Looking for an inspirational Lenten sermon series. We recommend this one!
For Working Preacher
Walking the Palm Sunday Path in Lent: A Sermon Series for 2026
Matt Skinner
During Lent, preachers help congregations face vital questions about Jesus and the new reign he proclaims. We repent and seek clarity. We take stock of our lives, reconsider the world we inhabit, and prepare to reencounter Jesus in the story of his self-giving, suffering, and resurrection. Sometimes preachers easily discern exactly how they plan to preach their way through Lent. Sometimes they benefit from a little help and solidarity, especially when the stakes feel as high as they do in 2026.
Working Preacher is here to help. If you are interested in a preaching series that will allow you to focus on the character of Jesus and his vision for transforming the world, my colleagues and I have designed one for you.
Our goal for the series is to encourage people to follow Jesus along the path he walked into Jerusalem and eventually to the cross. As he approached the city, he staged a procession, a public display that both called into question the usual symbols and privileges of power and embraced a different way. Of course we know how the story ended, but it’s important to remember—and to allow our congregations to remember—that Jesus’s message was public and provocative. His followers understood the risk. The original Palm Sunday was an occasion of joy and peril, all rolled into a tight and combustible ball of earnest expectation.
In preparing this series, I and others involved with Working Preacher have been inspired by saints we know who are part of the dozens of faith-based organizations in the US currently organizing Christians from a wide array of denominations to participate in the “Palm Sunday Path.” The Palm Sunday Path is a movement calling Christians to put their faith into visible action, processing together during the afternoon of Palm Sunday (March 29, 2026) in state capitals and other cities across the country.
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“Who is this?” That question raced through Jerusalem when Jesus arrived in the city, riding a humble mount while bathed in the hopeful Hosannas shouted by a crowd (Matthew 21:10).
Preachers and their congregations take up the same question every year. Whom, exactly, are we following? Why put our trust in him? Why should others? What has he come to expose about the world and what are his promises for us? What will be the cost? Lent is coming, and for many of us those questions are as urgent this year as in any other residing in our memories.
Who is this Jesus? The Gospels depict him as a leader who stirred up an obvious contrast as he journeyed toward Jerusalem. Those on the Palm Sunday Path will follow his lead, processing together and proclaiming God’s values as clear contrasts to increasingly familiar politics of cruelty, greed, intimidation, and injustice.
This sermon series provides opportunities for preachers to convey the public character of Jesus’s ministry, reminding them of where Lent is leading us. The series might help you, if you choose, to build energy in your context so people are emboldened to participate in the Palm Sunday Path, joining their Christian kin in a hope-filled, visible proclamation of Jesus, who rejected the false glory of domination and retribution. God has a better way.
Here are links to more resources.
Overview of Sermon Series for Palm Sunday Path
