Rev. Cecil VanNiejenhuis
Mar 29, 2026
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11; John 12:1-26
Palm Sunday has always seemed a bit complicated to me…
On the one hand…there’s all this hoopla: shouting and praising Jesus as the heaven-sent King!! Hosanna!! And while you want to join in on the praising…it feels a bit awkward…
Because on the other hand, it’s like the crowds really don’t get Jesus…
--if they think he’s coming to Jerusalem to fight the Romans and reestablish David’s kingdom…with boots on the ground and force and control…and independence!!
That’s not it.
And there are a boatload of sermons that have taken potshots at the crowds…
Just a few days later, all these cheers become jeers…
Today-- it’s crown him
Friday, it’s crucify him…
So--what do you do with all of the hype surrounding this triumphal entry??
Can we genuinely join in?
Or should we be just a little, I mean, appropriately just a little reserved?
Because, we know, after all---we know more than that crowd did…
We are a little more “aware” of where all this leads…
There’s a cross coming.
There are nails coming.
There’s a death coming.
It’s important, once again, to listen to the way the Bible tells the story…in this case, the gospel writer John.
we call this the triumphal entry…and that makes sense…
We are reading about the arrival of a king…
The palm branches waving,
The crowds shouting Hosanna
Altogether—a royal welcome into Jerusalem…the city of David! The royal city!
If we were to think about all of this hoopla as a royal welcome…
We might also notice that this royal welcome started already the day before…
John chapter 12 begins: “six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here, a dinner was given in Jesus; honor.”
Now—if you invited Jesus and his disciples to your home for dinner…
Especially if you are Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, raised from the dead…
You’re not just putting out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
No—it’s a day for a really good meal. A celebration meal! A splurge!!
Absolutely! I mean—Jesus is the man who raised our brother Lazarus up from the dead!
Our brother. We bathed him and buried him….Heartbroken.
But look over here: there he is…by the table with the others.
Jesus may have walked on water…
But those sisters—they were walking on air.
How do you measure the thankfulness they must have felt?
The sheer wonder?
They were giving Jesus a royal welcome, they were…
Martha served…with no complaints this time about her sister not helping out…
She was giving Jesus the kind of meal he deserved!! Gladly.
And Mary…Mary also gave Jesus what she thought he deserved…
---that jar of expensive perfume..
A perfume which was her way of offering praise and passion
A perfume which placed Jesus on a pedestal…
Judas Iscariot heckled her…
But Jesus upheld her…
This dinner, in his honor,
This lavish outpouring of their love and respect…
Jesus allowed.
Jesus affirmed. He received it ---not embarrassed by it, or uncomfortable…
…you don’t hear Jesus saying—Mary, this perfume---you shouldn’t have
Martha, this meal,--you shouldn’t have. It’s too much
Jesus accepted this royal welcome—treated like a king: he received it. Which is remarkable, because so often in the gospel story, Jesus resists the accolades. He’s not one to take center stage and have a whole crowd praising him, especially when they get talking about kingship…
But at this moment…at this time in his journey…he received it…
What is more, the next day—when people heard that Jesus was making his way into Jerusalem
---they came running out to meet him..
And Jesus—Jesus went right along with it---so much so that he found a young donkey and sat upon it…fulfilling prophecy about a king coming, seated on a donkey…
Jesus did not resist…more than that—he added to things!!! He was a catalyst!!
And the royal welcome for Jesus continued: first in Bethany, at the home of his friends, and now on the road into Jerusalem, with all these people waving branches and cheering: Hosanna!!!
The king who will save us—is here!!!
And Jesus…Jesus allowed it.
Affirmed it.
--there is no hint of Jesus saying---whoa, whoa, slow this down…too much.
You’re embarrassing me…I’m not really that Messiah king…
There’s no hint of Jesus saying—Look, I know what you are going to saying a few days from now---your Hosannas…are going to seem hollow!!!
When Jesus found that young donkey and sat on that donkey, he put the finishing touches on the picture the people were painting.
On a pedestal…praised…passionately…
They did it…because it was fitting!!!
This Jesus had power like no one else…
--he controlled life and death and nature…
Turned water into wine.
Fed 5000 people with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish\
Healed people from a distance—remote control
Walked on water: calmed the winds and waves
Healed people who were beyond hoping for health--that one fellow 38 years sick
Healed people who never dared to hope at all—that fellow blind from birth
And then Lazarus. Jesus even tackled things people didn’t want him to tackle. The smell…don’t!!
And here he is coming into Jerusalem on that donkey---of course they praised him.
Put him on that pedestal. And with passion!!
We’ve so been wanting a king like him
Needing a king like him
Waiting for a king like him…and hasn’t God promised???
And all of that was what they saw and heard and understood…
Did they have it all sorted out the way we now know and understand?
No…
They still had a huge learning curve to work through…The arrest, and the cross…
But for this one small time…they let loose with sheer delight and hope and ecstasy…
And there was nothing cheesy or suspect or fickle about it in that moment…
Jesus received it, affirmed and even encouraged it…because…it was fitting.
He was the king sent from heaven.
He was the anointed one…the Messiah…
And he had come to save…
He was indeed the one God’s people had wanted, needed, waited for…
That’s all the people knew just then…and it was true. All true---insofar as they understood it
For a few moments there, everything was good.
Just like for us, sometimes, we have those moments…
Often relatively brief…
But real, here and now moments, when all is well with the world…
When everything is as it should be…
With a loved one…with life…with work or play or –you can fill in your own blank.
Those moments…real as they are…don’t change the fact that there’s all kinds of trouble and unrest and complication and evil and stress and a thousand other things out there…
Just as in the story of Jesus…as John tells it…
This beautiful moment in Jesus life…just days before his death…
This beautiful moment is filled with hints---before, during and after…hints of the trouble that is coming…the plans to arrest Jesus…to kill him…and while they were at it, to kill Lazarus too…
And Jesus himself makes this profound point: unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces may seeds…
That’s Jesus making a broad observation which at the same time is utterly personal.
He knows what’s ahead. And he’s committed to seeing it through…
The thing is—that the people cheering him on that day…they couldn’t begin to know not only what would soon happen, with Jesus death on a cross…and they couldn’t begin to know yet, what significance and deep meaning it would have…
If they recognized Jesus as king—they had lots to learn about what God’s version of kingship entailed. God is the king-- sovereign…
Almighty…and God is indeed omnikpotent…all powerful
But the moment we think of all that power as a means to enforce…
To control
And to do so by way of instilling fear…
Or threatening violence
And being violent…coercing
The moment power is understood primarily as a means to serve our needs, wants and ego….
At that moment, the story which Scripture tells---has been derailed.
Jesus allows all this praise and hoopla—acknowledging him as the coming king…and he does so…right before that moment…
When he will reveal what kingship really means. These moments are close together—the entry into Jerusalem, and the exit from Jerusalem. Close together.
Jesus will empty himself…pockets of his heart and soul and strength and mind turned inside out…Jesus will use all that he has, all that he is…for the sake of people…and for the sake of the whole creation…
A king uses power to bless…to benefit others…to serve…
A godly king has a heart which pulses with longing and love and the strength of tenderness.
And, a godly king has a backbone of integrity. He will do whatever it takes to make all things new.
Ushered into Jerusalem as a king…
And then, ushered out of Jerusalem—as—what? something else?
And the crunch—for the crowds then…
And for the church today….
Is that on the way into Jerusalem, being carried along
and on the way out…carrying a cross…
Do you see these parades, these processions as connected?
Because they are.
A king ingoing…
A king outgoing…not the gold-plated, gilded variety…
But the king… is the one whose love is poured out in sacrifice.
Jesus flexed his royal strength, not to step away from the cross, but to stay on it.
That’s the glory of Jesus.
As Paul said so beautifully in his letter to the Philippians….
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, Jesus humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him….(Phil 2)
This is a revelation of kingship. Jesus willing to endure the cross…
His power demonstrated in such love
His strength in such weakness
His wisdom in such folly.
It’s the good news, which provides us with hope…in life and in death. Amen.