If you've ever seen people carrying palm branches into church on a Sunday in late March or early April and wondered what it was all about — this is for you.
Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week and the Sunday before Easter. It marks the moment Jesus rode into Jerusalem while crowds lined the streets waving palm branches and crying out:
"Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" — Matthew 21:9 (ESV)
It sounds like a celebration. And it was. But it was also deeply misunderstood.
The crowds expected a king who would overthrow Roman rule and restore Israel's political power. They wanted a revolution. What they got instead was something far greater — and far more costly.
Jesus entered Jerusalem not on a warhorse but on a donkey, fulfilling a prophecy written centuries earlier:
"Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey." — Matthew 21:5 (ESV), quoting Zechariah 9:9
This was intentional. He was not announcing a military conquest. He was announcing a servant kingdom — one that would be won not by force, but through sacrifice.
Within days the same crowds shouting "Hosanna" would be shouting "Crucify Him." That is perhaps the most sobering part of the Palm Sunday story. Human enthusiasm for Jesus is easy when we expect Him to give us what we want. It gets harder when He calls us somewhere we didn't plan to go.
Holy Week moves from celebration to betrayal, from betrayal to the cross, and from the cross to an empty tomb. As the Apostle Paul wrote:
"He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." — Philippians 2:8 (ESV)
Palm Sunday is the beginning of that journey. It is an invitation to follow Jesus not just into Jerusalem — but all the way through.
Wherever you are worshipping this morning — Happy Palm Sunday.
"Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!" — Luke 19:38 (ESV)
Wherever you are worshipping this morning, or even if you are not, I hope you'll take a moment to consider what that first Palm Sunday really meant. The King has come — just not the way anyone expected.
From my family to yours — Happy Palm Sunday.
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