Palm Sunday

On the Sunday before Easter Sunday, known as Palm Sunday, Christian churches commemorate the biblical tradition of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. He rode into the Holy City on a donkey, as the Bible reports, where the faithful cut branches from the trees, spread them on the ground, and thus prepared the way for Jesus. Christian tradition has interpreted these branches as palm branches, from which the German word "Palmsonntag" is derived. The Eucharistic celebration on the morning of Palm Sunday opens the liturgy of Holy Week.

The account in the Gospels that Jesus deliberately rode into the Holy City on a donkey is interpreted in research as Jesus wanted to connect with prophetic announcements of God's "Anointed One," the "Messiah" (Greek: Christos), in the writings of biblical Israel and refer them to himself. For one, it is reported about the prophet Nathan that he, together with the priest Zadok, placed Solomon on King David's mule and led him to Jerusalem to proclaim him as the "Anointed One" chosen by God. On the other hand, the prophet Zechariah is recorded as saying that the end-time "Anointed One" of God will ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. By choosing to ride into the Holy City on a donkey, Jesus symbolically indicated that he was the "Anointed" of God, the Christos, foretold by the prophets of biblical Israel.

Against this biblical background, in many Western churches, believers bring palm branches to the Sunday Eucharistic celebration, where they are blessed. Eastern Christian traditions associate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem with Jesus' raising of Lazarus. Through this, these texts aim to remind us that Jesus is the Lord over life and death, who indeed died on the cross on Good Friday but rose again from the dead on Easter night.