Thoughts on Palm Sunday

Yesterday, my church performed one of its annual rituals on Palm Sunday. It’s not a bad ritual, by any stretch of the imagination … but it’s something that has always struck me as a little awkward.

During a song early in the service (for many years it was “Lord, I Lift Your Name On High,” and in recent years we’ve used “Prepare Ye the Way” and this year it was “Hosanna”) the Sunday School classes come up and wave palm branches. It’s a lot of fun, it serves to help them study the phenomenon of Palm Sunday, and it serves as another reminder.  We all  know that a huge crowd  showed up to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem,  and that  within the week some of these same people were  calling  for  Barabbas  to be released and Jesus to be crucified.