Palm Sunday Reflection

The Curious Case of the Uncooperative Messiah

There is something wonderfully chaotic about Palm Sunday. Many churches begin with a procession, there’s a bit of theatre, perhaps even a real donkey if the parish is feeling ambitious—and there is the opportunity to wave palms like a crowd that’s got slightly carried away at a rock festival.

And then, almost before we’ve had time to fold the palm crosses properly, the mood darkens and the Passion looms into view like an unwelcome guest who has arrived several days too early.

But let’s stay, just for a moment, with the palms. With the shouting. With the excitement. Because in Matthew’s telling, the crowd knows exactly what they think is happening. “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they cry. Which is not just a religious slogan—it’s a political one. “Save us.” Not in some vague spiritual sense, but properly, urgently, nationally. Save us from Rome. Save us from oppression. Save us from the mess we’re in.

it up. He lets the crowd say exactly what they want to say. Because Matthew is writing for a Jewish audience: people who know those hopes inside out. People who have been waiting—really waiting—for God to act.

There’s one thing Matthew is clear about in his telling of Jesus coming into Jerusalem, the crowd may know what they want, but they do not know what they are getting.

Because this Messiah… is not behaving properly.

If you’re announcing yourself as the long-awaited Son of David, there are certain things one might reasonably expect. A horse, perhaps. A sword. A rousing speech. At the very least, a bit of posture.

Instead, we get a donkey. Not even a particularly impressive donkey—Matthew rather charmingly seems to imagine two of them, a mother and a baby donkey, as if to underline the point. This is not power as anyone understands it. One can imagine Jesus looking very lop-sided sitting on a mother and baby donkey, tied together. This is not triumph as the world would recognise it.

And yet, the crowd still shouts “Hosanna.”

Which raises an awkward possibility. That it is entirely possible to be enthusiastic about Jesus… and completely misunderstand him.

In fact, if we’re honest, that’s not just their problem. It’s ours as well.

Because we all have our versions of “Hosanna.” Our quiet—or not so quiet—assumptions about what God ought to be doing. The situations God really should fix by now. The people God really ought to sort out. The general sense that, if we were in charge of the Messiahship, things would be run rather more efficiently.

And Palm Sunday arrives, year after year, and gently—but quite firmly—disrupts all of that.

Because God does not arrive as expected.

God does not behave as expected.

God does not save as expected.

Which is, depending on your perspective, either deeply frustrating… or very good news indeed.

Because if God were simply the fulfiller of our expectations, then God would be no more than an extension of our own imagination. A slightly more powerful version of ourselves. A divine assistant, taking notes and implementing our plans.

But the God we meet in Jesus is not like that. This God arrives sideways. Unexpectedly. On a donkey. Refusing the scripts we have written.

And if we follow the story—even just a little further—we begin to see that this is not a failure of Messiahship. It is its fulfilment, but on entirely different terms.

So perhaps the question Palm Sunday leaves us with is not, “Have we recognised the Messiah?”

But rather, “Are we prepared to be wrong about what the Messiah looks like?”

Because the crowd got one thing absolutely right: God had come to save.

They just hadn’t realised what that would mean.

And if we’re honest… neither have we.

Reproduced with Permission from the author: Tom Kennar.