“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
Deuteronomy 22:12

I know you are familiar with prayer shawls. Our prayer shawls of today are often gifts we give to someone whom we know needs comfort, a loving word, our prayers and love. The shawl is a symbol of healing and hope.
Prayer shawls have a long history that goes all the way back to the early Hebrews. Both Numbers and Deuteronomy show God instructing people to create special garments adorned with braided tassels. Wearing the garment honored God, as the cloak and tassels served as a reminder of God’s covenant, obedience to God’s will, and a life lived in reverence to God. The cloak and tassels served as a kind of insurance that the wearer would not be distracted by unholy things.
The cloak in the Hebrew tradition was called a tallit. The threads, white with blue running through it, were called tzitzit. A symbol of covenant loyalty, Jewish identity, and prayer, the tallit was worn continually by all Jewish men, especially rabbis. Essentially, wearing the tallit meant you were wrapping yourself in prayer, just as you were wrapping yourself in God’s presence and grace.
I have one here today. On the neck cuff we can read the shema (Deuteronomy 6:4). Putting on the tallit, you are to wrap yourself first entirely in the shawl, covering your head and face. Then, the tallit remains around your shoulders, signifying your identity as a person of God.
The wrapping is significant. As you wrap yourself in the prayer tallit, essentially your life becomes a prayer and offering to God.
As you pray, your prayers become holy to God.
It’s interesting then, isn’t it, that when Jesus rides into Jerusalem that day that we call Palm Sunday, people lining the streets, suddenly start taking off their tallits and laying them down in the street in front of him.
I want you to imagine it for a moment. The street, being strewn with palm leaves and talliot (the plural for tallit), people waving and shouting, Jesus himself, who is sitting upon a donkey layered with tallit, like Solomon before him, comes down the road and right up to the Temple.
And they shout! “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
After the procession was over, Jesus took a look around the Temple, and then retreated once more with his disciples to Bethany.
The procession was planned, deliberate, and highly symbolic of the coming “kingdom,” a kingdom of peace, except most of Jesus’ followers and fans had no idea what was to come next, what kind of kingdom this would be, or how that kingdom would come to pass. Most still believed that the overthrow of the Rome was at hand, and that the Messiah would literally sit upon the throne formerly occupied by the Davidic line.
Yet, they did know that Jesus was no ordinary teacher. They saw in him “messiah,” spokesperson of the people, rightful king in the Davidic line, man of God. And they laid down their tallits before him.
This was an act of extreme loyalty, reverence, and trust. To remove the tallit and spread it before Jesus’ feet meant that someone saw Jesus as a man who exuded God’s presence, who exemplified what it meant to live a godly life, who represented the might and power of God.
We know Jesus represented the healing power of God. We remember, as Jesus was going to heal a leader’s daughter, that on his way, a woman reached out and touched the “wings,” that is, the braids, the tzitzit, of his garment, and immediately she was healed. For the messiah will have “healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2).
The people laid down their tallits, because they knew who Jesus was, and they knew what he could do.
In laying down those tallits, those prayer shawls, they were laying down their most ardent prayers at Jesus’ feet, for release, freedom, healing, and God’s good news of victory from oppression, fear, poverty, and pain.
I wonder if the memory of Jesus’ words, the good news of Jesus’ mission as read by Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth and relayed by Luke, and as promised in Isaiah, resounded in the minds of people that day, as they lauded his symbolic entry into Jerusalem for the Passover feast.
They knew who he was.
And they laid down all of their prayers, their hopes, and their faith at his feet as the one to restore Israel’s future.
But Jesus was up to so much more than that, so much more than they could ever imagine possible.
He had tried to tell his followers and disciples about what was to come. They were too inspired to hear it. It sounded too strange, too incredulous, too out of the box, too fantastical to understand and take in. They wouldn’t understand until much, much later.
But they did understand this. He was the one they could trust. He was the one who healed and saved people, all people, no matter who they were. He was the one who cared and preached the good news of God’s restoration. He was the one that all of their hopes and dreams rested upon. In him, they would put their faith. For him, they would lay down their reverence. He had their deference, commitment, loyalty, and full trust.
The day we call Palm Sunday, with the waving of palms and the laying down of lives and prayers, was a day of commitment to the man they felt had the power to change the world.
And he did. They just didn’t quite understand how.
Today, we too show deference to Jesus, but we understand even more deeply, the sacrifice he was about to make on our behalf.
So, let’s take this opportunity to lay down our prayers –whatever they may be.
Prayers for healing.
Prayers for restoration.
Prayers for resurrection of lives and churches.
Prayers for victory over sin and death.
Whatever is plaguing your life right now. Whatever prayers lie most deeply in your heart.
Take a moment right now and lay it all down at the feet of Jesus.
Lay it all down….all your hopes….all your dreams…..all your trust…..all your faith in the Jesus who can triumph over anything.
Lay it all down….all your pain….all your doubt…..all your worries…..all your hesitations….at the feet of Jesus, who promises to heal your wounds and redeem your life.
Lay it down.
Lay it all down at the feet of Jesus.
That’s what Palm Sunday is truly about.
Praise the Lord, House of God!
Praise the Lord, House of Prayer and Praise!
Praise the Lord, disciples of Jesus!
Praise the Lord!