“ Palm Sunday ” – Giotto (1305-1306)
Palm Sunday – Luke 22:14-23:56, March 20
We are nearing the end of Lent. Lent proper began on Ash Wednesday and ends on Palm/Passion Sunday, a day that in turn inaugurates Holy Week. Palm Sunday has two liturgies – the Liturgy of the Palms where we consider Jesus arrival in Jerusalem from Galilee and the Liturgy of the Passion, a foreshadowing of Holy Week.
Palm Sunday is the hinge between Lent and Holy Week. Lent has been the 40 day season of fasting and spiritual preparation intended to understand in practices, ritual and disciplines critical to living in the way of Jesus and Holy Week. Holy Week is a time of more intense fasting, reading and prayers in which we pay particular attention to the final days, suffering, and execution of Jesus.
The biblical story of Palm Sunday is recorded in all four of the Gospels (Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:28-38; and John 12:12-18). Five days before the Passover, Jesus came from Bethany to Jerusalem. Having sent two of His disciples to bring Him a colt of a donkey, Jesus sat upon it and entered the city.
People had gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish Year and were looking for Jesus, both because of His great works and teaching and because they had heard of the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus. When they learned that Christ was entering the city, they went out to meet Him with palm branches, laying their garments on the ground before Him, and shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he that comes in the Name of the Lord, the King of Israel!”
From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers. He rides the colt to the city surrounded by a crowd of enthusiastic followers and sympathizers, who spread their cloaks, strew leafy branches on the road, and shout, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
Jesus was from the peasant village of Nazareth, his message was about the kingdom of God, and his followers came from the peasant class. They had journeyed to Jerusalem from Galilee, about a hundred miles to the north, a journey that is the central section and the central dynamic of Mark’s gospel. Mark’s story of Jesus and the kingdom of God has been aiming for Jerusalem, pointing toward Jerusalem. It has now arrived. On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers . Palm Sunday as Marcus Borg writes pits two different kingdoms or views of the world against each other
At the outset of His public ministry Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God and announced that the powers of the age to come were already active in the present age (Luke 7:18-22, Mark 1:14-15). His words and mighty works were performed "to produce repentance as the response to His call, a call to an inward change of mind and heart which would result in concrete changes in one’s life, a call to follow Him and accept His messianic destiny. The triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is a messianic event, through which His divine authority was declared.
Read the full Lectionary Commentary
Wilhelm Morgner, “Entry of Christ into Jerusalem,” 1912
Wilhelm Morgner’s Entry of Christ into Jerusalem is an expressionist interpretation of the Gospel scene that leads us into Holy Week. Expressionism values mood and communicating a subjective perspective through color and form; in this, the image here is more of a meditation than a narrative depiction of the events of the Gospel.
Morgner meditates on Christ’s entry into Jerusalem through an arrangement of silhouettes in bright colors. The image is made up of two overlapping scenes. In the foreground, we see one silhouette riding on a donkey, while another seated figure extends his arms in welcome. The colors on the bodies of these two figures are almost identical: red with some green, yellow, and orange. In this, Morgner portrays a common identity between Jesus and those who cheered to welcome him into the city. This identity is perceived by both Christ and the people, but differs in emphasis. The people cheering see a temporal identity: a Messiah, one of them who will become their liberator and restore Israel. But Jesus makes his way into Jerusalem to enter into the depth of the human condition through an unjust and violent death.
In the background, we see another scene: a row of six orange and green figures flanking a central, blue silhouette. The central figure, haloed, is an image of Christ, but instead of an emphasis on common identity, here he is marked by otherness and standing apart. He is the darkest of all the figures. He also has multi-dimensional presence, as his blue form saturates the donkey in front of him, stands with the six next to him, and passes through a red arched opening into the dark blue night behind the two scenes. He transcends chronology in this way to show that what he is about to accomplish in his Passion is a cosmic reality that transcends time and space. He is Christ yesterday, today, and forever, and the story of his entry into Jerusalem is also the entry into this mystery which continues to govern our reality to this day.
The darkness of his form evokes apprehension: we know what is coming on Calvary. As we meditate on Christ’s Passion at the beginning of Holy Week, we face again the Cross and all the violence leading up to it. We enter the Passion with Christ in the hope of accompanying him through the empty tomb as well.
Commentary is by Daniella Zsupan-Jerome, assistant professor of liturgy, catechesis, and evangelization at Loyola University New Orleans.