“As people raise the palms for the Lord,
Raise the fist against the tyrant!”
Raise the fist against the tyrant!”
On that day, Jerusalem trembled—not from fear, but from hope. The people gathered at the gates, waving palm branches and laying their cloaks before the donkey that bore not a warrior, but a carpenter from Nazareth. “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (John 12:13) they cried. Their cheers echoed like a hymn of liberation. Yet beneath the jubilation lay something deeper: a quiet revolution.
Christ did not come to uphold the status quo. He came to overturn it.
He entered not with swords but with truth. And truth, when spoken clearly, is always dangerous to tyrants.
Palm Sunday is often romanticized as a peaceful procession, but it is in fact a bold political and spiritual declaration. Jesus, hailed as king, presented a kingship unlike any seen before—a reign of justice, compassion, and truth. “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives,” He declared in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4:18). His very presence unsettled the powerful.
And as the Church remembers this day, it must ask: is the folk merely waving palms, or prepared to raise voices—and yes, fists—against the oppression that crucifies truth in every age?
Scripture is clear in its demand for justice:
“Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression.”
— Isaiah 10:1
“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
— Amos 5:24
Christ’s followers are not called to silence. They are not called to passive observance. They are called to act.
The Church’s teaching is equally clear.
In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII denounced the exploitation of the working poor and insisted on the dignity of labor, declaring:
“The oppression of the working classes… is a flagrant violation of justice.”
— Rerum Novarum, §5
Pope Francis, in Fratelli Tutti, insists that fraternity must be built not on vague goodwill, but on confronting structures of sin:
“A healthy politics is… one truly at the service of the common good.”
— Fratelli Tutti, §154
He warns of a “throwaway culture,” where people—especially the poor—are cast aside. And he echoes Christ’s own prophetic anger when He overturned the tables in the temple:
“My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”
— Matthew 21:13
In Evangelii Gaudium, Francis exhorts the Church:
“Peace in society cannot be understood as pacification or the mere absence of violence… Peace calls for a society founded on truth, justice and solidarity.”
— Evangelii Gaudium, §218
So as believers wave palms this Sunday, they must do so with conscience. For the palm branch is not only a symbol of peace—it is a protest against empire. And the fist, raised not in hatred, but in defiance of tyranny, is a gesture that echoes Christ’s own challenge to the powers of His time.
Palm Sunday reminds the world that true kingship belongs not to the Caesars, but to the Lamb. That the meek will inherit the earth. That the truth will not stay buried, even behind a stone.
May the folk wave the palm with praise—and raise the fist with purpose.
For to cry “Hosanna” and remain silent in the face of injustice is to betray the very one we welcome.