03/25/2026
I STILL REMEMBER THE PALM CROSSES
As a young boy, I remember making and carrying a little palm cross in church to celebrate Palm Sunday every year. I appreciate my parents for instilling in me a deep appreciation for the “high holy days” on the Episcopal Church calendar.
As a young man, I remember being carefully led by staff and members of His House Fellowship to a point of surrender a few weeks before Palm Sunday. I was an underclassman at Michigan State University. I remember the Sunday night I stepped forward, accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior at a campus house meeting and was baptized at University Christian Church.
It ""is one of many reasons that this is a sacred time of year for me and why I treasure this scripture.
21 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her c**t by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 “Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a c**t, the foal of a donkey.’”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the c**t and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
(Matthew 21:1-11, New International Version)
The people who welcomed and celebrated Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem didn’t fully understand who He was. They called Him “the prophet from Nazareth.”
His disciples participated in this “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem, though they must have been equally perplexed as to the full meaning of this activity. It certainly would have fed those who believed that the Messiah would arrive like a mighty king similar to King David. (See David’s delivery of the Ark of the Covenant to the temple of Jerusalem in 2nd Samuel 6.)
Actually, though the Jews would have considered it blasphemy, Jesus was the Ark of the Covenant in the flesh. He was “God with us.”
Last century we used to talk about the dangers of putting “God in a box.” Palm Sunday is a day of celebration that God is out of the box. He enters the holy city on the back of a c**t to fulfill a prophecy (Zechariah 9:9).
It is appropriate that the foal of a beast of burden carries the Savior of the world into the great city. It wasn’t Trigger or Sliver. It was an everyday animal covered in cloaks and adds deeper meaning to Isaiah 53:5-6.
"5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all."
Part of me longs for the days when little children in church would show their proud parents the palm cross they received in Sunday school. The voice of these little angels would dispel any darkness creeping into our hearts.
