Palm Sunday is the first day of Holy Week, the week proceeding Easter. This week is a chance to remember in detail what Jesus has done for us by both reflecting on our sins that made necessary His act of love to rescue us and the very great lengths through which He went in order to rescue us. Much of Scripture is occupied and focused on the events of this week from Genesis to Isaiah to Revelation! (For example, see Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 53, and Revelation 4-5).
As Palm Sunday begins Holy Week, there is much joy but there is also a sour note. The joy is seen in Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while people shout praises and take palm branches with them as they come to meet Jesus (John 12:12-15). The sour note is the reason we need Him to enter into Jerusalem (Mark 10:45).
Today, many churches will include a processional with palm branches as they celebrate and remember the first Palm Sunday. The use of palm branches is significant in several ways. First, palm trees signified life and salvation because they were always green, even in desert areas, and could survive some 200 years. Their longevity is also shown in the ability to survive strong winds and storms. Second, palm branches were also a symbol of Judea and thus used on Jewish coins. Third, palm branches were used as part of the Feast of Booths which celebrated how God provided temporary homes (tents and booths) for His people on the way to the promised land where they would have more permanent homes (Leviticus 23:39-43; 2 Corinthians 5:1-5). Finally, because of these connections, palm branches pointed to God’s victory to bring His people out of their slavery to sin to live forever with Him in victory (Revelation 7:9).
All these connections come together on Palm Sunday. Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem as the King of the Jews for the express purpose of going to the cross to die (John 12:13, 16, 23-24). Through His death, He will gain victory over sin and set His people free from eternal death, give them eternal life, and bring them from their temporary home in this world to their permanent and eternal home with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This is why Christians use palms on Palm Sunday. We are celebrating and rejoicing that the Messiah Jesus has come into Jerusalem to accomplish our full and complete deliverance from all sin and to bring us eternal life but not without cost—and this is the sour note of the day! The cost for our sin is His perfect life sacrificed on the cross. We cost Him dearly but in love and true forgiveness, He willingly bears the cost without charging us anything or demanding that we owe Him. After all, this is the actions of the King who brings salvation as Zechariah prophesied and as Jesus fulfilled:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9 ESV)
This article may have originally been publish in the Davis County Clipper in Utah; it is printed here with modification and with permission of the author, Rev. Jason Krause