Reliving The Relevancy Of Palm Sunday!

We are turning today, to an event that is recorded in all four gospels. That would signal to us the importance of it. An event that marks the last week of Jesus’ earthly life, and event that you can see as I project the scripture passage on the screen the superscription placed upon it by the bible translators, as the Triumphal Entry, but we commemorate it annually as Christian under the title of Palm Sunday, even though there are those historians who believe that this actually happened on a Monday. But let us read it together to set in our minds the scene of what took place that day, from Matthew’s account…

Matthew 21 (ESV)

The Triumphal Entry

1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,

5 “Say to the daughter of Zion,

‘Behold, your king is coming to you,

humble, and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies

you have prepared praise’?”

17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

Let’s pray….As I stated in my opening remarks, today is the day on the Christian calendar that is not referred to as the Triumphal Entry but is normally called Palm Sunday. The reason it is called that is because John’s account of this occasion specifies the fact that the branches that they cut were…

John 12:13a They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, Hosanna…

This Sunday, is more than likely in Christian-dom, the 4th most attended Sunday Service of the year. Easter is probably the first, my guess would be that Mother’s Day is the next, though it really has nothing much to do with the gospel, though there is some relevancy, the next would be the Sunday that Christmas falls the nearest too, pulling up the rear is usually Palm Sunday, which kicks off the Passion week, and as some denominations do, they celebrate it with a commemoration called Maundy Thursday, a Good Friday observance, and then of course an Easter Sunday Service, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord!

Now the danger, if I may use that word of any annual celebration is the complacency and even the complaints that it can cause! Let me give you an example, the Christmas holiday comes rolling around and though it is a holiday that has the potential that can produce great joy and even spiritual renewal, there can be a bit of an uggghh attached to it!

What gifts am I going to buy for the kids? Where will I get the money? What cookies shall I bake, etc. can enter into the joy that that particular season can bring. An anniversary, or a birthday as special as it is, can cause someone like myself to say, oh no, what do I get the misses this year, how do I top what I did last year, and that could be said for other annual observances like Thanksgiving, or Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day, or whatever annual holiday that you are in the habit of observing.