Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday?

Almost every church -- even the most non-liturgical -- celebrates Palm Sunday the week before Easter. That's because Jesus entered Jerusalem one week before his death, cheered by crowds who put down palm branches and shouted praises.

Woven palm branches, called palaspas in the Philippines.
Image from inquirer.net

If your church is going to have services on Maunday Thursday or Good Friday, then Palm Sunday can concentrate just on the triumphal entry. However, most churches in America find it hard to get people to attend mid-week services. Thursday and Friday of Holy Week are regular work days in this country, unlike the Philippines where they are national holidays. (Church attendance is still a challenge there, because school graduations are often on that weekend and Holy Week is a popular time for vacations.)

So if there is no mid-week service to commemorate Jesus' trial, suffering, and death, then the church has to use Palm Sunday to recognize those events as well. That means that in one Sunday service the congregation needs to move from Jesus' entry into Jerusalem to his death at Calvary. That's a lot of ground to cover in one hour.

Here are some ways to make your service a Palm and Passion observance:

• Add more scripture readings to the service. All four gospels emphasize this last week of Jesus' life, and they narrate the story better than anyone. So just make more time for hearing straight from them. (In a good translation, of course!)
• Make the sermon shorter. (Do I hear an Amen from anyone?)
• Cut out extras. This Sunday is not a great time for baptisms or welcoming new members. The weeks of Easter are much more suited for that.
• Leave out announcements, or make them very brief.

The best thing of all is to prepare yourself beforehand. Read the texts for the day prior to the service, and pray that the Holy Spirit will guide you into fuller truth and understanding during your congregational time together. This is good advice for any church member, on any Sunday of the year.