What Palm Sunday has to do with the First Vision.

Historically speaking, Palm Sunday was the day when Jesus Christ had His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It marked the beginning of Holy Week or the final week of Christ’s mortal ministry that culminated with Easter Sunday. That Easter Sunday is arguably the most important day in the history of the world.

But I would argue that the second most important day in the history of the world would be Palm Sunday 1820. Why would I say this? Because this is the most likely date of the First Vision! Whereas the date was not given by Joseph Smith, only that it was “It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty.” With this information, multiple Latter-day Saint scholars, researching weather reports and maple sugar production records, have dated the first vision to be Sunday, March 26th, 1820. But not only is it Sunday, March 26th, if one looks at the calendar they would realize Easter was April 2nd. Making Sunday, March 26th Palm Sunday!

Making it nearly 1800 years after the original triumphal entry on Palm Sunday that once again Jesus had a triumphal entry; but this time into a Sacred Grove of maple trees in Palmyra New York rather than into the ancient gates of Jerusalem. In the October 1973 General Conference Elder Robert L. Simpson explained the importance of the First Vision by declaring it as “the most significant singular event in the world since the resurrection of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” He even followed up with this statement:

The First Vision is the very foundation of this Church, and it is my conviction that each member of this Church performs his duty in direct ratio to his personal testimony and faith in the First Vision. How well do you believe this story? No man having heard the Joseph Smith testimony can, in good conscience, remain on neutral ground.

So this Easter as Holy Week approaches, realize how much reason we have to rejoice and celebrate the events of this week! To Latter-day Saints of all Christians, we have greater reason to rejoice with the events of this time of year; for not only does it mark the Victory of Christ over sin and death, but it also marks the Restoration of the Gospel that brings us out the long night of apostasy that the world has languished in since the rejection and martyrdom of the ancient apostles. In the words of the late President Gordon B. Hinckley:

Our entire case as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rests on the validity of this glorious First Vision. It was the parting of the curtain to open this, the dispensation of the fulness of times. Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to the path of salvation and eternal life.

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