Rev. Fr. Stephen Touthang
Palm Sunday is one of the most important Christian feasts that falls on the Sunday before Easter and marks the beginning of Holy Week, the week of events leading up to Jesus’ death. The feast commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in the four canonical Gospels (Mk 11:1-11, Mt 21:1-11, Lk 19:28-44, Jn 12:12-19).
In many Christian churches, Palm Sunday is marked by the distribution of Palm leaves to the assembled worshippers. In the account of the four canonical Gospels, Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem takes place about a week before his resurrection. According to the Gospels, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem and the celebrating people lay down their cloaks in front of him and also lay down small branches of trees. The people sang part of Psalms 118: 25-26 “...Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord…” The symbolism of the donkey refers to the Easter tradition that it is an animal of peace versus the horse, which is the symbol of war. Therefore, a King came riding upon a horse when he was bent on war and rode upon a donkey when he wanted to point out he was coming in peace. Therefore, Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem symbolized his entry as the Prince of Peace and not as a war-waging King.
In the ancient Near East, it was customary to cover in some way the path of someone thought worthy of the highest honour. The Hebrew Bible (2King 9:13) reports that Jehu, son of Jehoshaphat was treated this way. Both the synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John report that people gave Jesus this form of honour. However, in the synoptics they are reported as laying their garments and cut rushes on the street, whereas, John more specifically mentioned palm fronds. The palm branch was a symbol of triumph and victory in Jewish tradition and is treated in other parts of the Bible as such (Lev 23:40 and Rev 7:9). Because of this, the scene of the crowd greeting Jesus by waving palms and carpeting his path with their cloaks has become symbolic and important.
The celebration of Palm Sunday originated in the Jerusalem Church, around the late fourth century. The early Palm Sunday ceremony consisted of prayers, hymns, and sermons recited by the clergy while the people walked to various holy sites throughout the city. At the final site, the place where Christ ascended into heaven, the clergy would read the gospels concerning the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. In the early evening they would return to the city reciting: “Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord”. The children would carry palm and olive branches as the people returned through the city back to the church, where they would hold evening services. By the fifth century, the Palm Sunday celebration had spread as far as Constantinople. Changes in the sixth and seventh centuries resulted in two new Palm Sunday traditions – the ritual blessing of the palms and a morning procession instead of an evening one. Adopted by the Western Church in the eight century, the celebration received the name “Dominica in Palmis” or “Palm Sunday”. In the 16th and 17th Centuries, Palm Sunday was also marked by burning of Jack –‘o’- lent figures. This was a straw effigy which would be stoned and abused. Its burning on Palm Sunday was often supposed to be a kind of revenge on Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.
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