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Saturday, March 23, 2024

Palm Sunday



Harry Anderson (1906-1996), Triumphal Entry

See my new Palm Sunday post, which includes my own translation of the texts and pictures and video clips from this year's celebration in Jerusalem! 

Christians around the world begin their observance of Holy Week by marking Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem,  which, according to the relative time markers found in Mark, took place one week before Easter (see Appendix B). All four Gospels paint a similar picture of crowds—though perhaps these were just the excited, gathered disciples of Jesus—welcoming Jesus into the holy city with shouts of praise and the waving of tree branches as he descended the symbolically significant Mount of Olives. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve since 2004 and a member of the First Presidency from 2008–2018, wrote the following about this event:

Perhaps the disciples thought this was a turning point—the moment when the Jewish world would finally recognize Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. But the Savior understood that many of the shouts of praise and acclamation would be temporary. He knew that soon He would ascend to the Mount of Olives and there, alone in Gethsemane, take upon Himself the sins of the world (“The Way of the Disciple,” Ensign, May 2009, 75).

Jesus’ knowledge of his coming suffering and sacrifice makes this event an event a fitting point to begin our formal observance of Passion Week.By studying the events of Palm Sunday individually, reading them together with our families and friends, and establishing our own traditions for the day, we can enter Holy Week intentionally, using it as a time to come to know our Savior better, appreciate his atoning sacrifice and resurrection more, and look forward with confidence and joy to his glorious return.

 


 

Episodes for Personal Study

  • Triumphal Entry (Mark 11:1–11; Matt 21:1–11; Luke 19:28–40; John 12:12–19)
  • Jesus’ Lament over Jerusalem in Luke (Luke 19:41–44)
  • Jesus Cleanses the Temple (Matt 21:12–17; Luke 19:45–48)
See my Readings of Palm Sunday or my entire collection of Holy Week translations.

I have gathered all of the gospel accounts into one convenient document, which has been formatted in a "reader's edition" and organized day-by-day: http://erichuntsman.com/documents/HolyWeekReadings.pdf

Some may find useful my own fresh translation of the texts, excerpts appearing below and the full document available at https://erichuntsman.com/Huntsman_holy_week_scripture_selections_translation.pdf

Suggestions for Families

  • If using an Easter Wreath, light the purple candle
  • Read Mark 11:1‒11 and John 12:12‒19 together
  • Watch the Bible video, “The Lord’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.”
  • Read about and then sing “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” (hymn no. 69) and perhaps “Hosanna” (Children’s Songbook, 66‒67).
  • Watch the music video “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus” arranged by Ryan Murphy and performed by the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, noting the extra verse about the Triumphal Entry.
  • Discuss what it meant for Jesus to have been “the anointed king” and what it will be like when he comes again in glory.

 

Ideas, Traditions, and Activities for Younger Children

  • Charles Colson et al., “Palm Sunday: Praising the King,” Christ in Easter, [1‒16].
  • Janet and Joe Hales, A Christ Centered Easter, 6, 18‒19, 26.
  • Wendee Wilcox Rosborough, The Holy Week for Latter-day Saint Families, 1‒7.

 

Some Inspiring Art

  • Carl Bloch, “Cleansing the Temple.”
  • James Tissot, “The Foal of Bethphage,” “The Procession on the Mount of Olives,” “The Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem,” and “The Merchants Chased from the Temple.”
  • Harry Anderson, “Triumphal Entry.”
  • Minerva Teichert, “Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem.”
  • Walter Rane, “Triumphal Entry of Christ.”
  • Liz Lemon Swindle, “Triumphal Entry.”

For lovely images and blocks of scripture quotations that nicely supplement what I am doing on this blog, please see the blog of my friend Chad Emmett, Beit Emmett, Holy Week: Palm Sunday.

With my daughter Rachel in the Jerusalem Palm Sunday procession in 2012

With Rachel and Elaine at the Bethphage Church, 2011
We had the wonderful opportunity of being in Jerusalem for Palm Sunday in 2012 and then again in 2022 and 2023.  This year, and no doubt in subsequent years, we will look at pictures and video clips of our experience there, remembering what it was like to celebrate with fellow Christians from all around the world. 

The traditional Anglican collect for Palm Sunday:
Almighty and everliving God, in thy tender love for the human race thou didst send thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him 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 also share in his resurrection; through Christ our Lord, who lives and reighs with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.




On the Mount of Olives, April 2, 2023



 

Brief Discussion of the Events of the Sunday before Easter

See the longer treatment in God So Loved the World, 7–15.



THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY


The church at Bethphage, which marks the spot where Jesus mounted the donkey
John 12:1 reports that Jesus came to Bethany, outside of Jerusalem, six days before Passover. By conventional reckoning, this would have been on the last Saturday of Jesus’ mortal ministry. While there he enjoyed a supper with Lazarus and Martha, during which Mary entered and anointed his feet. While this event is usually associated with a similar anointing recounted by Mark and Matthew later in the week (see the Wednesday post), John may have intended the symbolism to function differently: two figures were regularly anointed in ancient Israel, kings and priests, and the events of the next day seem to emphasize Jesus’ role as the true king of Israel.

This becomes apparent in all four gospel accounts, where, on the last Sunday of Jesus’ life, he entered Jerusalem in triumph. John, for instance, notes the following:
On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, "Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord." And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, "Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt." These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him. (John 12:12–16).
Painting of the triumphal entry in the Bethphage church

 
The four gospel accounts differ only slightly. The Synoptics, for instance, give greater detail as to how Jesus obtained the donkey on which he rode during his triumphal procession. Luke depicts it as a triumphal approach to Jerusalem, with Jesus stopping some distance from Jerusalem to mourn and lament the city from afar before he entered the holy city (19:41–44).  While a donkey does not seem to modern readers to be a very regal mode of transportation, one must remember that it was commonly the conveyance of Old Testament kings, especially David. The waving of tree branches (only John mentioned that they were palm fronds) is often associated with Sukkot, the autumn festival of Tabernacles that commemorated the wandering of the children of Israel in the wilderness. Once in the Promised Land, however, it became above all a harvest festival, but it was also associated with the coronation of the Israelite king and in the intertestamental period developed messianic connections.


 Watch the clip above to see Palm Sunday on the Mount of Olives in 2012

Reflection

Palm Sunday is a good opportunity not only to recall one of the rare moments in Jesus’ ministry when he was recognized for the king he was. Depending upon the timing of Passover and the day that Jesus was crucified, this Sunday could have been "fifth day before Passover" when the Paschal Lamb was selected for Passover and set apart for the Lord, giving special significance to crowd’s recognition of Jesus on this day—they may have been welcoming him as a hoped-for king, but in reality he had come as the Lamb of God who would die for them.

Coming down the Mount of Olives with Jerusalem awaiting us across the Qidron Valley


Only John gives a reason why the Jerusalem crowds seemed so united in welcoming Jesus as the possible Messiah: they had heard about the great miracle that he performed in raising Lazarus (John 12:17-12), which of course foreshadows Jesus’ own conquest of death. This explicitly connects the Triumphal Entry to Jesus' resurrection. It also, however, gave further cause for opposition. John 12:19 notes that "the Pharisees therefore said among themselves, ‘Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the whole world is gone after him.’" Earlier they and the "chief priests" had, as a result of the raising of Lazarus, already begun to take counsel about how they could put Jesus to death (John 11:47-53).

Consequently, Palm Sunday is also an occasion to look forward to Jesus Christ's final, triumphal return when all the world will recognize him as Lord and King.  Having conquered death, he will, in due course, return to Jerusalem—and all the earth—in glory.
And [they] brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. (Matthew 21:7-11)
Samuel and Rachel with our Easter creche on Palm Sunday in 2010
Our Easter creche Holy Week 2014


The joy of the triumphal entry is perhaps best expressed in our modern hymn, "All Glory Laud and Honor."

    All glory, laud, and honor
    To thee, Redeemer, King,
    To whom the lips of children
    Made sweet hosannas ring.
    Thou art the King of Israel,
    Thou David’s royal Son,
    Who in the Lord’s name comest,
    The King and Blessed One.

    The company of angels
    Are praising thee on high,
    And mortal men and all things
    Created make reply.
    The people of the Hebrews
    With palms before thee went;
    Our praise and love and anthems
    Before thee we present.

    To thee, before thy passion,
    They sang their hymns of praise;
    To thee, now high exalted,
    Our melody we raise.
    Thou didst accept their praises;
    Accept the love we bring,
    Who in all good delightest,
    Thou good and gracious King. (Hymn 69)






Giving Palm Sunday in Jerusalem a distinctly LDS flavor!


In view of this year's Hosanna Shout in General Conference, watch my students sing "The Spirit of God"

Handel's Messiah and Holy Week

Written in London in 1741 and first performed on April 13, 1742, in Dublin, Ireland, Messiah has become one of the most well-known and loved works of choral literature. The first part, with the addition of the Hallelujah chorus from the second part, is commonly performed at Christmastime, but the work as a whole was first performed during Lent, the period of preparation leading up to Easter. Indeed, the second part of the oratorio focuses on Jesus’ sacrifice; the third centers on the Resurrection and his future return as King to rule and reign, which accords closely with the priestly and kingly themes of Jesus’ last week (God So Loved the World, 108).

As a result, some of the great choruses of the third part, though intended by Handel to look forward towards the Lord's future return in glory, nonetheless fit into discussions of the first half of Holy Week, when many of Jesus' actions actually anticipate what will happen at the Second Coming. This has been particularly on my mind this year (2014) as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has been preparing to sing the whole Messiah as our Easter concert next week, and yesterday it dawned on me that the later chorus "Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates" (no. 33) reflects the Triumphal Entry theme of Jesus as king:
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors;
     and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is the King of glory?
     The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors;
     and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is the King of glory?
     The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory (see Psalm 24:7-10).




 JESUS CLEANSES THE TEMPLE

James Tissot, Merchants Chased from the Temple
In Matthew and Luke, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, he proceeds directly to the temple, where, in a familiar scene, he cast out the moneychangers and those who were selling sacrificial animals in its outer courts. Mark delays this scene until Monday for symbolic and literary reasons, while John had recorded a cleansing of the temple at the beginning of his ministry (John 2:13–25). Either there actually were two different cleansings, or John had moved it to the front end to illustrate that Jesus was always sovereign—he always had the authority and right to do what he did. For theSsynoptics, however, the cleansing can be directly connected with a royal interpretation of the Triumphal Entry. From the time of Solomon until the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians, the temple had been, in effect, a royal chapel adjacent to the king’s palace. There he was coronated and "adopted" as a son of YHWH (see Psalm 2:7), a clear type and foreshadowing of how Christ was not only the rightful king but also the actual Son of God.

Reflection

If one connects the Triumphal Entry with Jesus’ eventual return, the cleansing of the Temple can be seen as the eventual "cleansing of the earth" and especially Jerusalem and the establishment of Jesus’ reign there.


Marking Palm Sunday

Not only does Palm Sunday commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry and celebrate his kingship, it also marks the opening of Holy Week. By intentionally making it different than the usual Sunday by what we read, listen to, discuss, and do, we set the tone for the subsequent days, preparing us to focus on the final events of the Savior’s life and commemorate more meaningfully his atoning sacrifice and resurrection at the week’s end. As Elder Uchtdorf has observed, “It is fitting that during the week from Palm Sunday to Easter morning we turn our thoughts to Jesus Christ, the source of light, life, and love.”[1] §


[1] Uchtdorf, “The Way of the Disciple,” 75.

For Further Reading

Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week, 1–30. 

Trevan Hatch, A Stranger in Jerusalem, 128–131, 189–190.

Eric D. Huntsman, God So Loved the World, 7–16.

Amy-Jill Levine, Entering the Passion, 21–44.

Julie M. Smith, The Gospel according to Mark, 601–611.

Thomas A. Wayment, “The Triumphal Entry,” From the Transfiguration through the Triumphal Entry, 398–416.



Easter Quicklinks


Palm Sunday in Provo, 2013!

Before a fireside of Jerusalem Center alumni on the Last Week of the Savior's life, we gathered for our very own Palm Sunday procession!








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