The following is adapted from an article by Greg Kendra who is a Deacon in the States.
This Sunday is Passion Sunday or Palm Sunday and is a day in which we need to remember. Remember that the crowd that cheered Jesus also condemned him. Remember that the voices praising him also called for his death. Remember that those who loved him and promised loyalty also abandoned him, denied him, and betrayed him.
Christ’s Passion goes on today. Our betrayal of him continues, in ways large and small. How often do we praise God on Sunday…and cast Him aside on Monday? How often do we shrug Him off when things become too difficult or the rules too hard or the demands of the Christian life too taxing? How often do we treat love as just a sentiment for greeting cards, and not a command for living? How often do we see suffering in the faces of those in need, and simply turn away?
Christ continues to bleed and weep and cry out, “Why have you abandoned me?” He cries out today to us. Whatever you do to the least of these, he said, you do to me.
What do we do? We encounter him on the pavement, and go out of our way to avoid him. We ignore so many people who need us.
Remember: He is everywhere there is someone who is small, or neglected, or disrespected, or discarded. He is with the unwanted and unloved, the bullied and abused.
Remember: We have said, “Give us Barabbas.”
Remember: We have said, in effect, “Crucify him.”
The palms today have a two fold purpose: First, they remind us that we are called to be heralds of Christ – to celebrate him the way they did that day in Jerusalem. Secondly, and importantly they challenge us to keep crying “Hosanna,” to keep proclaiming the Good News – even when the world tempts us to do otherwise, even when it seems like it would be easier to go with the crowd and simply choose Barabbas. The palms challenge us to not turn our back and walk away. They challenge us not only to remember what we have done to him, but what he has done for us.
That is what Holy week is about.