Edina Hall

Sisters and Brothers in Christ,  

When I was a little girl my church celebrated Palm Sunday as simply Palm Sunday, not Palm Sunday plus. We didn’t have a donkey. We didn’t have a dramatic reading of the Passion. It wasn’t a part of the larger story. It was simply Palm Sunday.  

Back then, if you wanted the whole Passion story and to live into the last days of Christ’s life, you had to attend the services every evening throughout the week. As a child thinking linearly, this made sense.

As each day of Holy Week marched forward, the events unfolded more slowly. If you attended only on Sundays, then you skipped right over the Last Supper and Jesus’ final words and headed right into Easter. It would have been an incomplete journey—a “cutting to the chase” of sorts. And, in a small child pious way, I often thought, “It’s your own fault. You should have been at church during Holy Week.” 

Eventually our church began reading the whole Passion on Palm Sunday ending at the crucifixion. While I can understand the practicality, I still haven’t gotten used to it. Nor do I quite like it.

I feel the “pull” on Palm Sunday to take my place in the crowd, wave palms, and experience the joy at seeing my Savior and I want it to last a bit longer than it does.

I simply don’t want to be rushed from that joy into the horrors to come. I need a few days to turn from the “Hosannas” to “Crucify him!” and, for me, it takes longer than just a page turn.  

Today, the lectionary reading (Mark 11:1-11) is my time to savor the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem—Palm Sunday, not Palm Sunday plus.

I know I will betray Him and be welcomed back again and again. That is my humanity and His grace. But today I will mindfully welcome Jesus into my life. To take my very dry folded palm cross, maybe grab a fresh branch, and sing: 

“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 heaven!” 

—Edina