Palm Sunday: An Anglican Perspective

Sunday in Holy Week

The Anglican calendar is ordered by a hierarchy of holy days, each carrying a different weight of observance. At the top sit the seven Principal Feasts. Below them are the Red-Letter Holy Days. And woven throughout the calendar are the Days of Discipline, Denial, and Special Prayer, as well as the special observances of Holy Week. Palm Sunday is the Sunday that opens Holy Week, the final and most solemn week of the season of Lent. Holy Week is not a separate season from Lent but its culmination, the week toward which the entire forty days of penitential preparation have been moving. It is unique in the entire Anglican calendar in having two Gospel readings and two interconnected liturgical movements. It is the only Sunday on which a procession is prescribed as part of the rite itself. And it is the day on which the Church's long Lenten preparation culminates in the announcement of what the week ahead holds: the cross.

The name itself carries the tension the day embodies. Palm Sunday names the triumphal entry, the crowds, the branches, the shouts of Hosanna. But the day does not end there. The Passion narrative is read in full on the same day, pressing the congregation into the full weight of Holy Week before it has properly begun. The Church does not linger in the triumph of the entry and delay the cross until later in the week. It places both on the same day, in the same liturgy, and asks the congregation to hold them together, because that is the shape of the Gospel.

A Day of Contrasts

Palm Sunday captures the heart of the Gospel in its profound contrasts. The day begins with celebration, Jesus hailed as King by crowds waving palm branches and crying Hosanna to the Son of David, and turns toward the shadow of the cross. The BCP 2019 notes the theological weight of this juxtaposition in its rubrics for the day: "We who hail Jesus as King one moment, may in the next deny him, even joining with the crowd in shouting, 'Crucify him!'" (BCP 2019, p. 553)This swift reversal exposes the fickleness of human hearts. The crowd's enthusiasm fades when Jesus refuses to be the conquering political messiah they expected. He arrives instead as the humble King whose victory comes through sacrificial death, fulfilling Zechariah 9:9: "Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey." (Zechariah 9:9, ESV) The palms, ancient symbols of victory, become signs of a triumph won not through conquest but through the cross.

The BCP notes the historical origin of this two-part structure: originally there were two distinct liturgies. The palms were blessed and the Triumphal Entry Gospel was read outside the church building, with the door of the church representing the gate through which Jesus entered the city. The two liturgies were eventually combined into the single service the Church observes today, holding triumph and suffering in the creative tension that neither alone can sustain.

The Liturgy of the Palms

The service often begins outside the church or in a gathering space. The celebrant greets the people with words from the BCP 2019 that frame the day within the whole arc of the Paschal Mystery: "Today we greet him as our King, though we know his crown was a crown of thorns, and his throne a Cross." (BCP 2019, p. 554) The collect of the Liturgy of the Palms on page 555 follows: "Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen." The Triumphal Entry Gospel is then read: Matthew 21:1–11 in Year A, Mark 11:1–11a in Year B, and Luke 19:28–40 in Year C. Psalm 118:19–29 accompanies the procession.

After the Gospel, the palm branches are blessed with the prayer on page 556, which asks that they would be "signs of his victory" and that those who bear them in his name would "ever hail him as our King, and follow him in the way that leads to eternal life." The congregation then processes into the church, holding palms, singing hymns such as the ninth-century All Glory, Laud, and Honor by Theodulf of Orléans. At a suitable point in the procession, a second collect is said, one of the most theologically precise prayers in the entire Holy Week liturgy: "Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." (BCP 2019, p. 556) This prayer names the pattern that governs the whole of Holy Week: the cross is not the interruption of the journey to glory. It is the road.

Palms taken home often return the following year, burned to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday, embodying the Christian rhythm of triumph, repentance, and resurrection in a single physical object carried across the liturgical year.

The Liturgy of the Passion

Inside the church, the tone shifts as the service moves to the Liturgy of the Passion. The first Collect of the Day on page 557 is said: "Almighty and everlasting God, in your tender love for us you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon himself our nature, and to suffer death upon the Cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and come to share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen." The appointed readings follow: Isaiah 52:13–53:12, Psalm 22:1–21 or 22:1–11, and Philippians 2:5–11, the great kenosis passage in which Paul declares that Christ, though equal with God, "humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him." (Philippians 2:8–9, ESV) The propers for the day are found on page 721 of the BCP 2019.

The Passion Gospel is then announced, without the customary responses before and after the Gospel, a rubrical omission that is itself a liturgical statement, as the weight of what follows resists the routine. Year A appoints Matthew 26:36–75 and 27:1–54, Year B appoints Mark 14:32–72 and 15:1–39, and Year C appoints Luke 22:39–71 and 23:1–49. The Passion is often read dramatically, with a narrator, a voice for Christ, and the congregation voicing the crowd. When the people cry "Crucify him!" it implicates everyone present. Good Friday does not permit watching from a safe distance, and neither does Palm Sunday.

The BCP 2019 directs the congregation to sit for most of the reading, to stand in silence at the arrival at Golgotha, and to kneel at the moment of Christ's death. These bodily postures are not ceremony. They form the whole person for the weight of what is proclaimed. The entire congregation is drawn into the Passion before Holy Week has properly begun, so that the days ahead are not a surprise but a deeper entry into what has already been announced.

The Theological Depth of the Day

Palm Sunday holds the entry and the Passion together because theologically they cannot be separated. The one who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey is the same one who will hang on the cross by Friday. The shouts of Hosanna, which means "save us, we pray," are answered, but not in the way the crowd anticipates. The salvation they are asking for is accomplished through the very thing they will demand: his death.

Isaiah 52:13–53:12, the appointed Old Testament reading, is the prophetic text that the New Testament applies to the cross more than any other. The servant who is despised and rejected, who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows, who is wounded for our transgressions, this is the one the crowd hails as king and then abandons. The Church reads Isaiah on Palm Sunday so that the Passion Gospel that follows is heard as fulfillment, not tragedy. The cross is not the defeat of the messianic hope. It is its accomplishment.

Philippians 2:5–11 gives the theological account of why the humble entry and the cross belong together. The one who did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. His kingship is a servant's kingship. His throne is a cross. His crown is thorns. And precisely because of this, "God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name." (Philippians 2:9, ESV) The way up is the way down. The collect for the processional stated it plainly: he went not up to joy but first he suffered pain. This is not a detour on the road to glory. It is the road itself.

The BCP 2019 Collect and Preface

The BCP 2019 appoints multiple collects for Palm Sunday, reflecting the day's two-part structure. The second Collect of the Day, on page 557, governs the Eucharist: "Almighty and everlasting God, in your tender love for us you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon himself our nature, and to suffer death upon the Cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and come to share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen." The collect holds together the Incarnation, he took upon himself our nature, and the Passion, he suffered death upon the Cross, and draws from both a single petition: that we would walk in the way of his suffering and come to share in his resurrection. The way of suffering and the way to resurrection are the same road. Palm Sunday is the day we set our face toward it.

The Preface of Holy Week, found on page 153 of the BCP 2019, is used at the Eucharist from Palm Sunday through Wednesday of Holy Week: "Through Jesus Christ our Lord. For our sins he was lifted high upon the Cross, that he might draw the whole world to himself; and by his suffering and death he became the author of eternal salvation for all who put their trust in him." (BCP 2019, p. 153) The preface is concentrated and precise. He was lifted high upon the Cross, an echo of John 12:32, where Jesus says "when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself." (John 12:32, ESV) The cross is not a tragedy to be explained. It is the means by which the whole world is drawn to the crucified and risen Lord. By his suffering and death he became the author of eternal salvation for all who trust in him. The preface is the theology of the week ahead, stated at the moment the week begins.

Palm Sunday in Anglican Worship

Palm Sunday has been observed in the Church of England since the early medieval period. The procession with palms, noted by the Spanish pilgrim Egeria as already observed in fourth-century Jerusalem, was adopted in the West and eventually shaped into the two-part liturgy the BCP 2019 preserves. The BCP's retention of the full Passion narrative on this Sunday reflects the ancient conviction that the congregation should hear the whole story of Holy Week at its outset, not merely the triumphant entry in isolation.

Red vestments are worn on Palm Sunday, honoring both the royal entrance of the King and the blood of the Passion toward which the day turns. The liturgy engages all ages and all the senses: the gathering outside, the procession, the palms held and waved, the dramatic reading of the Passion with the congregation voicing the crowd. It is among the most participatory liturgies in the Anglican year, and intentionally so. Palm Sunday does not permit spectatorship. The congregation does not watch the triumphal entry. It enacts it. And when it voices the crowd's demand for crucifixion, it names honestly the human condition that made the cross necessary.

Observing This Day

Palm Sunday always falls on a Sunday and opens Holy Week. It takes precedence as the last Sunday of Lent and the first day of the most solemn week in the Christian year. To observe it fully: gather for the Liturgy of the Palms if your parish observes it, and enter the procession with attention to what the movement means, we are going where Jesus went, toward the city and toward the cross. Receive a palm branch and carry it. Pray the processional collect: he went not up to joy but first he suffered pain. Let that sentence frame the week.

Pray the Collect of the Day from BCP 2019, p. 557. Read Isaiah 52:13–53:12 and sit with the Suffering Servant, despised and rejected, wounded for our transgressions, before the Passion Gospel is read. Read Philippians 2:5–11 and let the kenosis passage name the theology of what you are entering: the way up is the way down, and the one who humbled himself to death has been highly exalted. Let the week unfold as the rite has prepared you for it: the Upper Room on Thursday, the cross on Friday, the silence of Holy Saturday, and the resurrection on Sunday.

Conclusion

Palm Sunday stands as the threshold into the heart of the Christian faith. It holds joy and sorrow in the creative tension that neither alone can sustain. It begins with waving palms and Hosanna and moves into the silence of the Passion before the week has properly begun, so that those who have heard the story know exactly where the road is going and choose to walk it anyway. The humble King still rides toward the cross. The invitation is to follow.

"Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." (BCP 2019, p. 556)