Palm Sunday – Lamb Selection Sunday

In Christ Jesus, dearly Beloved. Palm Sunday. Palm branches, riding a donkey, cloaks on the road, Hosanna, Triumphal entry, Passover, Holy Week, Messiah-King, …a day filled with images that resonates through the corridors of sacred history and reveal the eternal wisdom of God’s redemptive plan. 

Way back in the days of Moses and the Exodus account, this day was known as “Lamb Selection Sunday,” when each household would choose their paschal lamb. But in the fullness of time, it became the day when humanity would witness the true Lamb of God entering Jerusalem, not in the regalia of earthly triumph, but mounted upon a humble donkey. This choice of mount was no mere coincidence, but rather a divine echo reverberating through Scripture’s pages. Jesus was the lamb being chosen.

In all of Biblical history, only two others had ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey with such significance: Solomon and Absalom, sons of David, each telling a part of our Savior’s story. Solomon, whose very name breathes peace—Shalom—rode as the rightful king, blessed by his father David, embodying wisdom and legitimate authority. In him, we see Christ the King of Peace, the one greater than Solomon, whose wisdom confounds the wise and whose kingdom shall have no end.

Yet in Absalom’s tragic tale, we glimpse another facet of our Lord’s passion. This rebellious son, who sought to usurp his father’s throne, met his end hanging from a tree, his beauty and ambition brought low. Absalom’s death foreshadowed the innocent One who would hang upon another tree, bearing the rebellion of us all. His name, Absalom, means the Father’s version of peace, Ab means father, while salom traces its roots to the same word that Solomon’s name does. The two brothers have very similar names, both rooted in the idea of peace, yet they have completely different fates. 

These seemingly contradictory figures—the peaceful king and the cursed son—find their perfect unity in Jesus Christ. For on Palm Sunday, Lamb selection Sunday, our Lord enters as both the rightful King and the one destined for a disgraceful hanging on a tree. He comes as Solomon, in peaceful triumph, yet moves inexorably toward Absalom’s tree, the site where the Father makes His peace. This paradox reveals the cross not as a tragic necessity, but as the very heart of God’s eternal purpose.

The cross stands as the everlasting precursor to the first tree in Eden’s garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is no mere historical accident but rather reveals that the cross was always central to God’s design. It was not Plan B, hastily conceived after humanity’s fall, but the very centerpiece of God’s eternal wisdom, the real tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Thus, Palm Sunday becomes for us far more than a commemoration of Jesus riding into Jerusalem. It is Lamb Selection Sunday in its fullest sense, the day when humanity, unknowingly yet providentially, chose its sacrificial Lamb. As our Lord rode that donkey toward Jerusalem, He embodied both Solomon’s legitimate reign and Absalom’s sacrificial death, both the victory of the true King and the sacrifice of the rejected Son. Both sons represent the crucified Christ – hanging in a tree as he triumphantly takes his place on the legitimate thrown of King David. 

This mystery transcends mere cause and effect; it is, as you so beautifully observe, the bedrock reality of eternity itself. The cross stands at the intersection of time and eternity, where divine justice meets mercy, where the King of Glory becomes the suffering servant, where death itself is transformed into the gateway of life.

In this season of contemplation, let us be comforted that our salvation rests not on human wisdom or contingency, but on God’s eternal purpose, manifested in Christ Jesus our Lord, who rides as King and dies as Sacrifice, fulfilling all righteousness and securing our eternal peace.