Introduction
Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, the final movement of the church year’s journey through the life of Jesus. It is one of the few days in the liturgical calendar where celebration and tension sit side by side. The service often begins with palms, processions, and shouts of praise. Yet the story we are entering quickly moves toward betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. The same city that welcomes Jesus will soon call for his death.
In many congregations the liturgy reflects this tension. We wave branches and cry “Hosanna,” echoing the crowds that greet Jesus as he approaches Jerusalem. But the celebration carries an undercurrent of unease. Palm Sunday is less a triumphant arrival than the beginning of a collision. Between expectations and reality, between the kingdom people imagine and the kingdom Jesus embodies.
Matthew’s account of the entry into Jerusalem (21:1–11) is deliberate and symbolic from the very beginning. Jesus carefully orchestrates the scene. He sends two disciples ahead to retrieve a donkey and a colt. Matthew highlights the fulfillment of prophecy from Book of Zechariah 9:9: a king arriving “humble and mounted on a donkey.” The imagery is unmistakable. This is royal language, but not the kind of royalty people typically expect.
The crowd responds with enthusiasm. Cloaks cover the road. Branches are cut from trees. Shouts echo through the air: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” These words echo royal hope and messianic expectation. “Hosanna,” meaning “save us,” is both praise and plea. The crowd believes something important is happening.
Yet Matthew ends the scene with a surprising question.
“When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’”
Narrative Context: A City on Edge
To understand the power of this moment, it helps to remember where we are in Matthew’s story. Jesus has been moving steadily toward Jerusalem throughout the Gospel. Along the way he has healed the sick, taught the crowds, and confronted religious leaders. The tension has been building for chapters.
Now he arrives at the center of political and religious power.
Jerusalem during Passover would have been crowded. Folks making their pilgrimage from across the region gathered to remember their liberation from oppression. Remembering the story of how a prophet of God had led them out of the clutches of Pharoah. And now, a prophet like Moses (a tension theme of Matthew), arrives in Jerusalem with crowds shouting, “Hosanna!”
Roman authorities were already always alert for unrest during the festival. But now, with a crowd forming around a charismatic teacher riding toward the city, attention would be unavoidable.
Many scholars note that Jesus’ entry echoes the imagery of a Roman imperial procession. When a Roman governor or general entered a city, it was a display of power: soldiers marching, banners flying, horses and chariots announcing authority. Jesus’ procession mirrors the shape of that event, but with dramatically different symbols.
Instead of war horses, a donkey.
Instead of armored soldiers, regular folks and disciples.
Instead of imperial banners, cloaks and branches laid on the road.
The scene resembles a royal procession, yet everything about it subverts the usual symbols of power.
This tension helps explain the turmoil Matthew describes. The Greek word for “turmoil” (ἐσείσθη) that Matthew uses suggests the city is shaken, stirred up, or unsettled. Jerusalem senses that something significant is happening, even if it cannot yet name what.
And so the question arises: “Who is this?”
Unclear Vision of Jesus
The crowds offer an answer: “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
On the surface this sounds like a strong affirmation. Calling someone a prophet carries weight in Israel’s tradition. Prophets speak God’s word. They challenge injustice. They call people back to faithfulness.
But notice what the crowd does not say.
They do not call him Messiah. They do not call him king. They do not call him the Son of God.
They call him a prophet.
Matthew’s Gospel has been revealing Jesus as far more than that. Earlier in the narrative, characters have already confessed deeper truths about Jesus’ identity. Yet here, as he enters the city that will soon condemn him, the crowd’s understanding seems incomplete.
This moment exposes a fascinating tension in the story. The people cheering may not fully understand the one they are celebrating.
Some may see a political liberator.
Some may see a troublemaker threatening the fragile peace.
Some may see a prophet announcing God’s word.
Everyone seems to have a category for Jesus, but none of those categories quite capture the fullness of who he is.
And perhaps most striking of all: the city asks the question when the story is already nearing its climax. Jesus has been teaching and healing for a long while, yet the people of Jerusalem are still trying to figure him out.
In many ways, this feels familiar.
Human beings often do not recognize the significance of a moment until it is nearly over. Only later do we realize what was unfolding in front of us.
Preaching Possibilities
Who is this?
Palm Sunday invites our congregations into the same question the city asks: “Who is this?”
The week ahead will offer multiple answers. Some will call Jesus a threat to the nation. Others will call him a criminal. A Roman centurion will eventually proclaim him the Son of God.
Holy Week becomes a journey through these competing claims about Jesus’ identity. We might frame the coming week as the unfolding of that question. Each day reveals more about who Jesus truly is, and how easily people misunderstand him.
And maybe that’s as important of a trajectory.
The crowd’s enthusiasm may be genuine, but it may also be shaped by their own expectations. If people hoped for a political liberator, they may have interpreted Jesus’ entry through that lens. If they expected a prophet, they may have celebrated him in those terms.
In our country alone it could be asked if Christians are even worshipping the same person. There are some who claim Jesus would be a champion of political power, one who blesses national strength and victory. Others claim Jesus would be primarily concerned with personal morality or individual salvation. Some see Jesus as a social reformer above all else, while others imagine him as a quiet spiritual guide uninterested in the structures of the world.
Each of these visions claims to know who Jesus is. Each points to certain passages or emphases in the Gospel story. Yet when placed side by side, they can feel like entirely different figures.
Palm Sunday invites us to pause long enough to ask whether we, like the crowds in Jerusalem, might sometimes be shaping Jesus according to the expectations we bring with us.
The people shouting “Hosanna” believed they were welcoming a king. But what kind of king did they imagine? A king who would drive out Rome? A king who would restore the power of Israel? A king who would finally bring victory?
Jesus does enter Jerusalem as a king. Matthew is clear about that. The quotation from the prophet announces it plainly: “Look, your king is coming to you.” Yet the manner of his arrival complicates everything.
By the end of the week, it becomes clear that Jesus is not the kind of king many had hoped for. Which may help explain why the cheers of Palm Sunday do not last long. Expectations begin to crumble when people realize that Jesus will not seize power in the ways they imagined.
This is part of the uncomfortable truth of Holy Week: the crowds who shout “Hosanna” may not fully understand the one they are praising. Their enthusiasm is real, but their vision is incomplete.
And that reality may not be confined to first-century Jerusalem.
Palm Sunday offers an opportunity for congregations to wrestle again with the question that unsettled the city: Who is this?
Not who we would prefer Jesus to be.
Not who our culture imagines him to be.
Not even who our traditions have sometimes shaped him to be.
But who he actually reveals himself to be as the story unfolds.
The week ahead will answer that question in surprising ways. The king who enters Jerusalem humbly will kneel to wash his disciples’ feet. The one hailed as “Son of David” will be arrested and abandoned. The one called a prophet will be mocked, beaten, and crucified under a sign that reads “King of the Jews.”
And yet it will be in that very moment, when Jesus appears weakest, that the deepest truth of his identity begins to emerge.
The question “Who is this?” echoes all the way to the cross.
Palm Sunday begins with celebration. But it also invites the church to follow the story all the way through before we assume we know the answer.
Micah Krey 
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