Sermon-Rooted in the Cross

A sermon given during a service of Holy Communion at St Olave Hart Street on Palm Sunday 29th March 2026 (Year A) based on readings from Matthew 21.1-11 and Matthew 27.1-54
Earlier we were given fronds of palm folded into crosses. We gathered outside the South Porch, built by the Wine & Spirit Trade Association, its carvings of grapevines recalling the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands. We passed the garden dedicated to William Turner, the ‘Father of English Botany’, who is buried here. We walked along Seething Lane, its name echoing the winnowing of grain associated with the nearby Corn Exchange. We turned into Hart Street, once filled with the scents of herbs and spices from around the world, stored here in large warehouses. And as we entered the church, we passed the ceramic poppies of The Clothworkers’ Company War Memorial.

What may seem to have been a very urban procession is in fact deeply rooted in the life of the natural world—palms and vines, grain and herbs, flowers and fields.

This flora carries layers of meaning: of trade, of healing, of memory and of sacrifice—as it has done throughout human history. Those who spread cut branches in front of Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem—in one of the gospels also holding up palms—were using these plants to convey meaning, to make a statement about who they thought Jesus was. In the ancient world, palms were associated with victorious, triumphant kings.

Our two Gospel readings today remind us—in the most stark and shocking way—that triumph and tragedy, success and distress, hope and despair—are not simply near neighbours. They are held together within the same story, the same crowd, the same human heart—where ‘Hosanna’ becomes ‘Crucify’.

This tension is uncomfortable—because we crave clarity and consistency. Rootedness.
The reality of the human experience is more complex. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.

To some extent our growth seems to involve embracing and living that tension—which is also rooted in the natural world.

Some have noticed the way certain plants grow—vines, for example—by sending out tendrils that reach and stretch, searching for something to grasp. When they find something new, something other, they grow stronger, winding themselves around it.

But not every tendril finds support. Some reach out and find nothing. They wither and fall away.

Growth is not simply a matter of constant flourishing but a transformation that necessarily involves both connection and disconnection—reaching and letting go.

Our own minds appear to develop in a similar way. The connections between our brain cells are strengthened not simply by constant use, but through patterns of connection, disconnection, and reconnection. Some degree of disruption can be part of how we grow—though not all disruption is chosen, and not all of it is easy to bear.

There may be some comfort in that, as Lent draws to a close and we reflect on the intentions we set ourselves on Ash Wednesday—that may—or may not—have been sustained as we had hoped.

Perhaps embracing the disconnect—between intention and action, between who we are and who we long to be—is not just a lesson for Lent but for life.

The liturgy of Palm Sunday confronts us not only with the questions of who we are and who we long to be—but also the tension between expectation and reality of the answers to both questions.

The crowd welcomes Jesus by reaching out with green shoots and with palms—these symbols of victory and triumph—of a king who will fulfil all their hopes. But when it becomes apparent that he is not the king they imagined. Instead he is one who embraces rejection and death - and they find that they cannot accept the tension between despair and hope, vulnerability and triumph, suffering and glory that this brings.

And so the crowd turns—fear and disappointment overwhelm hope. The cries of Hosanna become cries of ‘Crucify Him’.

Today we too may recognise the struggle to hold together the sometimes seemingly conflicting realities of this, our faith.

We may recognise the temptation of power that looks more like the kingdoms of this world than the Kingdom of Heaven—where success is pursued at the cost of truth; clarity is grasped rather than mystery received and power seeks to control rather than serve. 

The two gospel readings we hear today remind us that the story of our salvation is not of the immediate victory of one over the other. Christ holds both together—on the cross.

Where he reigns by entering into suffering. Not lauding power over others but by giving his life for them. Not seeking to cheat or escape death but by triumphing over it.

The palms we carry today speak of the triumph of the cross.

Of a King who does not stand apart from the tensions of human life but inhabits them completely and transforms them from within; reconciling us to God and to one another. And makes it possible for us to do the same. 

This place is a living testament to the reality of our faith. That the cross of Christ holds together seemingly polar opposites.

The perfect expression of God’s love—which is wide enough and strong enough to hold our faith and doubt, hope and fear, intention and failure—and not let us go.

We leave today in silence to continue our procession—into Holy Week. Carrying the tension that we recognise in ourselves the same human frailty that can cry ‘Hosanna’ and, in other moments, turn away.

But we also leave grasping these palm crosses

Symbols not of simple victory, but of a deeper triumph: that God does not turn away from suffering

But through his Son he fully enters into the brokenness of the world and, in time, to transform it—and us—by his grace. Drawing us ever closer to the one whose love for us is so great it can be hard to grasp.