Palm Sunday begins Holy Week, culminating in our remembrance of Jesus Christ's arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey on this day, fulfilling Old Testament prophecy (cf. Zechariah 9:9) and defying the expectations of many longing for, even expecting, a militant king destined to throw off Roman imperial rule.

As the crowd yelled, "Hosanna!" they appealed for Jesus to save them. However, it seems most intended temporal, military-style salvation, not the more profound spiritual rescue from the power of sin and death Jesus intended by His first advent. The crowd's palm branches and cloaks represented homage and respect, the adoration typically reserved for those returning from military conquest, not the Suffering Servant prophesied in the Old Testament.

Within mere days, when it became apparent Jesus did not intend to fulfill their prevailing expectations for a political savior, the crowds' disillusionment turned them into an angry mob calling for His crucifixion. The One they hailed only days before suffered and died despised and rejected outside the city on a hill called Golgatha, the Place of the Skull, on what we now call Good Friday.

On that day, Jesus laid down His life as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, meeting humanity's greatest need - liberation not from a temporary political regime but from the power of sin and death. For this reason, the Apostle Paul, once a vehement enemy of Christ and Christians, later remarked, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Therefore, on Palm Sunday, we learn a powerful and vital lesson. While Jesus was not the kind of King we expected or even wanted, He's precisely the King we need. And one day, He'll return to complete His conquest, "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).