Palm Sunday
Once an area church invited nearby congregations to participate in a joint Palm Sunday service for the Blessing of the Palms. Our church was one of them.
That phrase was an unfamiliar one to me, but with millions of exact matches in an online search, it’s likely known to many within the Christian community.
If you’re perplexed by this like I was, some online research indicates that the Blessing of the Palms is a liturgy often used on Palm Sunday.
Whenever I encounter a church practice I see if I can connect it directly with what I find either prescribed or described in the Bible. In this case, I couldn’t.
This isn’t to imply that everything lacking a direct biblical connection is wrong. But it is a reason to proceed carefully.
Palm Sunday is a remembrance directly related to Jesus’s celebratory procession into Jerusalem, just days before his execution (Good Friday) and resurrection (Easter).
All four biographies of Jesus record this event, underscoring that each of the gospel writers view it as important. The passages are Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-38, and John 12:12-16.
Interestingly, only John’s version mentions palm branches. And he doesn’t even say the people were waving them, as we commonly envision. Merely that they took palm branches and went out to meet him.
Matthew and Mark say the people spread their cloaks and tree branches on the ground, but neither identifies them as coming from palms. And Luke simply said the people spread their cloaks on the ground.
Even so, we celebrate this day by calling it Palm Sunday.
Yet in none of these accounts is there even a hint of any blessing being afforded to palm fronds. What, then, is the biblical connection for this ritual?
Again, this is not a reason to disregard the practice, but it is a sign to carefully consider its relevance.
While the Blessing of the Palms is a foreign idea to me, to others it is normative.
This gives me another thing to contemplate. How many practices that are normal to us, give others pause?
May we all carefully consider the things that comprise our faith practices, embracing the relevant and dismissing the rest.
Discover more about celebrating Jesus and his passion to save us in devotional The Passion of Jesus. It is part of the Holiday Celebration Devotionals Series.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront a status quo faith and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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