Palm Sunday

Hello and welcome to Palm Sunday. This is the start of an extra special week for the church community and it starts with a party! Have you ever seen the opening ceremony of the Olympics? All the athletes parade into the arena and they are holding the flags from their countries. All the people there to watch the Games wave their flags excitedly as they know something special is about to happen.

On Palm Sunday, the people in Jerusalem were excited too. They were excited to see Jesus and they didn't have any flags so they grabbed big palm branches and waved them and cheered as Jesus rode into the city on a donkey. You can watch the story of Palm Sunday below.

In  our Xstream Sunday group, we have been looking at the book of Luke and we have been investigators. We have been connecting the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, or God's Chosen One, with the stories of Jesus. Palm Sunday is another of those clues to Jesus' identity as it was written in Zechariah 9:9:

Rejoice, people of Jerusalem.

    Shout for joy, people of Jerusalem.

Your king is coming to you.

    He does what is right, and he saves.

    He is gentle and riding on a donkey.

    He is on the colt of a donkey.

This was written 520 years before Palm Sunday. The people in Jerusalem were so excited because that was how long they had been waiting for their Messiah to ride in on a donkey. 

Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday. We can make our own donkeys to help us celebrate the day. Here's our donkey puppet.

You can follow the instructions to make the basic puppet in this video- but we are going to change it from a crocodile into a donkey. You can download the donkey extras here or you can design your own. 

We have a Palm Sunday colouring sheet for you to download here.

And you can download this Chat Mat all about Palm Sunday too here. This is great to read, colour, and chat about with your family.

Prayer

Palm Sunday was a very joyful day. Let's take a moment to say Thank You to God for things that bring us joy. We can celebrate with the people of Jerusalem that Jesus came to show us how much God loves us. 

We can sing to celebrate God's love too. This song is great fun to sing along with and there are some actions too. 

BIG  (Stretch our arms out to the sides)

GREAT (one "thumbs up" out in front of you)

FAB (the other "thumbs up" out in front of you)

STRONG (strong man arms out to each side)

Towards the end of the song, the actions get faster and faster, can you keep up?

We have a special week ahead of us leading up to Easter Sunday next week. Check back here for Wiggle Wednesday and Good Friday.

We'd love to see your Palm Sunday donkeys if you'd like to send us a picture. You can send them in following the instructions in the right hand column. We'd love to hear from you.