PALM SUNDAY: THE SUNDAY OF THE PASSION

PALM SUNDAY: THE SUNDAY OF THE PASSION

NOTES ON THE READINGS

Isaiah 50: 4-9a

In the third of four servant songs, a prophet in Babylonian exile reflects on the experiences of an elusive figure, God’s servant. This passage records the servant’s response to God’s commission to seek and save his people, emphasising the servant’s trust that God will see his suffering and ultimately vindicate him. The ambiguous identity of the servant resists any straightforward identification with Christ, yet clear parallels can be drawn to Christ’s rejection this week. Early Christians saw Christ in these servant songs, even as the text remains open-ended. This provides a clear link to the Philippians passage: Jesus is the servant who entrusts himself to God despite suffering.

Psalm 31: 9-18

The psalmist experiences deep distress, not due to personal guilt or wrongdoing, but as a result of the wickedness of enemies. The poetic nature of the text speaks directly to the hearer without imposing a fixed interpretative frame or narrative, creating a striking immediacy and inviting us into an imaginative encounter with the psalmist’s anguish. The suffering described resonates profoundly with Christ’s Passion. The psalmist’s lament also echoes creation’s groaning under human violence and injustice. The land, like the servant in Isaiah and Christ in the Gospels, suffers at the hands of those who exploit and misuse it.

Philippians 2: 5-11

This early Christ hymn offers one of the first theological reflections on the Passion’s implications. St Paul describes how Christ, though divine, empties himself of privilege, entering fully into human suffering so that those who suffer now may share in his exaltation and in the glory of God. In Christ’s self-emptying, we also see an invitation to humility before creation itself: we are not masters of the world but creatures within it. The call to share in Christ’s way of being is a call to renounce exploitative dominion and instead live in a right relationship with one another, with the earth, and with God.

Luke 22: 14-23: 56 or Luke 23: 1-49

Luke’s account of Christ’s Passion carefully distinguishes between those who actively mock Jesus – such as the leaders and soldiers – and those who remain passive bystanders, including many in the crowd. The contrast between the two criminals crucified alongside Jesus sharpens the urgency of the Gospel’s challenge: with whom do we most closely identify? Luke’s narrative also highlights the unexpected recognition of Jesus’ innocence: not from his disciples, but from a Roman centurion. This links with Psalm 31, as Jesus’ final words on the cross (Luke 23: 46) echo Psalm 31: 5. Crucially, Luke presents Jesus as the one who, in death, entrusts himself fully to God. His Passion does not only concern human sin but also humanity’s disordered relationship with the whole of creation. The darkness that falls at his death and the tearing of the temple curtain suggest a cosmic rupture – a creation disturbed by the suffering of its Creator. The cross is not only the site of human cruelty but also the place where all things, including the natural world, bear witness to injustice.

Sermon Notes

The Liturgy of the Palms and the Liturgy of the Passion should be held together, ensuring that those unable to attend services throughout Holy Week can still be moved by its unfolding drama. The readings offer a way to introduce the Passion according to St Luke.

A popular social media trend highlights repurposing – finding creative ways to give new life to old or unwanted items, reducing waste and promoting sustainability. Yet this idea is not new. Palm fronds would have been woven into mats, baskets, or roof thatch. Human creativity, however, is double-edged: we refashion not only objects but also the world around us, often in ways that bring harm – to one another, to creation, and even to our Creator. Today’s liturgy acts as both an overture and an invitation to a week that starkly exposes this truth. We enter waving palm branches, yet we leave having shaped them into crosses. Then, as now, instruments of welcome become instruments of violence.

Yet hope is found in the topsy-turvy grace of God: the sign of execution becomes the sign of salvation. Our actions are often compromised, our motivations mixed, yet God’s grace transforms even our failures into stories of redemption and renewal. The challenge, then, is to allow God’s grace to reshape our way of being – not only with one another but with the wider world.

Just as the Passion reveals human tendencies to distort and destroy, so too does it reveal God’s power to restore and renew. The cross speaks not only to human sin but to the healing of all things. This week calls us to consider not just the injustices we enact upon one another but the ways in which we wound creation itself. And yet, from this place of brokenness, God brings new life. Creation, like the cross, is never beyond redemption. God transforms even our failures into stories of grace to recall.

Additional Materials

Michael Perham, The Way of Christ-Likeness: Being Transformed by the Liturgies of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2016), 45–56 – A trusted guide for making the most of Palm Sunday.
Common Worship: Times and Seasons – Provides excellent liturgical resources for Palm Sunday, including prayers and readings. Available online: Church of England.
Sing to the Word (Dublin: Church of Ireland Publishing, 2015) – A valuable resource compiled by the Church of Ireland’s Liturgical Advisory Committee under Edward Darling, offering hymns related to the appointed readings. Also available here: Church of Ireland.
Dramatic Reading of the Passion Gospel – While the Passion Gospel may be read by a single voice, a dramatic reading engages the whole congregation. Download Passion Gospels formatted for dramatic reading: Lectionary Page.
Responsive Prayer Based on the Passion Gospel – Adaptations may be drawn from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Common Worship (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), 266–267. Available online: Second Presbyterian Church.