March 29, 2026 Palm Sunday 2026 John 12:14-27 Triumphal Entry

What struck me about this Palm Sunday liturgy is not just what was said, but the movement of the soul was embodied. It journeyed through the arc of John 12: from celebration to surrender, from “Hosanna” to the shadow of the cross.

This was a joyful, festive, and engaging worship. Amy Vanacore played "I will Enter His Gates/He has Made Glad amd communicated the true joy in that piece. The acclamation, “Blessed is the one who comes…” placed the congregation inside the crowd of Jesus Christ’s triumphal entry in the Procession. Simultaneously, the language subtly resists triumphalism. 

This was not the victory of the empire. The line “not with the power of empire, but in humility” did theological work here by dismantling expectations. We were invited to confront a paradox: the King arrives not on a warhorse, but on a donkey; ultimately to be crucified.

That paradox intensified through the structure. The palms were raised, symbols of victory, but they were already being reinterpreted.  Not just celebratory branches; they became expressions of participation. We prayed: “May we also…follow Him in the way that leads to eternal life.” In other words, the congregation not only remembered Palm Sunday, but we consented to walk it.

Our Land Acknowledgement in this service grounded this enactment of the cosmic drama in a particular moral reality. We proclaimed implications for justice, history, and our relationship to land. The mention of the Clackamas, Kalapuyan, Molallan, and Upper Chinookan peoples quietly aligned with the earlier claim: this is a kingdom “shaped by justice, mercy, and sacrificial love.” Those gathered collectively refused to separate worship from ethical responsibility.

Lasans Kanneh led the congregation in the chorus of Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying while adding powerful, testimonial verses with rich, resonant drumming, which functioned as the heartbeat of the song.

Psalm 24 was especially meaningful. “Lift up your heads, O gates!” becomes more than poetry; it becomes a kind of spiritual architecture. The “gates” felt not only Jerusalem’s gates, but also our human hearts were being lifed. Who can receive this King? Only those with “clean hands and pure hearts.” The liturgy firmly asked: Are you ready for the kind of King who is coming? That question will take us through the coming Holy Week.

And then the Gospel reading turns everything. When Jesus Christ says, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies…”, the entire emotional register shifted. Palm Sunday here refused sentimentality. It insisted that glory is inseparable from death, that life comes through loss. This was the theological hinge of the service. The crowd’s enthusiasm is real, but incomplete. Only later, as John says, do they understand.

Lasana performed Blessed Assurance with the steady confidence in what the song proclaims, which he always adds to this song and infuses the congregation's vocals with that same rock-steady certainty.  

The Iona Community Creed added a deeply meaningful layer, framing belief not as abstract doctrine but as a lived commitment to a God who "offended many". This is a Palm Sunday belief. We are not simply providing passive admiration, but are actively participating in a disruptive, world-reordering love.

The prayers of the people widen the scope even further. from the individual heart to the entire cosmos. Creation itself is gathered “around the cross.” What began on a dusty road into Jerusalem culminated in something cosmic, nothing less than the healing of all creation.

And then, in the Eucharist, everything converges. The One who was welcomed with palms becomes the One who is broken and given. The joyful procession leads, inevitably, to the table, and beyond the table, to the cross.

So the deep meaning of this liturgy is this: It teaches the congregation how to hold two truths at once. This service once again affirmed that the journey does not end at the cross. It continues outward, into the lives of the people.

There is the tension of paradox. Hosanna and death, glory and surrender, the table becomes a place not needing to be resolved but received. The same Jesus Christ who entered Jerusalem in humility now gives himself in humility again. physically and personally.

Then came the final, almost startling turn: Siyahamba – We Are Marching in the Light of God. which Lasana rehearsed the congregation through singing the African lyrics.   

Everything about movement became embodied in a new way. The liturgy began with a procession into Jerusalem; it ends with a procession out into the world. The palms recalled ancient footsteps. The congregation became the crowd, which became a people on the move.

The Sending Song. Siyahamba was not only a reflective hymn; it is a march. It carries echoes of struggle, liberation, and communal hope. In that sense, it answers the earlier theological claim that this kingdom is not one of empire. It is a different kind of movement altogether, one shaped by light, not domination; by shared journey, not imposed power.

The procession that began in Jerusalem never stops. Palm Sunday is always a revelation. The same voices that cry “Blessed is he” are being prepared to follow him into places where blessing looks like loss, where kingship looks like sacrifice, and where, somehow, death opens into resurrection.

And perhaps, most moving, the service insists we are in this story.