2026 — Lectionary primer

Palm Sunday (Palmarum)

The King Who Rides to the Cross · The Sunday of the Passion

One-year lectionary · John 12:12–19 · Zechariah 9:9–12 · Philippians 2:5–11 · Matthew 26–27

Palm Sunday holds two realities in a single service: the joyful procession of the King riding into Jerusalem, and the somber reading of His Passion. This primer covers the shape of the service, the appointed readings, and the stories behind the four hymns — preparing worshipers to hear and sing with deeper understanding.

Lectionary Primer PDF

The shape of the service

Historical Background

The observance of Palm Sunday traces its roots to fourth-century Jerusalem, where the pilgrim Egeria recorded that Christians gathered on the Mount of Olives, heard the Gospel of the children waving branches, and processed down the mountain singing "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." This Procession of Palms moved into the Western Church over centuries — Spain in the fifth century, Gaul in the seventh, Rome thereafter. By the eleventh century, the English Sarum rite featured a procession with blessed palms, yet the Mass itself focused entirely on the Passion: St. Matthew's account was sung dramatically by three voices as Evangelist, Christ, and crowd.

In the one-year lectionary, the penitential shift toward the cross begins the prior Sunday on Judica (the Fifth Sunday in Lent), which marks the start of Passiontide and the veiling of the crosses. Palmarum then pivots from the joy of the triumphal entry to the somber reality of the crucifixion.

How the Service Unfolds

The Procession opens the service as the entrance rite — replacing Confession, Introit, and Kyrie — with the Gospel of the triumphal entry (Matt. 21:1–9 or John 12:12–19).

The Shift: After the shouts of "Hosanna" fade into silence, the Collect focuses on Christ taking our flesh to suffer death upon the cross.

The Propers: Zechariah 9:9–12 and Philippians 2:5–11, proclaiming Christ's humble obedience unto death.

The Passion of St. Matthew (26:1–27:66) is the pinnacle. The congregation stands at the moment of Christ's death, followed by silent meditation.

The readings at a glance

Processional Gospel

John 12:12–19

The crowd "went out to meet him" (eis hypantesin), a civic term for formally welcoming a returning king. Only John mentions palm branches; palms were victory symbols waved by Simon Maccabeus at the temple's cleansing (1 Macc. 13:51). The crowd adds "the King of Israel" to their Hosanna cry — a phrase absent from Psalm 118 — naming Jesus as the royal Messiah. Jesus takes His royal seat on the donkey by His own right (ekathisen), unlike Solomon, whom servants had to mount. John's quotation of Zechariah 9:9 substitutes "Fear not" for "Rejoice greatly" and omits "humble," emphasizing royalty. The Pharisees' despairing cry that "the world has gone after him" becomes unintended prophecy: in the very next verse, Gentile Greeks appear asking to see Jesus.

Old Testament

Zechariah 9:9–12

The "Daughter of Zion" receives a King described in Hebrew as tsaddiq wenosh'a, "righteous and saved" — a passive participle: this King relies on Yahweh, not on His own sword. The Septuagint shifts it to the active "righteous and saving"; in Christ, both are true. He rides a donkey, echoing Jacob's messianic blessing over Judah (Gen. 49:10–11), and will "cut off the chariot from Ephraim," establishing a universal kingdom of peace. Deliverance rests on "the blood of my covenant" (dam beritekha), anchoring the prophecy in Exodus 24:8 and reaching fulfillment at the Last Supper: "This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

Epistle — The Carmen Christi

Philippians 2:5–11

This early hymn asserts that Jesus existed "in the form of God" (morphē theou). Unlike the first Adam, who grasped for equality with God, Christ the Second Adam released His privileges and "emptied himself" (ekenōsen), taking on the "form of a slave" (morphēn doulou) and enduring crucifixion — the slave's punishment. The Father then "hyper-exalted" Him and bestowed the name Lord (Kyrios), the Septuagint's translation for Yahweh. The climax quotes Isaiah 45:23, in which Yahweh alone receives every knee; to apply this text to Jesus is to claim He shares the throne and identity of Almighty God.

The Passion of St. Matthew

Matthew 26:1–27:66

Jesus responds to Pilate with the affirmative su legeis ("You say so"), placing the truth of His kingship into the pagan governor's mouth. The soldiers mock Him as a pretend king, yet He is being coronated from the cross. The seats of honor at His right and left go to two criminals, fulfilling what James and John's mother had requested (20:21). The mockers echo Satan's wilderness temptations. At His death, apocalyptic signs erupt: the sanctuary curtain tears, the earth shakes, tombs open. This Good Friday earthquake parallels Easter morning; together they manifest the Day of the Lord. While Israel's leaders rejected their Messiah, Gentile soldiers confess: "Truly this was the Son of God."

The hymns and their stories

Processional Hymn

"All Glory, Laud, and Honor" · LSB 442

Our Palm Sunday processional was born in a prison cell. Written around 820 AD by Theodulf, the Bishop of Orleans, it was penned while he was banished to a monastery in Angers under suspicion of treason against King Louis the Pious. A medieval legend holds that Theodulf sang the hymn's magnificent 39 couplets from his cell window as the king passed by in a Palm Sunday procession, and that Louis was so deeply moved by the song that he immediately ordered the bishop's release. While historians debate the legend's accuracy, the hymn itself has served as the Church's traditional Palm Sunday processional since the ninth century. Drawing heavily on Psalms 24 and 118, the text bridges the centuries, uniting our voices with the ancient crowds in Jerusalem and inviting us to present "our praise and prayer and anthems" to the Redeemer King who willingly rode toward the cross.

Hymn of the Day

"Ride On, Ride On in Majesty" · LSB 441

This dramatic masterpiece was penned by a popular London stage dramatist. In 1820, Henry Hart Milman — who was also an Anglican vicar and soon-to-be Oxford poetry professor — was asked by Reginald Heber to write new texts that would replace the "vile trash" of contemporary hymnody with something truly worthy of the Church's liturgy. Rather than placing us in the shoes of the Palm Sunday crowds who did not fully understand what they were cheering for, Milman wrote from a stance of profound faith. As the stanzas progress, the poetic vision acts like a camera panning upward: from the earthly road, to the "angel armies of the sky" looking down in wonder, and finally to the Father awaiting His anointed Son. When we sing the command to "ride on," we do so with the knowledge that Jesus is riding in "lowly pomp" specifically to suffer and die — and that His willing death is the very thing that will conquer sin and save the world.

Distribution Hymn

"My Song Is Love Unknown" · LSB 430

The hauntingly beautiful tune for this hymn was composed in just fifteen minutes on a scrap of paper. In 1919, the renowned English composer John Ireland was asked to provide a new melody for The Public School Hymn Book, and this beloved tune was the quick, inspired result. The words themselves date much further back to 1664, penned by the seventeenth-century clergyman Samuel Crossman during a golden age of English Christian poetry. Crossman's deeply personal text explores the profound paradox of Holy Week: the crowds bitterly rejected and demanded the crucifixion of the very "Prince of Life" who came only to heal their afflictions. Yet the hymn marvels at how Christ responds to this human hatred with a "love unknown," willingly suffering to show "love to the loveless" in order to make them "lovely." As we sing this moving meditation, we are invited to stand in awe of a Savior who would take our death and lay in our tomb so that He might forever be our friend.

Closing Hymn

"Crown Him with Many Crowns" · LSB 525

Our closing hymn is actually a composite of two rival texts. The original was penned in 1851 by Matthew Bridges, just three years after he converted from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism. Decades later, in 1874, an Anglican clergyman named Godfrey Thring wrote a competing version, as some Protestants strongly objected to Bridges's original stanzas, which included medieval Catholic imagery referring to the Virgin Mary as the "mystic rose." Rather than forcing the Church to choose between the two, modern hymnals — including ours — wove these rival texts together into one masterpiece: stanzas 1 through 3 are by Bridges, while stanzas 4 and 5 are the work of Thring. Drawing its majestic vision from Revelation 19:12 ("on His head are many diadems"), the combined hymn unites our earthly voices with the heavenly host, inviting us to crown the risen, ascended Lamb of God as the undisputed King of kings and Lord of lords.