On 13th April – Palm Sunday – Revd Vanessa Conant will lead and Revd Ola Franklin will preach at 9am (Holy Communion) and again at 10.30am (Morning Worship), with no children’s groups due to school holidays but a Baby Lounge in South Vestry at both services. 

On Palm Sunday, we are invited into the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, greeted by a crowd waving palm branches and shouting, ‘Hosanna!’. Yet when Jesus is arrested days later, the crowd turns on him, calling for the inmate Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus. Pilate literally washes his hands of the decision, asking the crowd what should be done. Palm Sunday’s liturgy implicates each of us, making us members of the crowd and forcing us to see ourselves not just followers of Jesus, but also as his betrayers. 

In an overview of the history of Palm Sunday and Holy Week, the Church of England writes: 

‘It is still uncertain when Christians first began to make an annual (as opposed to a weekly) memorial of the death and resurrection of Christ. This Pascha (a word derived indirectly from pesach, Hebrew for ‘Passover’) was at first a night-long vigil, followed by the celebration of the Eucharist at cock-crow, and all the great themes of redemption were included within it: incarnation, suffering, death, resurrection, glorification. Over time, the Pascha developed into the articulated structure of Holy Week and Easter. Through participation in the whole sequence of services, Christians share in Christ’s own journey, from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the empty tomb on Easter. The procession with palms, which was already observed in Jerusalem in the fourth century, is accompanied by the reading or singing of the Passion Narrative, in which the whole story of the week is anticipated.’ 

This Sunday evening at 6pm, we will gather again for sung worship as part of a special Palm Sunday ‘Embers’ service. Themed around Palm Sunday and Easter, the service is a relaxed space for singing, prayer and reflection. For a full listing of our upcoming Holy Week services, see the notice below or visit stmaryswalthamstow.org/HolyWeek.