2026-03-29 Palm Sunday

Scripture Readings

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!

Back in the good ol’ glory days of the Roman Empire, there was no shortage of pomp and circumstance. To boast about the achievements of the Empire was ingrained into every single citizen. At times of war this concept was never more clear. The Roman Triumph was a prime example. It was one of the most prestigious customs in ancient Rome. It coupled a grand civil ceremony with a religious rite to publicly sanctify and celebrate a major Roman military victory.

The core of the triumph was a lavish, highly theatrical procession through the streets of Rome, serving as both propaganda for Roman military might and a thanksgiving to the false gods of Rome. The route typically started outside the city’s sacred boundary, then entered through the Triumphal Gate, passed along the Via Sacra (Sacred Way) through the Forum, and ended at the Temple of Jupiter. The procession order usually included Senators, VIPs and magistrates leading the way. Musicians and trumpeters to make some noise. Sacrificial animals for later offerings. The spoils of war, including captured weapons, treasures, artworks, exotic animals, and other plunder displayed on floats or carried by porters to showcase the victory’s riches. This was all followed by the prisoners of war and prominent captives in chains - including enemy kings or leaders. Many of them faced execution afterwards in the coliseum fighting wild animals! It was a great time had by all!

Then the victorious general himself, riding in a quadriga - a four-horse drawn chariot, dressed in regal attire: a purple and gold-embroidered toga, complete with a laurel crown and sometimes with a laurel branch in hand, and an ivory scepter topped with an eagle. The general’s soldiers and army marched behind, often singing songs and praises enormous crowds lined the streets, cheering and shouting “Hail, triumph!”

Such elaborate processions like the triumph were not automatic. It needed approval from the Senate and had to meet strict criteria: the Commanding Roman forces had to have had a decisive victory, killing at least 5,000 enemy combatants with minimal Roman losses in a single battle. The victory also had to be a legitimate foreign war and not just a civil uprising. Then the senate would vote to grant this prestigious honour. It was considered the pinnacle achievement for an ambitious Roman aristocrat’s career!

This was the Roman culture of processions and parades on the very first Palm Sunday some 2000 years ago. You can get a sense of the similarities but also the stark differences between the Roman Triumph and the Triumphal Entry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Both of these events were indeed public, ceremonial entries into a city: Rome for the triumph and Jerusalem for Jesus. Both had the massive crowds praising the central figure with shouts of victory. Both had the sense of honouring the victor and both had the religious culmination at a temple.

But that’s where the similarities end. As we study our Lord’s triumphal entry, we can almost get the sense that He was intentionally mocking Rome! Rather than celebrating military conquest, our Lord Jesus comes to fulfill prophecy as the humble Messiah. He brings about a spiritual kingship and peace, leading to sacrifice - His own precious death on the cross. The Roman general was elevated to near-divine status for the day of the Triumph. Jesus comes as a lowly king, not a conqueror. And of course, perhaps the most glaring contrast, the lavish 4 horse chariot versus a donkey. They should have known something was up when He came to town riding on a donkey! They should have keyed in to the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 “Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

A Roman general in the triumph procession was lavishly dressed in purple and gold, the most costly of fabrics and textiles. He might have even had his face painted red to mimic the god Jupiter with his ivory scepter in hand. By contrast, our Lord Jesus is dressed in simple garments. There is no regalia for Him. The crowd spreads cloaks and cuts palm branches with high hopes of military victory. “Hosanna! Save us know!” they shout. Deliver us from these pagan Romans!

But the nature of the victory is the other stark “donkey-level” contrast. The Roman Triumph was all about earthly, military, imperial—conquest by force, subjugating nations with war and dominance. It was all about temporary glory that can quickly fade. It was boastful, full of propaganda to reinforce the Empire’s power for all to see and behold! But when we look to Jesus, we see the exact opposite. His procession and His Kingdom was “not of this world.” It was spiritually focused. It would be self-sacrificial: a conquest through love and humility. Through His suffering and innocent blood shed on the cross for the life of the world, the ultimate victory over sin, death and the devil would be accomplished. His humble, arrival into the Holy City would lead to rejection, arrest, and a Roman cross - definitely not immediate political triumph.

When you consider these stark, nearly polar opposite differences, our Lord’s Triumphal entry is a deliberate parody of Roman imperial displays! While a Roman triumph exalted brute force and worldly empire, Jesus’ Palm Sunday procession proclaimed a kingdom of peace, mercy and spiritual liberation. He arrives not to conquer with armies but to redeem the world through suffering. The Roman Triumph embodied the pinnacle of human imperial glory: power through violence, celebrated in grand splendour, pomp and circumstance. Jesus’ entry inverted the whole idea: glory through humility and victory through apparent defeat. We’ve all read enough books and watched enough movies to know that the main character and hero doesn’t just die! But this is precisely what Jesus does. He points us to a radically different kind of triumph, one realized not in a parade but on the cross and in the crown jewel of the resurrection. This stark contrast underscores why the early Christians called this our Lord’s “triumphal” entry despite its outward lowliness: it foreshadowed the true, eternal victory and resurrection from the dead.

As we wave our Palm Branches again this day, we remember the crowds on that first Palm Sunday as they cried out “Hosanna!” expecting a king who would match Rome blow for blow, chariot for chariot, power for power. But Jesus came to show us a better way: a triumph not won by the sword, but by the cross; not sealed in earthly glory, but in resurrection life. In a world still obsessed with displays of dominance—whether in politics, success, or personal achievement—our Lord invites us to choose the donkey over the quadriga, humility over hubris, self-sacrifice over self-exaltation. He calls us to lay down our cloaks not in shallow enthusiasm, but in surrender: to let Him ride into the messy streets of our lives, our struggles, our sins, and transform them by His grace.

The Roman triumph ended in fleeting cheers and forgotten spoils. Jesus’ triumph continues to this very day—because the cross was not defeat, but victory; the grave was not the end, but the gateway to Easter morning. And because He lives, we too can live in the power of His humble love: forgiving when we’d rather condemn, serving when we’d rather be served, loving when perhaps we’d rather not. As we enter Holy Week again this year, as we follow our King from the palms to the passion, let us ask ourselves: Which triumph will we pursue? The one that boasts in strength or the one that conquers through weakness, redeems through suffering, and reigns forever through resurrection? To Christ alone be the glory! Hosanna to the King of Kings! Amen!