A Palm Laid Down

by Jill Carattini

(taken from "A Slice of Infinity")

The triumph of Palm Sunday is not lost on the young. In churches all over the world yesterday, children danced in long aisles with palm branches, a jubilant commemoration of the first Palm Sunday. I loved celebrating this story as a child. In a place where we were commonly asked to sit still, it was extraordinary to have permission to cheer and march and draw attention.

But like many stories in childhood that grow complicated as the chapters continue, Palm Sunday is far more than a triumphant recollection of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. The convicting irony of the holiday we celebrate strikes with each cheer of victory, for we reenact a scene that dramatically changed in a matter of days. The troubling reality to the triumph of Palm Sunday is that we know the Cross is yet to come.

A symbol of triumph, the palm branch was waved to welcome royalty and to extol the victorious. Palms were also used to cover the paths of those worthy of honor and distinction. All four of the gospel writers report that Jesus was given such a tribute. As Jesus came into Jerusalem, riding on a colt, he was greeted as King. The crowds laid branches and garments on the streets in front of him. Multitudes went before him and followed after him, crying out:

Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!
The King of Israel!
Hosanna in the highest!

But within days, these cheers of "Hosanna!" became shouts for crucifixion. The honor extended with palms and praises was forgotten shortly after it was placed before him.

It is this drama that is still religiously enacted. What I long to imagine was a fickle crowd--an illustration of the power of mobthink, or a sign of a hard-hearted people--only reminds me of my own vacillations with the Son of God. How easily our declarations that he is Lord become denials of his existence. How readily hands waving in praise and celebration become fists raised at the heavens in pain or hardship. Like a palm laid down and forgotten, the honor we bestow on Sunday can easily be abandoned by Wednesday.

Yet riding through the streets of Jerusalem, Jesus knew then what he knows now, and we know it too: This honor will be abandoned, these praises will cease, and the branches trampled to dust. The Cross will still come. With Palm Sunday comes the arrival of holy week in all its darkness, in all its brilliance. With palms in our hands, we carry a glimpse of the burden that Jesus himself carried through that first crowd. Though we recognize the Messiah before us, we will turn from him. Though we labor to follow his ways, we will fall short. (How fitting that in many churches the remains of Palm Sunday literally become the ashes of Ash Wednesday. The discarded palms are burned and the ashes collected. Then on Ash Wednesday services the following year, the ashes are used to mark our foreheads with the sign of the Cross.)

This week we remember the one who comes into the midst of our every defeat. Christ comes near to our unfaithfulness, near the ashes of what was meant to be obedience or praise. Despite our oscillating thoughts, despite the sin we cannot leave, he comes to make us holy and pure. He comes to bring us to the Cross.

Here we do well to glean from the excitement of children: Palm Sunday is a jubilant commemoration that the King is here and the Cross will come. The Son has made his triumphal entry. We must lay more than palms at his feet.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

© 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. All Rights Reserved.