Procession of Palms: A Palm Sunday Reflection

The following is what I wrote for my church newsletter for April, as we prepare to do a procession of palms for the first time in recent memory.

            I’ve always been a church nerd. That comes with the territory for at least some “PKs” (pastor’s kids). I have many fond church memories. But all my favorite worship memories come from Holy Week. I got a little excited each year on Ash Wednesday, only to be disappointed that I had to wait six more weeks for the really good stuff that would come later. (See, I told you – church nerd.) The Stripping of the Altar on Maundy Thursday filled me with wonder as my mom hauntingly chanted Psalm 22 from the back, and I was enchanted by the gorgeous a cappella music filling the darkening space as we heard John’s Passion on Good Friday (even as my brother and I always snickered about the particular tone with which the local Episcopal priest always read the line, “Now Barabbas was involved in a rebellion.”).

            Yup, I loved it all. But right up there with my favorite things about Holy Week was the Procession of Palms that kicked it off each year. Even though we had to get there soooo early so mom could sing in the choir, I loved the unique opportunity to gather outside the church to hear the processional gospel. I loved singing those first stanzas of All Glory Laud and Honor outside in the sun, and walking into the sanctuary to hear the organ already blasting the tune. I loved feeling, even as kid, like I was a part of something cool, something the whole congregation was doing and I was just as important as anyone else there. I loved waving my palm frond and belting out, “to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring!” I loved that it was a little bit confusing and chaotic, because I imagined it probably felt that way at the first “Palm Sunday” too. It was all so different, so physical, so visceral, so real.

            As I grew in faithful maturity, I also grew to love the meaning of the event: that we were, in essence, following Jesus himself into his beloved Jerusalem. We were beginning Holy Week by not only saying we would follow Jesus to the cross and beyond, but we were actually doing it. How stark it was, then, to hear the Passion directly following, to shout those congregational lines in the drama (“Crucify him!”) so soon after we had joyfully followed him to what people did not yet know would be his death. As The Manual on the Liturgy states, “As a prelude to the reading of the passion, the procession with palms provides for an appropriate outburst of joy which does not lose sight of the solemn goal of Jesus’ triumphal entry. He rides to die.”

            Over the years, the Procession with Palms, a tradition which began in the 4^th century, became an essential event for my own piety, a chance to pray and repent, praise and lament with my whole body in preparation for the Holy Three Days to come. This year at St. Paul’s, the Worship and Music Committee decided to do a Procession with Palms on Palm Sunday. I’m sure it will be a little chaotic – just like Jesus’ actual entry into Jerusalem. I suspect it will be a bit confusing – just like the whole premise of Jesus’ passion can be for us. And I also trust it will be incredibly joyful – as any opportunity to join with the church across time and place to praise God ought to be!

            I very much look forward to walking with you into the sanctuary, and through the holy days leading up to Christ’s death and resurrection, for the first time this year. May God bless us richly as we contemplate Christ’s Holy Passion, and step together into newness of life.