"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey." — Zechariah 9:9 (NKJV)

Palm Sunday is more than a parade. It's more than waving branches and shouting hallelujah. When I look at what was actually happening that day in Jerusalem, I see a collision between what people expected and what God was actually revealing. And I don't think it's just an ancient story. I think it's a very current one.

Every single one of us walks into church, walks into prayer, walks into a relationship with God, carrying some kind of expectation about what we think Jesus should do and who we think Jesus should be. We do it now, the same way the crowds did it then. And that's what makes Palm Sunday so important to get right, especially as we head into Easter.

The Warning We Need to Hear

Here's the warning of Palm Sunday that I think we should take seriously: you can be close to Jesus, excited about Jesus, and still be wrong about Jesus. The crowd that day welcomed the right Christ with the wrong expectations. They were celebrating without understanding. The palm branches were waving. Prophecy was literally being fulfilled in front of their eyes. The city was stirred. But the people doing the welcoming didn't actually understand who He was or what He was offering.

I think that happens more often than we'd like to admit. And I would rather be honest about that today so we can celebrate Easter with the kind of understanding that actually transforms us.

Not the Prophet They Wanted

There's a theological concept called the Munus Triplex, a Latin phrase meaning "threefold office." It describes the three roles that were revealed by Christ on Palm Sunday: Prophet, Priest, and King. And in every single one of those roles, Jesus disappointed the expectations of the people.

Let's start with the prophet. What does a prophet do? A prophet speaks truth. And Jesus came in prophetic form, fulfilling the prophecy from Zechariah 9:9 by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, declaring Himself the Messiah. But the people didn't want that kind of prophet. They wanted Elijah. They wanted a prophet who would call down fire on their enemies, who would deliver instant justice and make everything right. They were sick of Rome running their country, and they wanted God to fix it on their terms.

But Jesus did not enter Jerusalem breathing fire. Luke 19:41-42 tells us that when He came near the city, He beheld it and wept over it. He said, "If you only knew, at least in this day, the things which belong to your peace, but right now it's hidden from your eyes." The crowd wanted prophetic fire. Jesus turned prophetic light on their own blindness. They wanted a prophet who would confirm them. Jesus came as the prophet who confronted them.

And if we're honest, we still tend to gravitate toward the version of God that tells us what we want to hear. We love the prophetic word that says, "This is going to be the greatest year of your life." But the prophet who says, "You've got things in your life that need to go to the altar"? That one is harder to welcome.

Not the Priest They Expected

Jesus also wasn't the priest they were looking for. He came during Passover, the time when the lamb was selected and sacrificed so that God's wrath would pass over. And here comes Jesus, the Messiah, functioning as the priest. But He wasn't just offering the sacrifice. He was the sacrifice. The offerer and the offering.

That's not what the people wanted. They wanted the kind of priest from the Old Testament who would take a goat, pile all the sins of the people onto it, and banish it into the wilderness forever. They wanted Jesus to be the priest who loads all the blame onto Rome, onto their enemies, and sends those problems away for good. They didn't want a priest offering forgiveness. They wanted another Exodus. They wanted national deliverance.

But Jesus didn't come to remove Rome. And here's the thing: Rome wasn't the real problem. A lot of the problems we think are the problem are not actually the problem. There's a deeper work that Jesus wants to do within us. He came to remove sin. They wanted a priest who would send the problem away. Jesus came as the priest who would take the problem on Himself. He didn't merely come to offer sacrifice. He came to be the sacrifice. They wanted deliverance from Caesar. He said, "I want to deliver you from sin, death, hell, and the grave."

We still do this. We want discomfort removed, but Jesus wants bondage broken. We want peace around us, but He wants to bring peace between God and us.

Not the King They Celebrated

And then there's the king. When the crowd shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they invoked David for a reason. David was a warrior king. David crushed enemies. David brought national security. That's the kind of king they wanted, someone who would overthrow Rome and establish a kingdom of power and conquest.

But Jesus said in John 18:36, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight." He was saying, "If this were about earthly power, do you really think I would just let you take Me?" And that's exactly the point. He was laying His life down willingly to demonstrate that His kingdom operates on an entirely different set of values.

The theologian N.T. Wright pointed out something fascinating about Palm Sunday. While Jesus was entering Jerusalem from one side of the city on a donkey, with children shouting and palm branches scattered on the ground, Pilate was entering from the other side, riding in on warhorses, surrounded by military force. Two parades were happening at the same time. And Jesus was essentially asking, "Which one are you interested in?"

They wanted a king to make their enemies pay. He came as the king who would pay for the sins of His enemies. They wanted a war king, but He rode on a donkey. They wanted a sword, but He brought a cross. They wanted triumph, but He came in humility. They wanted blood from Rome, but He gave His blood for Rome, and for anyone who would call Him Lord.

The Jesus We Actually Need

Here's the question of Palm Sunday: Will you only welcome Jesus when He looks like the king you wanted, or will you worship Him because He's the king you need?

Because if all you want is revenge, you'll miss redemption. If all you want is a throne, you'll miss the cross. If all you want is your enemies judged, you might miss the Savior who came to save you first.

He wasn't less than they hoped for. He was more holy than they wanted. And that distinction matters, because it means the problem was never that Jesus failed to be who He was. The problem was that the people had already decided what redemption should look like. We do the same thing. We praise Him when we think He's doing what we want, and we panic when He's not doing it the way we expected.

And the story doesn't end on Palm Sunday. Just a week later, on Resurrection Day, two of His own disciples were walking to Emmaus, talking about how disappointed they were. They said, "We had hoped that He was the one." The day wasn't even over that He had predicted He would be raised in, and they didn't understand who was walking right beside them.

On Palm Sunday, the crowd was excited for the wrong reason. At Emmaus, the disciples were discouraged for the wrong reason. Different emotions, same misunderstanding.

Hosanna, and Mean It

So today, I don't want us to just wave palm branches and shout Hosanna without understanding what we're saying. Hosanna means "save us now." Save us from what? Not from the wrong political group. Not from the wrong policy. Not from the wrong boss or coworker. From the sin that is inside of us. That's what the King came for.

He promised us a king who would be available to us, who would love us through the brokenness, who would never give up on us or forsake us. His primary mission as King was to rule and reign and to conquer sin, death, and hell forever so we could rule and reign with Him in eternity.

He can calm any storm. He demonstrated that. But He didn't promise to calm every storm. He promised us peace in the storm and that He would never leave us. "Come unto Me, all of you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." You can't rest without peace. That's what the King who rode through that gate on a donkey was offering. Not a life where every storm goes away, but a King who would never leave us through any of them.

So don't just admire the procession. Receive the King. Don't demand that Jesus become the Christ your flesh wants. Worship Him as the Christ He actually is. He is the true Prophet, the true Priest, the true King. He is the King we needed all along.