Bible Study: Palm Sunday (C) – April 13, 2025

RCL: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 23:1-49 or Luke 22:14-23:56

The Descent of Love

Here we are again, at the threshold of Holy Week, poised between the hosannas and the shadows. We clutch palm branches like spiritual tourists, reenacting the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. But Palm Sunday is a study in contradictions— both celebration and warning, joy wrapped in the shadow of betrayal.

Rome understood power. It was built on the unassailable right of the strong to rule over the weak, crushing all who resisted. And then—there was Jesus. Not on a warhorse but a borrowed donkey. Not seizing power but surrendering to it.

It’s tempting to sentimentalize this day, reducing it to pageantry, instead of a reckoning. Palm Sunday holds up a mirror to us. We long for love, yet we betray it. We sing of peace yet clutch our swords. We cry, “Hosanna!”  with one breath and “Crucify him!” with the next.

And still, God does not turn away or wait for us to be worthy. He comes. And a choice is set before us: Will we follow him—not just into the singing streets, but into the silence, the garden, the cross?

Isaiah 50:4-9a

Isaiah 50 is part of the Servant Songs—strange, luminous texts about a servant who suffers but does not back down. Is it Israel, clinging to hope in exile? A prophet, embodying God’s truth at great cost? Or Christ, walking into suffering, eyes wide open?

The servant says: “I have set my face like flint.” Flint— a stone that does not soften under pressure but sparks when struck. It does not crumble; it ignites. The servant does not strike back. He listens—not in resignation, but in holy defiance, refusing to let suffering steal his tenderness.

The world glorifies power that strikes first, that devours. But the servant speaks words that sustain the weary words that do not lash out, but also do not fade into silence. He lets the bruises bloom and the spit dry on his skin, not because suffering is noble. It is the power of the dissident, the prophet, the truth-teller who stands before empire and says, “You do not get to name me.”

This is not the might of empires. This is the might of mercy.

• Where are you tempted to grasp for power?
• How might you, like the servant, stand firm—not with clenched fists, but with open hands and holy defiance?

Psalm 31:9-16

Isaiah’s servant does not shrink back. He listens—not with resignation, but with defiant faith. The psalmist picks up the same posture. This is not quiet, composed lament. This is ugly-cry-in-the-parking-lot grief. It is the shouted prayer of the abandoned,the desperate plea of one who has no illusions about his fate.

“I am in trouble,” he says. “My eye is consumed with sorrow.” The psalmist does not dress up his pain. He lays it bare. To cry out, to name suffering as real and unbearable, is not faithlessness but faith itself.

Even in the wreckage, the psalmist says, “But as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord.” This is stubborn belief, not toxic positivity. It is a prayer of protest. Insistence. Defiance.

The psalmist’s lament echoes through generations—the exiled, the displaced, the ones who refuse to be ignored or erased. This psalm reminds us that faith isn’t about projecting strength but about bringing our full, unvarnished selves—petty, angry, exhausted—to the God who sees, holds, and loves us.

• When have you allowed yourself to grieve openly before God? How did that act of honesty shape your faith?

Philippians 2:5-11

Philippi, a Roman colony. A city where power is everything—who has it, who keeps it, who gets crushed under it. Paul knew how to climb the ladder. And yet, here he is, in a prison cell, urging a weary community: Have the same mind as Christ.

And then—he sings a Hymn of Descent. A protest anthem and a theological grenade: Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not exploit it but emptied himself.

The way of Jesus is downward mobility. He does not hoard power. He releases it. He kneels. He washes the feet of men who will ghost him. He descends—into flesh, into sorrow, into death itself. And we—like Rome—struggle to comprehend a God like that.

Power, as we know it, devours. But love that lets go unsettles us. We want a God who wins. But Paul reminds us: Power that hoards itself is no power at all. True power bends low, breaks open, and empties itself—until only God remains.

This is the shape of love. This is the pattern of the kingdom. The way up is down. The way forward is release.And maybe—it is the only way resurrection happens.

• Where in your life is God calling you downward—not as a loss, but as a reorientation toward something truer?

Luke 23:1-49 or Luke 22:14-23:56

The Passion narrative in Luke is a collision of love and betrayal, faithfulness and fear, grace and violence. It exposes the best and worst in us—Peter’s denial, the mob’s cruelty, the women’s unwavering presence, and Jesus’ radical grace. “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

The crowd unsettles us because we see ourselves in it. One moment, they hail Jesus; the next, they demand his death. Fear is contagious. Silence feels safer. So, we too, turn away when love asks too much. We choose self-preservation over courage. We fail to see Christ in suffering.

But Jesus does not meet our failures with condemnation. He meets them with grace. The cross is not just an act of suffering; it is the ultimate act of staying. He stays when the crowd turns. He stays when the disciples flee. He stays when all signs point to despair. And this is the scandal of the gospel: grace is for the deserters, the betrayers, the executioners. It is for us.

This is the paradox of the cross. The site of deepest suffering becomes the site of deepest love. Absolute failure becomes ultimate redemption. In Jesus, the story of the crowd is rewritten—not as a tragedy of fickle allegiance, but as a revelation of grace that refuses to let go.

• Where do you see yourself in the Passion story?
• When have you chosen self-preservation over courage?
• How does seeing yourself in the crowd change how you think about grace?

Tina Francis is a seminarian at the Seminary of the Southwest.

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