Palm Sunday: A Rookie Anglican Guide
Palm Sunday is a day of palm fronds, outdoor processions, and loud praises to Christ. With these practices, we mimic the crowds that went with Jesus on his way into Jerusalem. Like them, we celebrate Christ as the returning King, the son of David, and the long-awaited messiah.
However, when we remember what Jesus went to Jerusalem to do, our celebration becomes more somber. He rode in on a donkey to show his humility, and in humility he soon would rise on a cross. Many parishes mark this movement with both a Liturgy of the Palms and a Liturgy of the Passion, remembering the humble king in his triumph and the humble king on the cross. We also realize, as we play the part of the Jerusalem crowd, just how horribly easy it is to shift from singing “Hosanna” to shouting “Crucify!”
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Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, in your tender love for us you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon himself 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 come to 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.
Collect for Palm Sunday, Book of Common Prayer (2019)
Liturgy of the Palms
Preparation & Palms
Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, the week before Easter, during which we acknowledge the events leading up to and including Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. This week begins with Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, a story recorded in all four gospels.
Jesus made special preparations for the procession, arranging to borrow the donkey. The people also prepared, bringing palms and cloaks and preparing to sing.
Likewise, the Saturday before Palm Sunday is often a day of special preparation: getting palms ready and making palm crosses. Depending on the church, whole palm branches or simply palm fronds may be passed out as-is on Sunday morning. Fronds may also be tied into these small crosses. If they are passed out as-is, tying them into crosses may be a fun idea for the kids to do later. These fronds are kept until next year’s Shrove Tuesday, when they will be burned into Ash Wednesday‘s ash.
The Procession
As everyone gathers, the Celebrant (the priest leading this service) proclaims:
Hosanna to the Son of David, the King of Israel.
The people then respond:
Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
The Celebrant then gives a liturgical greeting to the people, acknowledging the journey of the season of Lent until this point as we now enter “the beginning of the celebration of the Paschal Mystery.”
At this point, the deacon reads the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem from one of the Gospels. Palm Sunday is unique in that it features two Gospel lessons for Palm Sunday, of which this is the first.
A procession then begins with the congregation singing a hymn (most often “All Glory, Laud and Honor”) and waving the palms. If the weather permits, this may happen around the church or an even longer trek. If this cannot happen, circling the sanctuary inside may be in order.
A Special Day for Children
Children’s participation in the procession is an ancient practice of Palm Sunday. In the 4th century, a Spanish nun named Egeria visited Jerusalem and wrote an account of her travels. She says this of Palm Sunday:
And as the eleventh hour approaches, the passage from the Gospel is read, where the children, carrying branches and palms, met the Lord, saying; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, and the bishop immediately rises, and all the people with him, and they all go on foot from the top of the Mount of Olives, all the people going before him with hymns and antiphons, answering one to another: Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord. And all the children in the neighbourhood, even those who are too young to walk, are carried by their parents on their shoulders, all of them bearing branches, some of palms and some of olives, and thus the bishop is escorted in the same manner as the Lord was of old.
So vibrant was this practice that, to this day, Palm Sunday celebrations in the Middle East feature children carried on shoulders! And wherever Palm Sunday is celebrated, children take great joy in waving palms and singing to celebrate the return of Christ the King.
Liturgy of the Passion
The Journey to the Cross
After this initial period of jubilation in the Palm Sunday service, the liturgy takes a darker turn. We enter into the story we will rehearse over the following week: Jesus’ betrayal, agony, trial, and crucifixion.
Reading in Parts
Since the Middle Ages, Palm Sunday services have often presented the Passion story from one of the gospels as a multi-reader drama (this is also sometimes true of the Good Friday service). Congregation members voice the story’s characters: the evangelist, Jesus, Pontius Pilate, and others. Most powerfully, the whole congregation reads the parts of the crowd. In doing so—in shouting “Crucify him!” in the midst of the drama, we recognize that we are ultimately the ones who put Christ to death.
After this dramatic reading, the service continues as most Sunday Holy Communion services do. However, we do so with the crowd’s acclamations of “Hosanna” to its cries of “Crucify him” now having been owned by our own voices.
Music for Palm Sunday
“All Glory, Laud and Honor”
This is the classic Palm Sunday hymn, its original Latin lyrics by St Theodulph dating to the 8th century. In the video below, it is sung by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, which makes the chorus especially poignant:
All glory, laud and honor, to thee Redeemer King
To whom the lips of children, made sweet hosannas ring.
“My Song is Love Unknown”
This hymn, by the 17th-century Anglican priest Samuel Crossman, is a rich reflection on the passion of Christ. The third verse is especially fitting for Palm Sunday, since it combines themes from the palm procession and the passion, especially the contrast in the reaction of the crowd:
Sometimes they strew his way
And his strong praises sing
Resounding all the day hosannas to their King
Then “Crucify” is all their breath
And for his death they thirst and cry
“Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the Highest”
This contemporary praise song by Carl Tuttle, written in 1985, definitely has an 80s vibe! But it is also a fun song for all ages to sing, and works well during an outdoor procession.
Photo by Sidney de Almeida from Getty Images, courtesy of Canva. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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