A Homily for Palm Sunday

It has taken me years and years to understand that we are all here on a quest to find ourselves. All the myriad things to distract you from finding out who you really are. And believing who you are. And fanning that little flame inside of you into a bonfire of possibility. Of course this world doesn't help at all, but if you are lucky enough to pay attention, that little message inside you can turn into a wonderful concert and you are born again, "with eyes that can finally see".

A Homily for Palm Sunday
by Rev. Steven Marshall

The Temporary Triumph of the Light before its Obscuration

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week. Holy Week recounts a complex and meaningful series of mythic events which lead to the Resurrection on Easter Day. Palm Sunday represents a preparation, a setting up, for the Resurrection to occur. As Gnostics we may differ from the mainstream in our interpretation of these events, as to whether they are literal history or strictly symbolic, or something in between. What is important for us to focus on is that these events recount an interior experience of archetypal dimensions. It does not matter if the events of Holy Week are historical or purely mythical; they have a deep and archetypal meaning to the Gnostic soul. The series of events in Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday, describe a process of our own apotheosis and psychological transformation. Blind belief in historical events is not going to transform us; we must cultivate an experience of this archetypal reality. For this reason we celebrate Palm Sunday not as a commemoration of an historical event but as an archetypal mystery and another step in the process of psychological and spiritual transformation.

 A Homily for Palm Sunday