalm Sunday, where we have a lifespan but only a lifespan of opportunity to receive the processional of Jesus, who is our brother and friend, our master and the only head of the Church.
May his name be blessed, by the will of God the Father and the sanctifying Holy Spirit. AMEN.
