The Case for Preaching the Passion on Palm Sunday & Good Friday
Some preachers feel it is not necessary to preach on Palm Sunday or Good Friday.
The Passion speaks for itself, the thinking goes.
The story is so rich, so full of awe, so packed with meaning—there is simply nothing we could say to add to its profundity.
I appreciate the humility in that perspective, because it can feel that anything we add to the story is anti-climactic at best.
However, I encourage preachers to offer a homily on Palm Sunday and Good Friday for three reasons.
1) We can’t assume listeners know the context
Biblical illiteracy is more prevalent than it used to be.
It used to be more common for people to attend church regularly so they heard the stories frequently.
Many attended Palm Sunday and Good Friday so they heard the Passion twice a year.
Many attended Christian education and bible studies where the Passion was discussed and unpacked.
They gained familiarity with the events and context for the story.
Today, however, it’s common for people to attend church only once a month, and many don’t attend Christian education or bible studies.
Not only might they not have been present to hear the Passion story before, but if they were present, it’s possible their preachers did not preach the stories to create familiarity.
In short, many listeners are ignorant of the context.
We can’t assume they understand the social, political, religious, or theological landscapes in which the story occurred.
Without further context, it’s a confusing and brutal story without a recognizable purpose.
2) We can’t Assume Listeners Understand the motives at play
Stories only make sense when we understand why people do what they do.
There are many characters in the Passion:
There are major characters, like Jesus and his three closest friends, plus Judas, Pontius Pilate, and the religious leaders.
There are minor characters, like the crowds who welcome Jesus to Jerusalem, the eight disciples, the women, the two men who are hanged with Jesus, and the Roman soldiers who hammered the nails through their wrists.
And then there is the character who is not mentioned by name very often but dominates the narrative throughout: God.
Each character is motivated by one or more desires.
Without understanding what each person wants and why they want it, the story is nearly nonsensical.
Each character holds multiple motivations (as most of us do), but among the motives present in this story:
Pilate is motivated to keep his position/power by keeping the peace of the crowds.
The religious authorities want to eliminate someone who threatens their authority and God’s honor.
Judas feels betrayed by the ways Jesus is a different Messiah than the one Judas anticipated—and perhaps wishes to force Jesus’s hand into exerting some “Son of God” power.
The disciples want to keep their heads.
The women want to ensure Jesus doesn’t die alone.
However, none of these motivations are shared explicitly in the text.
All are derived from the religious, social, and political contexts we discover in our studies.
When a story, like the Passion, doesn’t provide them, we need interpreters to fill in the gaps.
For the scripture, that’s our job as preachers.
Because motivation is how we derive the meaning of the events.
Listeners need to help to make sense of how a loving God could support, lead, encourage—even require—that Jesus endure humiliation, torture, and one of the most brutal deaths imaginable.
Because most importantly of all, we do not hear what motivated God or Jesus, both of whom behave inexplicably.
Why did Jesus stay silent in front of Pilate?
Why did God not rescue his beloved Son?
Why did God seemingly abandon Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and offer no out, no presence, no word of comfort?
If we do not tackle these difficult questions, who will?
And what meaning will our listeners make in the absence of honest wrestling from the pulpit?
3) We Cannot Assume Listeners Understand What difference The Passion makes to us
For two thousand years, theologians and students of the bible have been asking why the Passion is necessary to our salvation and relationship with God.
The story is so far removed from our daily experience that without connecting the dots to its relevance, it’s nearly impossible to make any sense of it.
To be candid, if I listened to the Passion without context or interpretation, I would not only not be a follower of Jesus Christ, I would run as far and fast as I could in the other direction because this is not a story that suggests a warm, loving, all-powerful, supportive God who would have my back.
Indeed, it took decades and centuries for the Church to wrestle with those events and understand that Jesus’s Passion was the Way, the Truth, and the Life that leads to unparalleled forgiveness, grace, and eternal life.
Our listeners can’t be expected to see how those shocking events are the means of grace we are invited into today on their own.
The work of understanding the Passion is not finished.
Preach the difficult story this year and every year so your listeners can deepen their understanding and discover new meaning for their lives in this season and every season.