Palm Sunday Means There’s Time for Your Dreams

Palm Art by Theo White

On Palm Sunday the seasoned leaders of the people see Zechariah’s prophecy coming true right before their eyes and they can’t believe it. Jesus went to great lengths to make it clear. He looked at Zechariah 9:9-10 and knew it was time to make his public entrance in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. He deliberately modeled his entry after the famous passage:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the warhorse from Jerusalem;
and the battle-bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
– Zechariah 9:9-10

But the religious leaders do not rejoice. They tell Jesus to rebuke the children shouting “Hosanna!” in the temple courts (Matthew 21). Jesus, as one might expect, dismisses the rebuke and uplifts the children’s response as the only natural thing to do. Recall that he also rebuked his disciples for restraining the little children from him and told everyone that unless they became like a little child they would never enter the Kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18).

What is it about the children on Palm Sunday that captures our imagination so much? All the songs include the singing children. All the churches have parades with the kids. On Palm Sunday, children lead the way.

Children know how to let their dreams come true. They haven’t learned to be cynical. They can trust a possibility without the proof. Their future is open.

This is magnetic for adults. How often have you asked a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” We cherish their potential. We want to believe in their dreams. There is an openness to their existence that we adults somehow crave. Oh, to be young and to believe in the future! Right?

The religious leaders can’t handle their dreams coming true. The dream of Messiah was very strong in first century Palestine. Why else would John the Baptist need to deny multiple times that he was the Messiah? The people longed for the king who would bring the peace that Zechariah promised. The religious leaders believed in this dream as well, but when the dream marches into their town they can’t believe it. Perhaps they had been burned by their hopes before. Perhaps they were distracted. Perhaps they had abstracted the dream beyond recognition. I know Jesus did not meet all their expectations, but why couldn’t they see him for who he was? Why couldn’t they accept him as Messiah? Why did they demand that the children be rebuked? Maybe the dream was too good to be true? Maybe as dreamers they had forgotten how to really dream.

I know that I have dreams that have died. I wonder if any of them will be resurrected? I do not think I am alone in worrying that the future only gets smaller. What have you had to leave behind?

In Holy Week Jesus is opening up a future that goes on and on and on. He is making a path through death on which all of us can follow. Jesus said we must become like little children, and then he went and made an eternal future possible. Resurrection means there is enough time for every dreamer to reinvigorate their dream. Even if the future has seemed small and shrinking for many years, the opportunity to trust the open future is very real. So let your loud hosanna’s ring, little children. The Lord DOES save. Pick up the pieces of what you’ve left behind and longed for in the past. Their is time. There is so much time.