Palms and Passion: SALT's Commentary for Palm/Passion Sunday

Palm/Passion Sunday (Year A): Matthew 21:1-11 and Matthew 26:14-27:66

Check out SALT’s “Strange New World” podcast episode on these passages: “Jesus, Wendell, and Henri — Part Six: Holy Week.”

Big Picture:

1) Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’ jubilant entry into Jerusalem, essentially a piece of street theater dramatizing Zechariah’s ancient prophecy: the long-awaited divine monarch arrives on a humble donkey, announcing “peace to the nations” (Zech 9:9-10). Shout hosanna! The new era, the Great Jubilee, has begun!

2) Passion Sunday, on the other hand, tells the story of Jesus’ suffering and death, anticipating that at least some won’t observe Maundy Thursday and/or Good Friday later in the week — and so, rather than skip directly from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday (“Hosanna!” to “Alleluia!”), some devote this Sunday to reflecting on Jesus’ journey to the cross.

3) Passion Sunday often omits (or only briefly mentions) the story of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem, in part because of the stark difference in mood between the jubilant parade and the somber via dolorosa, “the way of sorrows.”  But this contrastive tension is at the heart of the overall narrative: the one betrayed and deserted in the passion is none other than the one hailed as the long-awaited divine monarch — as the Palm Sunday account, with its exuberant echoes of Zechariah, makes vividly clear. So far from emotional whiplash, then, the descent from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify him!” is essential to the Gospel. Indeed, as Matthew tells it, Jesus moves immediately from the joy of the procession to the anger of cleansing the temple (Matthew 21:12-17).

4) Whatever approach is taken, the main thing is to remember that Holy Week is a kind of choreography or symphony, with distinct movements unfolding over time: from “Hosanna in the highest!” to “Surely not I, Lord?” to “Take, eat; this is my body” to “Let this cup pass from me” to “I do not know the man!” to “Let him be crucified!” to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” to “He is not here; for he has been raised.” One way or another, these movements require time and space to be felt and understood, and so letting the symphony play out over the course of a week is ideal. One approach is to make services available during the week for those who can access them; and at the same time, to provide a home-based practice for prayer and reflection.

5) Imagine, for example, a home-based Tenebrae Wreath (“tenebrae” means “shadows”), a sort of Advent Wreath in reverse: four candles in a circle with a Paschal candle in the middle, extinguished one by one. Sunday night: beginning with only the Paschal candle lit, read Matthew’s story of Palm Sunday, and then light all four candles in hope, peace, joy, and love. Thursday night: read Matthew’s story of the Last Supper, and extinguish one candle; then read Matthew’s story of Gethsemane, and extinguish a second. Friday night: read Matthew’s story of Peter’s denials and desertion, and extinguish a third candle; then read Matthew’s story of Jesus’ suffering, and extinguish the fourth; and then finally, read Matthew’s story of Jesus’ death, and extinguish the Paschal candle. Saturday, the wreath remains unlit and bare, perhaps shrouded with cloth. And Sunday morning, the shroud is gone and all candles are lit, with a few more candles or tealights added — along with some flowers and Easter sweets! Read Matthew’s story of the empty tomb, and sing your favorite Easter hymn (or two).

Here’s SALT’s printable (or eReader) resource along these lines: “Holy Week Tenebrae: A Home-Based Devotional.”

Scripture:

1) Jesus’ arrival from the Mount of Olives isn’t incidental: this route is also an enactment of Zechariah’s vision, since God was expected to arrive via the Mount of Olives on the “day of the LORD” and become monarch “over all the earth” (Zech 14:4-9).  The point is that Matthew goes out of his way to underscore that Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem bears all the marks of Zechariah’s ancient promise: the new era has dawned!

2) Why palm branches? Because they iconically evoke the celebratory Feast of Booths (Hebrew Sukkot, pronounced, “Soo-COAT”), during which worshipers processed around the temple altar, rejoicing by waving branches in accordance with God’s instructions to Moses: “you shall take the fruit of majestic trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days… You shall live in booths [temporary shelters made of leafy branches] for seven days; all that are citizens in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:40-43). In other words, the palm branches signal the people’s joyful hopes that, like Moses, Jesus will lead a new exodus and deliver them from bondage. And likewise, by “spreading their cloaks on the road,” the crowds signal that they recognize Jesus as royalty (compare 2 Kings 9:13; Zech 9:9).

3) Why do the city’s crowds turn on Jesus so soon, after just a few days? For those who understood the “day of the LORD” as a time of military conquest and fantastic prosperity, it wouldn’t take long to decide that the rabbi from Nazareth is a disappointing imposter (particularly after he’s seized and imprisoned by the Romans). But Jesus has an even deeper, more enduring form of liberation in mind…

4) Reading Matthew’s passion narrative from ten thousand feet, at least three things stand out. First, Jesus’ identity as a figure in the tradition of Moses, a great deliverer, the Messiah, the long-awaited divine monarch whose arrival will usher in a new era, a New Exodus, a Great Jubilee — but who initially is met with rejection by Jerusalem, just as many prophets before him were rejected (Matthew 23:37). Second, Jesus responds to this violence with nonviolence, though he is mocked and abused by authorities and bandits alike, abandoned by his friends, and even feels abandoned by God (Matthew 27:46). And third, Jesus’ work culminates not with his death but with his resurrection (“and on the third day be raised,” as Jesus himself frames it (Matthew 16:21)). While the cross is essential to this choreography, the resurrection is the focal point of Jesus’ saving mission: the Way of Life cannot and will not be stopped by the powers of death, and that good news fully emerges not when Jesus breathes his last, but when he leaves the tomb behind: “he is not here” (Matthew 28:6).

Takeaways:

1) Palms or Passion — or both? While any of these options can work, the more the Gospel’s symphonic character is honored, the better: the story has movements, each with its own emotional depth, and often in contrastive tension with what precedes or follows. Traditionally, the “passion narrative” begins with the solemnity of the Last Supper — but beginning instead with the joyful entry into Jerusalem makes theological sense, since Zechariah’s vision clarifies the stakes (Behold, the long-awaited One! The new era, the Great Jubilee, has begun!). And it’s this soaring vision, too, that both underscores the story’s tragic character and provides a dose of celebrative hope before we descend into the shadows.

2) Speaking of shadows: entering Holy Week raises the question of how we should understand the cross. As a starting point, it’s worth remembering that the Christian church has never called an official council to settle this question, as it has with regard to other key doctrinal matters (say, the precise nature of the Incarnation). On the contrary, our ancestors deemed it wise to keep the mystery of the cross open to various interpretations, no single one of which has the corner on the truth. Over the centuries, several understandings of the cross have emerged and gathered support, and churches today do well to lift them up in all their insight and diversity — the better to keep the cross accessible from multiple directions.

3) For some, the cross-and-empty-tomb represents God’s victory over the world’s death-dealing powers. For others, Jesus’ passion represents God “paying the price” for sin once and for all, liberating humanity from guilt and shame. Others argue that Jesus’ suffering testifies to God’s solidarity with all who suffer today, including the lonely and despairing, offering divine companionship and hope in the midst of anguish. Still others emphasize how the story functions as an illuminating critique of human hatred, violence, and scapegoating, or as a moving portrait of God’s merciful love, even to the point of death. Others contend that the heart of the story is God’s creative, subversive redemption, transforming what is arguably the worst thing in the world (the Roman cross) into the best (the Tree of Life), thereby proclaiming God’s intention to redeem the whole creation in the end. And others, of course, combine two or more of these perspectives. The overarching point here is that the divine mystery of the cross is a kind of cathedral, an architecture with many entrances — and to insist on one avenue alone is to deny the hospitality and richness of God’s redemptive work.

For a Holy Week devotional exploring this many-sided mystery, here’s SALT’s “Understanding the Cross: A Home-Based Holy Week Devotional on Jesus’ ‘Seven Last Words.’”

And check out SALT’s “Strange New World” podcast episode on these passages: “Jesus, Wendell, and Henri — Part Six: Holy Week.”