Palm Sunday Sermon - April 13, 2025
It is Palm Sunday! Palm Sunday is always a pretty upbeat and engaging time, as we enter into the joy of the crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey.
In fact, Palm Sunday is an essential part of the Easter experience, of the Resurrection Sunday experience.
Did you know that without this day, we wouldn't have a foretaste of the Second Coming. What’s that you say, Pastor? Let me ‘splain.
Palm Sunday is also a place to pause before entering into the inescapable whirlwind of Holy Week.
And there is genuine cause to celebrate, as we imagine the energy of that day. [Pause]
Let’s take a moment—just one holy, hopeful moment—to set aside what we know is coming.
Yes, yes, we’re aware that this same crowd will later pull the ultimate betrayal plot twist.
But for now, let’s hit pause on the dramatic irony and just be there. Imagine the scene: an electric crowd, cheering like their favorite team just won eternity.
They wave palm branches like they’re at a celestial parade, their joy uncontainable, their voices hoarse from shouting, “Hosanna!”
In this instant—however fleeting—they seem to get it. They see Him.
Not just a man on a donkey (although, yes, the donkey does add a bit of humble flair), but the King of Kings.
There’s this glorious glimpse of recognition, of hearts catching fire with the truth of who He is.
It's messy, it's loud, it's beautiful—and it’s utterly, gloriously human.
So let’s linger here a while, in the applause and awe, before the plot thickens.
City of Peace
Jerusalem. Jeru...salem. The city on a hill. The city of peace...welcomes the Prince of Peace as He comes in peace. That's perhaps the first contradiction that we'll touch on.
The very name of the City of David represents not reality but aspiration. Jerusalem, the peace city, was never a peaceful city.
The very opposite is true. It had known little rest from conflict. It had been the feather in the cap of conquering nations, the central place of the expulsion of the People of God as they were forced to go into exile.
But somehow, Jerusalem was where the deep desire for peace, external and internal, had been named. So here the city of peace welcomes the Prince of Peace and The Lord of Glory.
Preview of Second Coming
The scene in the passage that was read today is a joyful one. A busy scene. A scene where hundreds flock to Christ and rejoice at His arrival in Jerusalem.
There is much clammering, much shouting. "Blessed is He who comes in the name of The Lord" is the refrain of the crowd, the chorus of the mob's song of welcome to Jesus, who, it should be said, they did not understand.
No doubt some are hoping this is the sign of the inauguration of a new Jewish king who will subdue the Roman overlords.
The full lyric of their song was: “Hosanna! He who comes in the name of the Lord is the blessed One—the King of Israel!” lots of Hope and aspiration, sweat and raw energy in the crowd.
It's also a scene that frustrates the religious leaders who distrust Jesus and feel threatened by Him.
They think that all their efforts to challenge and suppress Jesus, their attempts to expose Him as a fraud or a heretic have failed.
The Scripture says: "Then the Pharisees said to one another, “You see? You’ve accomplished nothing. Look—the world has gone after Him!”"
But beyond all that, something else much more important is going on here.
Something that the Scribes and Pharisees, you would have thought, might have known or at least wondered about,
because they were familiar with the Scriptures, the Law and the Prophets, including the minor prophet Zechariah
Zechariah had written: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9
Ring a bell? I think so!
The book Second Samuel was written in around the 7th century BC, 700 years or so before Jesus was born. It says this of King David: "When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever". 2 Samuel 7:12-13
This was one of many Old Testament references to the coming Messiah. Little did the Pharisees know, because it was most likely still hidden and treasured in the heart of Mary the mother of Jesus,
that the Angel Gabriel had said these words about Jesus even as he announced to her that she was pregnant with the Son of God:
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Luke 1:32-33
So, I guess you could say the Pharisees were understandably nervous.
Most of them didn’t think Jesus was the Messiah, although a few were beginning to suspect it.
The Pharisee Nicodemus had been evangelized by Jesus Himself as recorded in John chapter 3.
He was leaning heavily toward Jesus. The Chosen TV series shows this beautifully in the first season, episode 7.
And later, after Jesus’ death and resurrection and in the early life of the church, the Pharisee Gamaliel was concerned that in opposing Jesus and His followers, the religious leaders might actually be opposing God. [Pause]
Back to the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and the reason that this day, Palm Sunday is something special, something more than it appears to be. Something theatrical is afoot in this scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem.
And no, not "drama" like someone forgot to invite Aunt Martha to Passover and now there's tension at the temple. I mean real drama—Shakespearean level stuff, but holier. We're talking about the ancient, sacred art of reenactment—an imitation of life that only works if there's a deep, ultimate reality to imitate.
And Jesus? He’s the playwright, the director, the lead actor, and yes, even the guy who arranges the donkey rental.
Now, picture this: Jesus pauses before the big city entrance and says, “Go get me a colt.” Not because He’s tired. Not because He's craving a change in commute. No, this is a cosmic cue—the curtain is about to rise.
He's about to stage a royal entrance, not with pomp and trumpets and a sky-splitting display of divine fireworks (though He could’ve).
Instead, He opts for something humble, symbolic, beautifully strange. A king on a donkey. It’s like the heavenly version of street theater—but the stakes are eternal.
This isn't the coronation day, but it is the dress rehearsal. Jesus is putting on a preview of what's to come—a sneak peek of that glorious, inevitable moment when every knee shall bow, and every tongue, even the sarcastic ones, will confess that He is Lord.
And in His mind? You can almost hear the inner monologue: “Okay, time to make My entrance. Got the donkey? Check. Got the crowd? They'll catch on... sorta. Got the palms, the cloaks, the hosannas? Perfect. Now let’s show them, just for a moment, what heaven already knows.”
“No need for the full heavenly fanfare today—leave the 24 elders at home, let the clouds stay put, Mount of Olives can wait its turn. We’ll walk this one out.”
Because this is the day He brings heaven’s script to earth’s stage. The day the Kingdom comes not with thunder, but with hoofbeats and hosannas.
The day Jesus rides in not just to fulfill prophecy, but to perform it, for all who have eyes to see.
So this familiar picture—Jesus on a donkey, riding into Jerusalem—it’s not just quaint. It’s cosmic theater. A divine drama with sandals, street dust, and soul-shaking significance.
And the curtain? Oh, it's just starting to rise.
On the one hand, as you’ve likely heard before, you could say that Jesus, choosing to enter the city on a donkey, a beast of burden and not of war, and a young one at that that had never been ridden, was understating his arrival. He was coming with a different message.
To ride into a conquered nation or city on a horse and with the trappings of war would signify that the defeated people would be subjugated to the conquering king. That much is true and historical.
Jesus entering on a young untested colt is the way that a conquering king would sometimes ride into a city or nation after his army defeated it, in order to “come in peace” as it were.
But then there’s this other thing going on, this drama that’s enacting in a small, compressed fashion, what the Bible says is going to happen.
Jesus Himself had recently taught about the time of the end, when He will return.
Referring to Himself as the Son of Man, Jesus said: Matthew 24: 29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
The Apostle Paul elaborated on this in 1 Thessalonians 4: 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words”.
So really, Palm Sunday is (not a re-enactment), but a pre-enactment on a relatively microscopic scale, of the time when our King Jesus will return, in His Second coming, to planet earth.
He will return in glory and power, and His main purpose in returning is to call all those, dead and alive, who trust in Him...to Himself.
That is exciting. That is kinda mind-blowing.
Of course trials will come. Tribulation will come. Darkness and light will battle it out.
Even still at this point in history on the original Palm Sunday, Jesus Himself has yet to go through the ugliness and contradiction and agony and slaughter of Holy Week,
but He does so knowing that on this day He enacts ahead of time his glorious Second Arrival on this planet.
Evil men have bad things in store for Jesus. We know what is to come. We know what Jesus will endure in Jerusalem.
Slander, false-accusation, hatred, the abandonment of even His own closest friends and followers. He was about to lose everything, actually. At least it would appear so.
Worse, Satan is drooling over the prospect of murdering God. The devil is relishing what appears to be, and is in fact close to, the final days of Jesus on this planet.
But Satan does this not knowing that Jesus actually came to die.
He came to bear the cross. He came to live out the suffering and judgement that we deserve for our sins.
He who knew no sin WANTED to become sin for us, in order that we would become the righteousness of God.
Jesus knew this was His purpose, but we know that He didn’t find it easy. There was anxiety in Him as He approached the City of Peace.
There was the knowledge in Him that even these who welcomed Him with palm branches, with honour and praise, would quickly spin on a dime, contradict themselves, and their praises would turn to jeers,
their honour of Him to disdain, their enthusiasm for His presence among them would turn to blood lust as they would yell: “Crucify Him!”
There was fear and dread in Him as He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, asking the Father to remove His ‘cup’, to shift to plan B, as though He didn’t know that there never was a Plan B.
This was part of God’s plan since the beginning. An event forecasted before anything that has been created was created.
Jesus sweated drops of blood due to the overwhelming anxiety and fear in Him at what He was to experience in His flesh, at the sheer weighty agony that awaited Him in a few hours.
So... what exactly are we supposed to do with this Jesus? This Prince of Peace who rides into the so-called City of Peace—Jerusalem
—a city that, let’s be honest, has historically been about as peaceful as a family road trip without snacks.
He’s riding in, not on a war horse, but on a humble little donkey, like He’s saying, “I didn’t come to throw punches—I came to bring peace... and possibly to confuse your expectations.”
And here we are, trying to make sense of it.
You and me—modern humans with calendars full of chaos, hearts full of noise, and minds that often treat peace like it’s a limited-time-only offer at a store we keep forgetting to visit.
What do we do with a Jesus who wants to walk (or ride) right into that mess? Into our messy, stressy, doom-scroll-heavy, anxiety-riddled lives?
Into our tangled thoughts and our spiritual “meh” moments where God’s promises feel more like fine print than soul-anchoring truth?
Jesus doesn’t come in yelling. He doesn't barge in with a clipboard and a to-do list.
He comes gently, offering peace—not the kind you get from a yoga app or a good nap, but the kind that passes all understanding. The kind that sits with you in the chaos and whispers, “I’m still here.”
And what does He do with our contradictions—the spiritual flip-flops we wear from Sunday to Monday?
Because let’s be honest: on Palm Sunday, the crowds were all in. “Hosanna!” they shouted, waving their palm branches like spiritual pom-poms. But come Monday morning? The excitement wore off. And by the end of the week? Let’s just say the Yelp reviews took a turn.
Sound familiar? How many times do we welcome Jesus with open arms on Sunday, and then by Tuesday we’re ghosting Him like we forgot we even had a Savior? Jerusalem was named the City of Peace, yet it so often lived in conflict. And we—we bear the name “Christian,” little Christs—yet sometimes live like we’ve misplaced the script.
But here’s the good news: Jesus still rides in. He still comes, not because we’ve earned peace, but because He is peace. And His invitation is still wide open.
He invites us—not just into a moment of spiritual clarity—but into His peace, into His beautiful and welcoming presence, into His joy, His salvation. He’s not offering a limited trial version with ads. This is the real deal. Full access. Free of charge.
So... what do we do with Jesus? Maybe today, maybe today...maybe today...we just let Him in. Donkey and all.
And maybe tomorrow, we try again.
Because His peace doesn’t depend on our performance—it just depends on our willingness to say, “Okay, Jesus... come on in.
I could use a little of that holy peace today.” His call in our lives is to ‘make Jeru-salem, the city of Peace’, or to allow the reality of our chosenness, our belovedness by God,
our honour at bearing the name ‘Christian’ to be a real thing, a lived thing, and not ever something we only aspire to or that even crosses our minds on certain days of the week.
He calls us to follow Him, to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and to, with His power that that dwells in us by the Holy Spirit, live lives worthy of Him...
that’s a call and a challenge that has connected deeply with an enormous number of people since Jesus called His first disciples.
Those who heed the call are those who understand that following Jesus is a matter of God’s grace, not human effort. That bears repeating: following Jesus is a matter of God’s grace, not human effort.
God’s riches poured out into hearts that abandon themselves to Jesus Christ. God’s riches at Christ’s expense.
Let me ask you, does that call connect with you? The call to go deeper.
The call to more intently practicing, on a daily basis, what you call yourself, if indeed you call yourself a Christian.
The call to consistently reflect the love, the kindness, the welcome and the hospitality of the Son of God, our Messiah, who rode into town on this day that we remember;
this Palm Sunday, and He rides in with all the love and goodness and purity of heart and intention in the world bound up in one Perfect Man.
May each of us choose the life of a fully-devoted follower of Jesus Christ. May we, together, affirm and agree and ‘live yes’ to what Jesus says in Matthew 5:14-16.
The message paraphrase puts it this way: “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, the generous Father in heaven”.
If you’ve heard or you are hearing the voice of the Lord calling to you with those words He has called so many, including myself to: follow me!
If you are hearing that call and you want to respond to that call, let’s pray together...just you and me...and everyone else in this sanctuary.
I’ll lead a little prayer. Say it after me:
Lord Jesus, I believe that you are doing something in my heart; you are doing something in my life. You are calling me - for the frist time or with a fresh song - you are calling me to follow you.
So today I want to say that I believe in You. I believe that you gave your life for me, for my sins. I believe that You suffered on that cross of shame, and you did that taking upon yourself the penalty for my sins.
Thank you for this stunning, beautiful gift. Because you gave, I receive you as my Lord and Saviour.
Help me to truly live as your student, learning Your Word, learning to follow you along with others who also are on this amazing journey.
I place my trust in You now, by Your grace and because You first loved me. In your matchless and holy, perfect name.
Amen.
