Palm Sunday

Entry into Jerusalem, Manuscript Illumination (c. 1030–1040)

It is almost Palm Sunday, and in our house we are eagerly anticipating this kick-off to Holy Week (and see my recent post on Holy Week). With the extra activity of the upcoming week and gearing up for Easter, I try my best not to overdo it on Palm Sunday. It's all about pacing, I tell myself (which is, admittedly, not my forte).

And so on Palm Sunday, we try to keep it simple. We go to church and hear about Jesus's fulfillment of the prophecy that the saving king would come riding into Jerusalem, but not on a horse grown to its full strength; rather, he rode in on an inglorious donkey, a beast of burden. And not just a donkey, but a little colt or foal donkey (Zech. 9:9; see also Mark 11:1-11; Matt. 21:1-11; Luke 19:28-44). And as Jesus enters, the crowd is stirred up and the people begin to chant words whose basic message is one of revolution against Rome. They say, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" Hosanna means "save us," and referring to someone as David's son indicates that this is the rightful successor to Israel's throne, since King David was remembered as the greatest and most important king of Israel's monarchy of so many centuries ago. And the people wave palm branches, which were used as a sign of victory in the Maccabean Revolt of the 160s BCE and then again later during the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 130s. In other words, Jesus's entry into Jerusalem turns into a protest against Rome and a call for a new king, namely Jesus. As the crowds were stirred up and the buzz of political revolution began to spread, I always imagine Jesus's feet dragging on the ground a bit as he road his young, humble beast.

Palm branch and palm tree on a coin from the Bar Kokhba period, c. 133/132 BCE

And at church, the kids get palm branches, of course. Last year, I almost lost an eye to Josephine's furious shaking and waving. So at some point, I started trying to fold her palm branch into the shape of the cross (smaller = easier to dodge, right??). I knew that people folded palm branches into crosses, but I couldn't quite figure out how to do it. Using any sort of artistic medium to fashion anything that might resemble a piece of art is decidedly not my area of giftedness. So this year I will be more prepared.

Palm Folding
The first thing to remember is to put your palms in a vase of water when you get home from church, just as you would do for flowers. Unless you do your palm folding right away, of course. But we always need lunch and looooong Sunday naps before we can do anything else.

Then, you fold. It's really not that hard, once you get the hang of it. Last year I only attempted a basic palm cross, but there are lots of different ways to fold palm leaves (see here for 10 ways to fold a palm, including a rose, a heart, a braid, and what looks like another very complicated kind of braid).

Oh, and make sure to save your folded palms (or even just the unfolded palm branches) for burning next year on Ash Wednesday. Even if you aren't burning palms is your backyard fire pit because you forgot to buy ashes ahead of time and nowhere in town sells them and you have to lead an Ash Wednesday service in a few hours (ahem, not that we have ever done this!), it's still a wonderful activity to make ashes on Ash Wednesday. And so each new season of Lent begins with the palms used in the final days of the previous lenten season. 

Palm Sunday Treats
And since it's a Sunday in Lent, even if you gave up sweets for Lent, you can (if you choose) enjoy some Palm Sunday treats. We often try to make something with figs, because they're naturally sweet and make for a tasty treat that doesn't have to be a buttery-sugary dessert of pure decadence. And really, the reason is more because two of the Gospel accounts tell that, the day after Jesus' triumphal entry, he had a hankering for figs. But when the fig tree had nothing to offer, he cursed it and it withered (Mark 11:12-13; Matt. 21:18-22). 

(Apparently most figs form on new growth and only ripen in the late summer, but there is sometimes a small early spring crop—around the time of Passover—that is produced when buds form on the previous season's growth. It was likely these early figs that Jesus was looking for when he approached the fig tree.)

I do wish we had really good fresh figs available near us, but we resort to what's available at Aldi, and these are dried figs. I've not seen fresh figs at our Meijer in town, but I also haven't looked carefully. One thing I know: they aren't available from Meijer via Shipt, which means we don't have access to them :) 

Dominic sent me this recipe for Homemade Fig Newtons (Serious Eats) a while ago and it looks amazing, but I have to admit that I haven't gotten around to making it. I'm sure it's way better than the store-bought ones though. But store-bought is just fine too. My mom just bought a huge case of these Fig Bars from Costco, and they are great! I'm not an expert on cooking with figs, so if you're really set on baking a fig dessert, you're going to have to do some googling of your own! 


And an excerpt of "At Jerusalem's Gate," by Nikki Grimes (see my Holy Week post for more details on Grimes's collection of poems, which took its title from this very poem)

It's him! shout bands
of rich and poor
who block my view.
I angle for
a glimpse of him
whose touch unlocks
a blind man's sight,
a deaf man's hearing.
There he is! There!
But what is this!
No light shoots from his      vvvvfingertips.
His voice calls down
no fire.
...
He is, by all accounts,
extraordinary, yet
I find him quite ordinary.
Until he turns
and drinks me in.
I gasp, a-tremble,
grasp a palm frond
and wave in a frenzy
of praise and adoration,
singing Hosanna!
Hosanna! Hosanna!
as if my very life
depends upon it.