Palm Sunday: The Truth We Don’t Want to Hold

The past few years have disrupted our sense of self and what it means to live in community in ways I don’t think we’ve fully been able to name. There have been moments when days blurred together—What day is it? How long have we been doing this? Memories, moments and news cycles have felt like forever, and yet somehow also fleeting.

And then comes Holy Week. Palm Sunday, in particular, refuses to let us stay disoriented in a vague way. Instead, it disrupts us on purpose. It pulls us directly into the story—into a moment in time that is both ancient and immediate. It is wondrous, yes, but also deeply jarring.

Palm Sunday asks us to hold together what we would much rather keep separate. We begin with palms waving, cloaks spread on the road, voices crying out, Hosanna! It feels triumphant, hopeful, full of possibility. But before we can settle into that moment, the tone shifts, and suddenly we are standing in the crowd again—only now the cries have changed: Crucify him!

And if we’re honest, it’s not just the crowd that changes—it’s us.

Each year, this day confronts us with a truth we resist – The people who welcomed Jesus and the people who condemned him are not two different groups. They are the same people. Which means this story is not about them – It is about us.

There is a part of me that wants to look outward, to place the blame somewhere else. To find a scapegoat—someone or some group to carry the weight of what’s about to happen. History (and arguably, our present  moment) shows us just how dangerous that impulse can be. And then, Palm Sunday interrupts that deflection – It whispers, Don’t look outward. Look within. And when I do, I don’t always like what I see.

I see my own inconsistency. My tendency to praise what is easy and abandon what is costly. I see the ways I participate in systems I claim to resist. I see how quickly I distance myself when things become uncomfortable or inconvenient. Like Pilate, I recognize the temptation to wash my hands and step away.

Palm Sunday holds up a mirror we cannot easily turn from. And yet, it does not leave us there. Before we enter fully into the Passion, we hear words that ground us—words that remind us who Jesus is. Because without that, the story of this week can feel chaotic, even incoherent.

Jesus is not simply a victim of human volatility. Jesus is the one who chooses the path of humility. The one who empties himself. The one who enters fully into the suffering of the world—not to condemn it, but to redeem it. Who Jesus is gives meaning to what Jesus does.

So we stand in the tension this day creates—between praise and betrayal, clarity and confusion, devotion and denial. We resist the urge to rush past it.

Because somewhere in that uneasy space, truth is waiting.

And grace is already on the move.

Blessings on the journey –