If you’ve been around a year or more, you probably know that Palm Sunday is one of my favorite holidays.  I’ve written this post in previous years, and this one, too.

I couldn’t pass up another opportunity to share my love of this day with you all, even though this post comes a day late, so I wrote this sonnet for you.

(For those who care, it’s iambic tetrameter following the Spenserian sonnet rhyme scheme.)

Victory Came Through Defeat

by Beth Wangler

In hopes to be remembered well,
The olden kings of empires large
In feats engraved on lasting steles
Would lead men in a battle charge.
Victorious armies all would march
With captives and spoils in proud display,
Gifts and honors to discharge
And offering made by the god-for-a-day.
Old Zion saw a triumph, yea,
Announcing a Rabbi’s victory.
He ascended ‘mid palms and donkey’s bray;
Next week, they nailed him to a tree.
Thus Jesus’s triumph in Jerusalem streets
Showed victory came through defeat.

---

It doesn’t have the smoothest flow, but I’m no Petrarch, Spenseras, or Shakespeare.

Happy Palm Sunday, my friends.