Christians Mark Palm Sunday

Christians in Ghana yesterday  marked  Palm Sunday with church services and street marches to commemorate the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem before his crucifixion.

The event is a Christian feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. 

Christians were spotted with palm fronds while some church premises were also decorated with the fronds.

Amid drumming and dancing, church leaders led processions which included children, women and men, who waved their palm fronds joyously.

Sermon 
At the Christian Divine Church, at Kaneshie, in Accra, the members marched on the streets in the area waving Palm fronds amid drumming and singing to mark the occasion.

The head of the Greater Accra branch of the church, Pastor Francis Fosu Manu, in a sermon urged christians to use the occasion to reflect on the death of Christ as it had brought hope to mankind.

He said Ghanaians must pray to “God to deliver us from any challenges we are facing as a nation.”

At the Church of Pentecost, Sarfo Memorial Assembly in the Afuaman District, Pastor Samuel Arhin, preached a sermon titled ‘Jesus in our place’.

In the sermon based on Romans 5: 6-14, Pastor Arhin urged Christians to rejoice as Christ accepted to take their place on the cross to take away their sins and to give them eternal life and joy.

He said Christ died for all sinners and the blood he shed on the cross following his crucifixion had set all who believe in him free from the bondage of sin.

Significance 
Palm Sunday, which is very significant to Christendom is a day used to remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, a week before his death as he was welcomed by jubilant masses.

On that day the delighted people took off their cloths and threw them to the ground, cut down palm fronds and waved them as they sang “Hosanna, Christ has come.”

Palm Sunday precedes Maundy Thursday which signifies when the Last Supper by Jesus and his disciples took place; Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified, and then Easter Sunday, when Jesus resurrected.  

In the Catholic Church, the palm fronds used to cheer Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem are burnt into ashes and used on Ash Wednesday the following year.