Hi Kids!
Today is Palm Sunday: the start of Holy Week and the Sunday before Easter. Christians celebrate Palm Sunday to mark the day Jesus was triumphantly welcomed into the city of Jerusalem by many people who have heard of his good works. If you’ve been to church on a Palm Sunday, you may have experienced people waving leaves from palm trees. “Why palm leaves?”, you may be wondering. Palm leaves are symbolic of peace and are what the people of Jerusalem waved when Jesus arrived; thus why we call this day “Palm Sunday”. As many people celebrated and welcomed Jesus, some didn’t want Jesus there. Watch the story below to learn more.
If you haven’t noticed, there is some symbolism in this story. As we know, the waving of palm leaves symbolizes peace. There is one other symbol of peace. Can you guess what it is? The donkey! Jesus could have ridden into Jerusalem on a big horse like a mighty king would have done, but he chose a donkey instead. By doing this, Jesus was portraying himself as a humble King of peace. Entering the city on a donkey symbolizes arrival in peace, rather than as a war-waging king arriving on a horse. Jesus was sending a clear message that he was bringing peace and good things to the city of Jerusalem, but not everyone thought so.
As you saw from the story, some prophets didn’t want Jesus there. They didn’t like Jesus’ teachings or his ways. These prophets would soon plot against Jesus to have him arrested and put to death. Jesus knew all this because God told him so, but it was important for Jesus to go through with it. On the next Sunday (Easter) Jesus would perform his biggest miracle yet; resurrection! We’ll learn more about Jesus’ resurrection next Sunday for our Easter lesson. For now, we welcome and honor Jesus with this story on Palm Sunday just like the people of Jerusalem did. When we welcome Jesus into our lives, we know that the story is not over. We welcome our faith to teach us to be followers so that we, too, can welcome others and what is yet to come.
There a few fun Palm Sunday activities to do today. The video below, “Hosanna Praise is Rising” is a song about praising and welcoming Jesus into our lives. Sing and dance along to the song! The other activity is a coloring page of Jesus entering Jerusalem (download/print the pdf below).