Palm Sunday: The (Less Than) Triumphal Entry (Mark 11:1–11)

On Palm Sunday, kicking off the final week of Jesus's life on earth, he doesn't enter Jerusalem as a conquering hero would enter a city after a mighty victory on the battlefield. He doesn’t come mighty and powerful. He doesn’t come victorious. He doesn’t come proceeded by musicians and poets shouting out his exploits before him. He doesn’t come parading his conquested enemies in chains behind him. He doesn’t come wearing a royal robe with a slave holding a golden crown over his head riding in a chariot made of gold. He comes to Jerusalem wearing a shepherd’s cloak and riding a small donkey. And the reason he does so is to fulfill OT prophecy concerning Messiah and the specific way he would come into his city to rescue and save his people, humbly, on a donkey's colt. That’s what we remember and celebrate on Palm Sunday—the arrival of the Messiah King at the place of his destiny to accomplish the victory upon which all of humanity, depends, and in which all of humanity’s hopes lie.