Ruth Greenaway-Robbins

Yesterday, I stood in central London with hundreds of thousands of others, alongside folk from my neighbourhood in Stamford Hill.

Around half a million people gathered to say no to racism. It was powerful. It was hope-filled. And, because there were so many of us, it was long, a happy problem to have. There was something deeply moving about walking together, voices raised, bodies present, choosing to stand for justice.

It felt, in a way I hadn’t expected, like a threshold moment.

Because today, the Church begins Holy Week.

And we begin with a procession.

On Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, met by a crowd full of expectation and energy. They lay down cloaks and branches. They shout their praise: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

It is a moment that feels not unlike a march, a gathering of people, a movement through the streets, a shared cry for something better. A hope that God’s kingdom might be breaking in.

And yet we know how the story turns.

The same crowd who cry “Hosanna” will, within days, cry “Crucify.”

Which leaves us with an uncomfortable question:

What do we do with crowds?

Because London knows crowds well. Marches are not unusual here. Not long ago, a much smaller march processed through the city with very different intentions, claiming to “unite the kingdom,” but carrying a very different spirit.

Crowds can be powerful. They can be hopeful. They can also be dangerous.

Palm Sunday doesn’t ask us to avoid crowds, but it does ask us to examine them. 

To examine ourselves within them.

What are we shouting?
What are we standing for?
What kind of kingdom are we marching towards?

The hymn puts it beautifully:

All glory, laud, and honour
to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children
made sweet hosannas ring.

But what hosannas are we singing?

Yesterday, half a million people took to the streets of our capital to say; 

That justice matters. 

That dignity matters. 

That racism has no place in the world we are called to build.

There was something deeply aligned, I think, with the cry of the Gospel in that.

Because the kingdom Jesus rides in to proclaim is not built on power or exclusion, but on justice, peace, and mercy.

And Holy Week will show us the cost of that.

It will show us what happens when love confronts injustice. 

When truth stands against power.

When God refuses to turn away from human suffering.

The journey from Palm Sunday to the cross is not a change of direction, it is a deepening of it.

The same Jesus who is welcomed with palms will walk steadily towards the place where justice and mercy meet in the most costly way imaginable.

So perhaps Palm Sunday invites us not just to wave branches, but to choose our allegiance, and to walk the road.

Because not every crowd cries the truth.
Not every march leads to life.
And not every “Hosanna” is faithful.

The question is not whether we will join a crowd
but which kingdom we belong to.

The kingdom of God is not shaped by popularity, fear, or power.
It stands, again and again, on the side of justice, of mercy, of truth – no matter the cost.

And Holy Week shows us exactly where that leads.

To a table, where love kneels to serve.
To a cross, where love refuses to turn away.
To a silence, where hope waits in the dark.

This is not a change of direction from Palm Sunday,
it is the deepening of it.

So if we cry “Hosanna” today,
we are invited to keep walking.

To walk into the intimacy of Maundy Thursday.
To stand in the stark truth of Good Friday.
To wait in the great silence of Holy Saturday.

And to discover, in God’s time,
the life that breaks through on Easter morning.

So come and walk this week.

You can walk it in your own home, or in a church.

But come, not because you must,
but because Christ walks this path with us.

Enter into the story.

A story of justice and mercy,
of love that does not turn back,
and of a kingdom that is even now breaking into the world.