HOLY WEEK DEVOTIONALS
April 13 (Sunday – Palm Sunday)
- Scripture: Matthew 21:8-9 – A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
- Reflection: Did you know that Hosanna, rather than meaning something celebratory and full or praise, such as Hallelujah, actually translates as “Save us?”
On Palm Sunday, we remember the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The crowds celebrated Him with shouts of praise and laid down their cloaks and palm branches, symbols of honor. They also expected rescue from their Roman oppressors, and anticipated the arrival of a martial Messiah. They thought he would overturn the political and military order, and once more establish Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and their people as an independent nation.
Jesus wasn’t coming as a warrior. Yet he came to save. To heal. To feed. To teach. To connect. To serve. To challenge social order. To introduce the heaven-on-earth Kingdom of God.
Yes, Palm Sunday is joyful. And all mixed up. This moment is a powerful reminder of the awe and accolades that accompany recognition of Jesus as an arriving King, in his day and time. Yet, it also foreshadows the suffering that awaits Him during Holy Week,when he becomes an enemy of the state and will be executed through crucifixion.
As we enter Holy Week, let us reflect on our own responses to Jesus. Do we celebrate Him wholeheartedly or with hesitation? Amid the jubilation, can we hold space for the somber journey ahead? And are we shouting “Hooray!” or “Help us!”? - Spiritual Practice Prompt: Engage in a moment of appreciation for Christ’s presence in your life. Consider listening to, and maybe singing or sharing with others, your favorite worship song or hymn.
Songs:
- “Hosanna” by Hillsong Worship: https://youtu.be/hnMevXQutyE?si=uW9TYqY8P0zBC5Mo
COMMENTARY by Nadia Bolz-Weber:
Palm Sunday used to be just Palm Sunday in Lutheran churches. But now it’s Palm-slash-Passion Sunday. We felt we had to do that because people weren’t showing up for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services. It was kind of sneaky. They were going from the triumphant “Hosanna” of Palm Sunday to the glorious “He is Risen” of Easter Sunday without going through the horrifying “Crucify him!” of Good Friday.
And hey, I understand the impulse. Who doesn’t want to go from glory to glory and just skip the messy embarrassing condemning stuff in the middle.
It seems reasonable to me that people choose to go from the Big Parade to the Empty Tomb and skip the stuff that makes them uncomfortable: stuff like how Jesus ate his last meal with the people he loved most, all of whom (perhaps like me) would betray abandon or deny him, that these friends (perhaps like me) couldn’t even stay awake while he prayed in the garden, that the crowd (perhaps like me) would strike and taunt him for not living up to their expectations, that the people would (perhaps like me) shout crucify him! And twist him a crown of thorns, that passersby would (perhaps like me) shout “for God’s sake, save yourself”. Because we would save ourselves. And the fact that Jesus got himself killed in a totally preventable way never once showing enough self-respect to fight back or get himself off that damned cross…well maybe he had it coming.
… I know for myself that at the fundamentalist church I was raised in I was taught that the cross was about the fact that, because I was bad God had to send his little boy…and he only had one, and God had to send him to suffer and die a horrible death because – well, someone had to pay for the fact that I’m bad. And therefore being a Christian meant feeling bad enough about all of this that you would then try much, much harder to be good.
… Either way, I don’t think that’s really who God really is. But I do think that whole mess is what we get when we think the cross is about us and not about God.
No wonder people want to go from glory to glory and skip the cross.
But when we think the cross is about us, the only view we can have of God is of God standing in heaven with folded arms looking down at the cross in judgment. Judging us, and punishing Jesus.
But the thing is, God isn’t standing above the cross. God is hanging from the cross.
The problem starts when we think we can know who God is by just looking at who we are and then projecting that up really big. We’re vengeful so God is vengeful. We are power-hungry so God is power hungry. We want to smite our enemies so God wants to smite our enemies. That’s why it’s hard to imagine that God would willingly choose to be poured out for us on the cross because, well, we’d never do a thing like that.
But the good news is that there is a reliable way to legitimately know about the nature of God. And it’s never to look at ourselves. And it’s always to look at Jesus. Jesus is God’s self-revelation. Jesus is like God saying This is how I want to be known. It’s like God is telling us: will you stop your projections already and just listen to Jesus, watch Jesus, follow Jesus so that you can really know who I am. The way to know the Father is through the son, anything else ends us being about us and not about God. And what’s wild is that we most notably can see who God is in how God chose to reveal God’s self in a humble cradle and on a human cross.
Because on the cross we don’t see a legal transaction where Jesus pays our debt. We see God. The Word made flesh hangs from the cross as though God is saying “I would rather die than be in your sin accounting business anymore”.
From his rough hewn throne of a cross Christ the King looks at the world and no one escapes his judgment…those who betray him, those who execute him, those who love him, and those who ignore him. He judges us all. From the cross the pronouncement is made and the judgment is ….forgiveness. Forgive them Father for they know not what they are doing is an eternally valid statement. From his cross Christ loves the betrayer, the violent, the God killer in all of us and despite our protests he will not even lift a finger to condemn those who put him up there. Because it is finally only a God unlike us- a God who enters our human existence and suffers our insults with only love and forgiveness who can save us from ourselves. It is only a self-emptying God walking among us as Christ Jesus, who, in the words of St Paul, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, humbled himself to the point of death— even death on a cross – only this one can save us. — Nadia Bolz-Weber, full article available via patheos.com