Palm Sunday Procession
Photo by Brady Leavell on Unsplash
Live not by lies. – Alexander Solzhentisyn
Palm Sunday invites reflection on the paradox of pageantry. Christ rides into Jerusalem not atop a steed of conquest but an unassuming donkey. The crowds cheer, wave palms, and shout "Hosanna!" in fleeting adoration. Within days, the same masses will jeer, baying for crucifixion. If ever there was a moment pregnant with hypocrisy and the volatility of the mob, it is this one.
Fast-forward two millennia, and America is caught in its Palm Sunday moment. We are still cheering illusions. We anoint messiahs only to devour them or, worse, follow false ones into chaos. The recent crucibles of January 6th, the sustained erosion of civil discourse, and the crescendo of cultural grievance dressed as moral clarity reveal a nation more tribal than transcendental, self-righteous than righteous, and performative than profound.
Just as Jerusalem mistook the revolutionary for a redeemer of a very different kind, so too does America project its anxieties onto saviors made in its fractured image. Whether they arrive with Bibles or banalities, in blue ties or red hats, we anoint them with the fervor of the disillusioned.
The Gospel account of Palm Sunday offers an uncomfortable lesson: popularity is no proof of virtue. The crowd is fickle, and its roar cannot be trusted. Jesus knew this and wept for the city that could not see what was right in front of it.
This is the moment before the curtain drops, before reality rushes in like a spear to the side. It is the calm before betrayal, the serenity before slaughter. To live in such a moment is to exist in the tension between delusion and revelation. We chant hosannas to ideals we routinely sabotage. We pose as a beacon while dimming the light from within.
The question Palm Sunday poses is not theological but existential: Who are we when the cheers fade and truth arrives, not triumphant but bloodied? The evidence suggests we are not who we thought we were. That realization, like redemption, demands more than just waving palms. It requires speaking honestly and rejecting the narcotic comfort of the crowd.
If we cannot do this, let us stop pretending to be shocked when the cheers turn into cries of “Crucify.”
Richard Bryant
The Rev. Richard Bryant is an elder in the North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This post is republished with permission from his blog, Elevate the Discourse.