March 29th, 2021

“Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “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!” (Mark 11:8-10)

This brief mediation on Palm Sunday comes from our friend Lauren Winner. 

For Christians, the palm says that celebration today necessarily carries the knowledge that our celebrations are not final. Today’s palms are triumphant and hopeful—yet, not too many months from now, I will burn them, and I will press their ashes into my parishioners’ flesh. So the palms are victory and lament, triumph and mortality, at once.

And they are recursive: the story they tell doesn’t end on Ash Wednesday. The very cruciform rubbing of ashen crosses on worshippers’ foreheads itself points to the oily forehead cross received at baptism, which is to say, they point again to hope. In time, lament won’t be needful, and only celebration and victory remain. But for the present, this vegetal Sunday perfectly speaks both.

“Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Palm Sunday – BCP p. 270)