Palm Sunday¹

Why does Holy Week begin immediately after Palm Sunday? At this point began the confrontation between the Lord Jesus Christ and the leaders of the Jews. Christ exposed their hypocrisy, and they incited the people against Him. Their worldly hopes in Him failed when He rejected an earthly kingdom. The Lord Jesus strengthened the faith of His disciples and prepared them for the coming trial…

My beloved children:
I congratulate you today on this Lordly Feast, the Feast of Christ’s entrance as King into Jerusalem. I also congratulate you on the beginning of the Holy Pascha Week, which we call Holy Week.
And I would like to ask:
What is the relationship between these two events? And why does Holy Week begin immediately after Palm Sunday?

On this day, the Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem as a King — but what kind of King?
Here, the understanding between the Lord and the Jews differs completely concerning the meaning and concept of kingship:
He wanted a spiritual kingdom over hearts, while they wanted an earthly kingdom on land.
He wanted to save them from their sins, but they desired only political deliverance from Roman rule.
The Lord Jesus sought only the heart, but the Jews sought only the throne.
He wished to free them from the bondage of sin, while they wished merely for the appearance of external freedom from foreign domination.
Thus, they could not comprehend the spiritual understanding of Christ — a clash was inevitable. And how did this clash begin?

It began on Palm Sunday, when they received Him with palm branches and olive boughs, shouting for Him as King of Jerusalem, spreading their clothes before Him, saying: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of David!”
But all this welcome did not change the Lord’s divine plan. He did not flatter them for their shouts nor return their welcome. They had received Him as King in their city but not as King over their hearts.

The people were sincere and innocent in their welcome, but the leaders were troubled by the people’s joy.
They were filled with jealousy and envy, saying, “Behold, the world has gone after Him.” They criticized Him because of the cries of the people and the children.
But the Lord Jesus, who cared nothing for earthly rule and who later said plainly, “My kingdom is not of this world,” began to focus His attention on the heart.
He started to cleanse the temple of its defilements, overturned the tables of the money changers, commanded the removal of the pigeon cages, and with a whip said in rebuke, “My Father’s house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”
The Jewish leaders saw that He had taken a firm stance that shook their authority, and they could not resist His power.

Therefore, they began to stir up the people against Him because He rejected kingship and disappointed their earthly hopes.
He was no longer the expected deliverer in whom the masses placed their dreams; He was not the new Gideon or Samson they had imagined.
Spiritual teaching was not their aim, nor was purity of heart. It was a people obsessed with politics, not holiness — caring for the earth, not eternity!

From here, the sufferings of Christ entered a new stage — the stage of confrontation.
He said to them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Woe to you, blind guides, who shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those entering to go in” (Matthew 23).
And to the priests He said: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it” (Matthew 21:43).
He rebuked the teachers of the Law also. This was a tone they had never heard from Him before — not from the gentle, meek Christ who “will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets; a bruised reed He will not break, and a smoking flax He will not quench.”
But the Lord showed us through this that firmness has its time, and patience has its limits.

Christ refused earthly kingship, knowing well the price and the consequences of this refusal.
He had already rejected kingship at the beginning of His ministry, during the temptation on the mountain, when the tempter said, “All these kingdoms I will give You and their glory.”
He chose not rule, but the Cross.
He loved suffering more than authority — suffering out of love for humanity and a desire to save them, rather than worldly glory, for He had said before, “I do not receive glory from men.”
And what glory or kingdom could men offer to the King of kings and Lord of lords?

Thus, Palm Sunday was a decisive day in the relationship between the Lord Jesus and the Jews.
He revealed His spiritual mission and His rejection of worldly power.
They, on the other hand, began their conspiracy against Him and took a concrete step on Wednesday, three days after welcoming Him as King in Jerusalem — that day they agreed with Judas to betray his Master, received money, and handed over his conscience to them!

But the Lord Jesus left Jerusalem to spend the night in Bethany, preparing Himself for the Cross.
He freed His disciples from submission to Jewish leadership and the Levitical priesthood by exposing and rebuking them, saying that the kingdom would be taken away from them.
He told His pure apostles concerning the Jewish leaders: “Do not be called teachers, for One is your Teacher, the Christ; and do not call anyone on earth your father or master.”
He said this in rebuke to the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23).
Of course, He did not say this to all believers, for His apostles and their successors were indeed teachers, fathers, and pastors — for “He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11).

Christ began to abolish the Levitical priesthood and to establish a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.
On the Cross, He allowed the veil of the temple to be torn, to establish a new Christian temple — not the Jewish one.

From Palm Sunday onward, He began a new kind of preparation for His holy apostles:
that they might face the Crucifixion without fear,
be ready for their coming responsibilities,
and bear His bodily absence with faith and endurance.

His work to strengthen their faith and hope was shown in several ways:
Just before Holy Week, on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, the Lord raised Lazarus after four days in the tomb, after all had despaired.
The raising of Lazarus carried two meanings: first, the divine power of Christ, who alone holds life and death; second, it prepared the disciples to believe in His own Resurrection.
Before that, He had also prepared their minds and hearts through another miracle — giving sight to the man born blind (John 9).

All this was to save them from doubt at the time of His Crucifixion. Even if they did waver, it would be easy for them to return to faith and to believe when they saw Him alive again after His death.

This week was also distinguished by long, intimate talks between Christ and His disciples to strengthen their faith and prepare them for the coming trial.
The Gospel of John records these in chapters 13 through 16.
He told them, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”
“I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
“I will not leave you orphans” (John 15).
He comforted them by promising to send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, from the Father, who would abide with them forever and teach them all things.
He gave them another great comfort — the gift of the Holy Eucharist on Covenant Thursday — that they might abide in Him.
He also prayed for them a long prayer in John 17: “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am.”
He told them everything before it happened, so that when it did, they would believe.
He said that the Son of Man would be delivered into the hands of sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.
He also said, “I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” And it was so.

Palm Sunday thus lays out the divine plan the Lord wants for us:
It teaches that suffering is deeper and greater than worldly glory.
It shows His care for His children — His disciples — and His effort to strengthen their faith.
It reminds us that the temple must always be cleansed to remain a house of prayer.
This temple where the Lord dwells continually, saying to our hearts: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

And so, after Palm Sunday, we begin the remembrance of Holy Week, recalling God’s love for us — a love that led Him to offer Himself for our salvation.
May the Lord complete for us this holy Pascha in peace and grant us the joys of His Resurrection for many years. To Him be glory now and forever. Amen.

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¹Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in Watani newspaper on April 19, 1981.

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