Holy Week: Palm Sunday

Holy Week. The seven days between Jesus’ arrival to Jerusalem and His resurrection. Seven significant days. 

For centuries, Church tradition has held celebrations and ceremonies for all parts of Holy Week including Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. These traditions invite Christians to follow Jesus on the sacrificial path of love towards the Cross and ultimately His triumphant resurrection. 

As a church we have been journeying through the book of Mark for the last 40 days of this Lent season. With Easter around the corner, we would like to spend Holy Week reading and rereading the significant moments of Jesus’ last week in the gospel of Mark. 

Palm Sunday picks up in Mark 11, as Jesus makes His way into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey fulfilling what was prophesied in Zechariah 9:9. Mark 11:8-10 depicts the scene. “Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, ‘Hosanna’ ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David!’ ‘Hosanna in the highest heavens!”

The irony of a King on the back of a donkey beginning His journey to the Cross is only fitting for the King we’ve studied throughout Mark. Many of the same people who worshiped Him upon His entry would hang Him on a Cross only a few days later. Our human nature is to jump to “the good stuff,” skip over Palm Sunday and look straight to Easter, a day of celebration. But the joy of Easter is made most significant when juxtaposed with the somber, grievous days leading up to it.

As Holy Week begins, we invite you to hold in tension both the joy and the grief of The Cross. What was Jesus communicating in His last days on earth? In light of what we’ve read in Mark, what do the final days of His life say about Jesus? What does it say about you? 

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).