I’ve never understood Passion Sunday. It has always seemed redundant to me in light of the triduum, The Three Days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter. I’m not even entirely sure of its history, though it seems to me that perhaps churches started observing “Passion Sunday” out of either a desire to hear the passion narrative from a gospel other than John (John’s story is read on Good Friday) or because they wanted to make sure people heard the story, since some of them might not stick around through the full Holy Week observation.
Does this conglomeration fit our contemporary needs? Should Palm Sunday be its own thing? Should those churches (of which my own is an example) that observe only the Palm Sunday aspect of this day reconsider including the passion story, despite hearing it again on Good Friday?
Perhaps this is especially a concern in year A, when these Lenten gospel texts get pretty darned long—to read the whole passion story on Palm Sunday seems like unnecessary torture for the average worshiper who’s gone through several weeks of long gospel readings already;
What are your thoughts? Is this a consideration in your own congregation?
2 comments:
The history and development of the “Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Christ” is complex, and explained in one of my favorite books, Adolf Adam's The Liturgical Year. In the early 400s, Eastern Christians apparently gathered on the Mount of Olives for a service of scripture, then processed into Jerusalem with palm or olive branches. Later, the West had the service, but with an “anointing” emphasis. Although there was no palm procession, the Gospel reading was always the entrance into Jerusalem. In the Middle Ages (of course!), the focus on the palms themselves and their rituals blossomed (we do love our tangible devotional things). As I understand it, the 6th Sunday of Lent was the start of “Passiontide.” Matthew’s passion acount was read, I think. Mark was read on Tuesday, Luke on Wednesday, the Last Supper on Friday, and John - who gives the theological, paradoxical climax of the week – on Friday. There was not such a separation between Palm Sunday and the Triduum. The week focuses and telescopes in on the cross.
The point is not that we fashion Palm-Passion Sunday to fit our desires and needs; rather, just the opposite. We are shaped by the day and pulled into the crux (cross) of the matter. There can be no procession without the passion, or vice versa. The procession takes us reluctantly from Bethany and the comfort and companionship of a great friend and teacher, into Jerusalem and its pain and death.
I find this Sunday to be exhausting (partly because the choir sings at both services, which last 90 minutes each), but mainly because of the unfolding of events rolling us now rapidly forward and the realization that this is not about God exerting triumph through glory and power, but about God becoming vulnerable, weak, persecuted,killed, and triumphant through love. Everyone loves a parade. We jump on board. But then we find out that the parade is leading us somewhere - to a destination much more profound. It’s a trip with a triumphant ending, but first makes its way through painful streets and porticos.
Pastorally, I suppose the Passion accounts can be carefully abbreviated. We can explain the purpose of walking the entire lengthy path – why we “torture” ourselves with long readings. Or we can just do it, unapologetically, year after year, trusting that it will sink into our hearts.
We watch Jesus “ride on in lowly pomp – to die.”
Thanks for the history, Mark. That makes much more sense now, because it's clear that Palm/Passion Sunday was part of a larger context. The awkwardness I sense in it today (at least in my own experience) obviously comes from not celebrating those other days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) which makes Palm/Passion Sunday feel so disconnected from the Triduum.
And of course you're right about being disciplined by the tradition rather than trying to personalize it according to our whims, because while pastoral concerns are important, at some point you risk throwing out the baby with the bath water--you completely change the life-giving nature of the tradition and it can no longer serve to shape the community.
And again, you're right about needing the palm and the passion, just like Easter and Good Friday are wedded together. We need to be reminded that this parade still points us to the cross, that Jesus is riding toward his death.
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