John 12:13

This verse describes what Christians call Palm Sunday — the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, about a week before his crucifixion. The crowd lined the road waving palm branches, which in Jewish culture symbolized national victory and celebration. They shouted "Hosanna," a Hebrew word meaning "save us" or "save now," and quoted Psalm 118, a beloved scripture about a coming deliverer. The phrase "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" was a traditional greeting for pilgrims entering the temple. The crowd was welcoming Jesus as the long-awaited King of Israel — though most imagined a political liberator, not a king who would save them through his own sacrificial death.

Lord, I confess I have sometimes praised you most when I thought I knew what you were about to do. Forgive me for the times my worship was really just anticipation of my own plans. Help me welcome you — not the king I constructed in my mind, but the one who actually came. Amen.

Crowds are fickle. The same road that rang with "Blessed is the King!" would, five days later, echo with calls for his execution. The people waving palms weren't entirely wrong — Jesus really was the King of Israel. But they were celebrating the king they had in mind: a revolutionary, a military deliverer, someone who would shake off Roman occupation and restore Israel's former glory. They weren't prepared for a king who would save them by dying. There's something uncomfortably familiar in that. How often do you praise God loudly when you expect him to come through exactly the way you've planned? And how quickly does your worship cool when he moves in ways you didn't anticipate? Palm Sunday leaves a question hanging in the air: are you following the king who actually showed up, or the one you were hoping for? Jesus didn't come to meet your expectations. He came to exceed them — just not in the way anyone thought to ask for.