Today being Palm Sunday, we are— and we've been doing this whole series on letting go, right?
So today we're letting go of expectations. Okay? Now, I want to preface that by saying we should always have expectation that God is here, that we know that he is moving and what he will do. There is always expectation for that. This is about our expectations about other stuff.
Okay? So I'm going to start by reading our passage today, and it's from Luke chapter 19, sorry, verses 28 to 40. So after Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, He sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' say, 'The Lord needs it.'" Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, the owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" And they replied, "The Lord needs it." They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt, and put Jesus on it. And as he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles that they had seen. "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. I tell you, he replied, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.
So I have to confess to all of you that I have kind of an obsession.
It's one that I am attempting to wean myself from. But it's actually harder to do than one might think. And of course there are all the underlying so-called reasons for my obsession, but in my case they are really more like excuses that I give myself to grant myself permission for continuing on with the obsession. I even used Lent as an opportunity to give it up. Now before your imaginations start running wild on what it is, I am speaking of my obsession with Temu.
So if you don't know what Temu is, it's kind of like Amazon, only really cheap. So although they have expanded into more costly merchandise, they built themselves on being able to deliver whatever you want or need for much less than anywhere else. The thing is, the stuff might be cheap, which is great. But being cheap isn't really helpful when what you think you are ordering turns out to be very different from what you get. In my experiences, this mainly happens when it comes to size.
So whether it's clothes or pictures or knickknacks, the reality of the object you purchased can be a shock when you see it up close and personal. So I have ordered the earrings that turned out to be almost the size of my hand. Clothes that were supposed to be— I won't tell you my size, but you know— that would only fit a doll, or items like this, which is cute and all, but I thought it was going to be like a 12 by 16.
Kind of tiny though.
So it's not as though the measurements are not actually available, but generally I'm too caught up in what the item appears to be to worry about checking out the actual measurements. So the people who were lining the streets to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem also had an idea in their minds as to what this king would be like. How would he arrive? What would he accomplish? And how he was going to save them.
But when Jesus arrives, it turns out not to be in the way that they had pictured. How he arrived, what he would go on to do, and how he would save them was definitely not what they expected. Now obviously Jesus wasn't wrong; it was their expectations that were. Which brings us to our first point today: that Jesus is received with praise but defined by expectation. So as Jesus enters Jerusalem, the crowd is celebrating loudly, laying down their cloaks and palm branches, giving him the kind of reception that you would offer royalty.
Palm branches were a symbol of victory and peace, and the laying down of their cloaks was an act of honour and submission, the way that people would respond to a king in their times. And as they laid down the branches and the cloaks, they were shouting praise, recognising Jesus as king, as they shouted, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!" Their response is joyful and sincere, but it's also shaped by expectation. They are celebrating Jesus as King, but their understanding of kingship is tied to political victory, power, and immediate change. Think about it. When they proclaim Jesus as King, what did they mean by it?
What would their history, their own personal experiences up to that time, have taught them about what a king would be like? Throughout history, kings have shared some commonalities. Kings frequently come to power through conquest, hereditary succession, or political manoeuvring. Many kings claimed absolute power, often setting themselves up as the final word on law and justice. Check out Xerxes in Esther or Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel.
So kings defended their territory and expanded borders through military strength, using force, violence, and intimidation to crush the opposition. Historically, their subjects were expected to serve, pay tribute to, and fear the king, and kings were— kings often built opulent palaces and lived in luxury to display their power. So it's no wonder that if that was what their experience in history had led them to expect, what a king would be like, what they got in Jesus would have been a shock. Because Jesus's kingship flips the norm by prioritising humility, sacrificial love, and a spiritual kingdom over earthly power and dominance. And this was initially demonstrated by how Jesus entered.
Well, not exactly how, but on what? The donkey. The donkey should have relayed to the crowds that their expectations were not in line with what was to come. But when the people lined the streets calling out in celebration, maybe they were so caught up in the moment that they weren't thinking about what riding, what his riding a donkey really meant. They're focused on welcoming him for who they hope he will be.
Kind of like my Temu orders. They're based on what I think I want without always paying attention to the details that would show me what I was actually getting. And if we're honest, we can do that same thing with Jesus too. When we ignore the details or skip over what doesn't fit, we're not just receiving him. We may actually be trying to reshape him into who we want him to be or who or what we want him to do.
And you can hear it in the way people talk about faith today. When something that is in scripture feels uncomfortable or when a teaching doesn't line up with what feels right to us or what seems right to our culture around us, we instinctively push back with phrases like, "But my God wouldn't do that," or, "I don't think my God would want that." Now sometimes those questions come from a genuine place. We're trying to wrestle honestly with difficult passages or harmful interpretations. And that matters. But often, if we're honest, something else is happening which we may willfully be ignoring.
Instead of letting Jesus shape our understanding, we begin shaping him to match our preferences. We start with what feels right to us, what seems fair and loving and reasonable, and then we adjust our picture of Jesus accordingly. We keep the parts that comfort us We soften or sidestep the parts that challenge us, and without even realising it, we create a version of Jesus who always agrees with us, always affirms us, and never asks us to change in ways that feel costly. But that's not really receiving Jesus. It's revising him.
And the danger is subtle because it doesn't really feel like rejection. It still sounds like faith, we're still talking about God, we're still using spiritual language, we're still claiming belief. But instead of surrendering to who Jesus actually is, we're holding onto control by deciding which parts of him we accept and which parts we're just going to quietly put aside. And that's exactly the tension that we see on Palm Sunday. The crowd welcomes Jesus, but it's on their terms.
They celebrate him, but it's with expectations attached. They are ready to receive a king, but it's the kind of king that they already have in their mind. And we're not so different.
Letting go of expectations means releasing not just what we want Jesus to do, but who we expect him to be. And recognising that he remains who he is regardless of our expectations, even when that stretches us or confronts us or calls us into something that we wouldn't have chosen on our own.
So now let's go back to that donkey, because that's where we start to see the second point that we have more clearly. That Jesus isn't just entering the city, he's revealing a kingdom that doesn't match their expectations. So before he ever reaches the crowd, before a single shout goes up, Jesus is already showing them what this kingdom will be like. He sends his disciples to bring him a colt, a young donkey. And that detail matters, because in the ancient world, how a king arrived didn't just say something about him.
It said something about the kind of rule that he was bringing. So across the ancient Near East, including Israel's neighbours like Egypt and Assyria and Babylon, there's strong historical and biblical evidence that kings and conquerors rode horses or chariots when coming in power. Horses were associated with military strength, victory, and dominance. We see this in scripture. Revelation 19, the conquering king arrives on a white horse.
Exodus 14 to 15, Pharaoh's army is defined by horses and chariots. Historically, kings didn't just own horses, they displayed them as symbols of power. Archaeology and ancient art like Assyrian reliefs consistently show kings riding horses or chariots into battle or victory. But interestingly enough, in ancient Israel and surrounding cultures, donkeys were also used by royalty, but in a different context. They symbolised peaceful rule instead of military conquest.
Donkeys were associated with legitimacy, continuity, and humility. Think of 1 Kings 1:33-40, where King David has Solomon ride his own mule to be publicly declared king. Solomon isn't riding a war horse. He's riding a royal mule as a sign of rightful, peaceful kingship. And then of course there's the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9: Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion!
Shout, daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey. On a colt, the foal of a donkey. Kings who came on horses came to establish their kingdom through power and force and dominance, and that's how their kingdoms were built. That's what people expected.
But Jesus chooses a donkey, and in doing that, he's not just redefining kingship, he's revealing a completely different kind of kingdom. This is a kingdom that doesn't advance through force. But by transforming hearts. A kingdom that doesn't rise by taking control, but by surrender. The crowd has a picture in their minds.
They were expecting a kingdom that would overthrow Rome, restore their nation, and bring immediate and visible change. A kingdom built the way every other kingdom had always been built. But Jesus is showing them right from the beginning that this kingdom will not come the way that they expect. Because this kingdom doesn't just deal with what's happening around them, it goes deeper. It confronts sin, not just systems.
It brings freedom, not just from oppression, but from what binds us within. It transforms lives, not just circumstances. And that's why they miss it, because they're looking for a kingdom that looks familiar. Something strong and visible and immediate. But Jesus is revealing a kingdom that is deeper, quieter, and far more transformative than they imagine.
And if we're honest, we struggle with this. We want a kingdom that we can see, that we can measure, and that we can understand. We want quick change, we want clear results, we want visible power. But Jesus keeps revealing a kingdom that doesn't match our expectations because it doesn't just change what's around us, it changes us. So the question isn't just, will we become the king?
It's, will we trust the kind of kingdom that he's bringing? Because it may not look like what we expected, but it is exactly what we need.
So our last point: God's purposes move forward even when we misunderstand. So there's a quiet thread going through this whole event, and if you slow down enough to notice it, it changes how you see everything that's happening. Because on the surface, it's already feeling messy and confusing and full of misunderstanding. But underneath it all, everything is unfolding exactly as God intends. The colt is exactly where Jesus says it will be.
The disciples find it just as he described. The owners release it without resistance. The words of Zechariah are being lived out in real time. The crowd is praising even though they don't fully understand what they're saying. But do you see it?
Piece by piece, detail by detail, God's purposes are moving forward. But here's something important for us to remember. We're seeing this moment from the other side of the story. We know what's coming. We know this road leads to the cross.
And we know what happens by the end of the week. But they didn't. The crowd lining the streets that day, they had no idea what was about to unfold. The disciples following alongside Jesus, they didn't yet understand where all this was leading. They weren't watching prophecy being fulfilled with clarity, they were living it in real time with questions and assumptions and incomplete understanding.
And yet nothing's off track. Even the detail of the owners simply letting the colt go lets us in on the fact that God is already at work behind the scenes, preparing hearts, aligning circumstances, moving in ways that no one can fully see. Because that's what God does. He works beyond our understanding, beyond our awareness, and certainly beyond our expectations, which is why Jesus can say something that sounds pretty weird.
So listen again to verses 39 and 40. "Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, 'Teacher, rebuke your disciples.' 'I tell you,' he replied, 'if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.'" The Pharisees had to know they couldn't stop what was happening. The crowd had already caught fire. But what they could do was turn to Jesus and demand that he shut it down. Because to them, this wasn't celebration, it was blasphemy.
And Jesus answers them with this strange line: "I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out." Now, is Jesus saying that the rocks would literally start shouting? Probably not. This is the kind of vivid and poetic language that we see all through scripture. It's meant to wake us up. To make us feel the weight of what's happening.
What he's really saying is that it would be more unthinkable for this moment to go unpraised than for the impossible to happen. In other words, there is no scenario where the king enters his city and creation stays silent. This moment demands a response. And that's the point. Jesus isn't correcting the crowd, he's affirming them.
Their praise may be incomplete, their understanding may be limited, but their instinct to rejoice, that's right on. Because all of creation is wired for this. Scripture tells us that everything was made for God's glory. Creation, in its own way, is always pointing back to him. But human beings, we're different.
We're made in God's image. We're the ones who are meant to recognise him, to name what's happening, and to give voice to that praise. So if some people, so if people stay silent, it would be as if creation itself would have to step in and fill that gap. That's how right this moment is. That's how necessary this praise is.
And yet, what makes this even more unsettling is how quickly all of it changes. Because we know what's coming. The same voices that are crying out in celebration are going to grow quiet. And before the week is over, many will be shouting something very different, which only deepens the tension of the moment. Because even here in the middle of misunderstanding, in the middle of shifting expectations, what they're doing is still caught up.
They're caught up in something that is true. Jesus is the King. He does deserve praise. And even if they don't fully understand what kind of King he is or what kind of kingdom he is He does deserve the praise because he is the King. And that's what makes his words so powerful.
This isn't just about defending the crowd. It's about declaring that God's purposes will not be silenced. Regardless of anyone's expectations, regardless of what the Pharisees demand, his purposes will not be silenced by the cross that's coming. In fact, that's where those purposes will be revealed most clearly. If people are silent, the stones will cry out.
Because one way or another, creation will respond to its King. God's purposes are not fragile. They are not dependent on people getting it exactly right. Even imperfect praise is still caught up in a perfect plan. And that matters for us, because it means that the kingdom of God is not limited by our confusion or our complete understanding or even our misplaced expectations.
God is still at work, still moving, still accomplishing his purposes even when we only see part of the picture. And the truth is, we'll always only see part of the picture, because the kingdom Jesus brings is both now and not yet. It's already here, at work in quiet, powerful ways, but it's not fully visible yet. We live in that tension, catching glimpses of what God is doing while still waiting for what is to come. So letting go of expectations doesn't mean giving up or disengaging.
It means holding on even when things don't make sense. It means trusting that God is moving the storey forward even when we don't understand our part in it. The crowd thought they knew what was happening.
They didn't. And yet they were still part of what God was doing. And the same is true for us. We don't always get it right. We don't always see clearly.
We don't always understand what God is doing. But letting go of expectations means believing that God doesn't need our full understanding to accomplish his perfect will. So when I think about it, maybe T-Moo isn't just a mostly harmless obsession. Maybe it's actually a mirror. 'Cause if I'm honest, it's not really about the earrings or the pictures or the clothes.
It's about my expectations. It's about seeing something, deciding what it must be like, and then being surprised when the reality doesn't match what I had in mind. And that was exactly where we started today, with expectations that were not in line with reality. They weren't in line with what was to come. So here's the question that we're left with: What do we do when Jesus doesn't match what we expected?
Because we come with assumptions too, about how God should act, what he should do, how things should unfold. And then Jesus shows up and it looks different. It's not less than we hoped, but it's more than we understood. So maybe the invitation is simple: to loosen our grip on our expectations, to look again at who Jesus actually is, and to trust him even when we don't fully understand. Because the risk isn't that Jesus fails to meet our expectations, is that our expectations cause us to miss him altogether.
He may not always be what we expect, but he is always exactly who we need.
So does everybody have a card and a writing utensil? Great. Please make sure you give me those back. Those are my pens. What I want you to write on one side— you can like fold your card in half if you want, or you can just Flip it, whichever you prefer.
But on one side, you're writing down something, "I expected." Something that you expected from God. And then on the other side, you're writing, "But God," and finishing it off. So you're writing what your expectation was and then what God actually did.
You're looking at me confuddled. Am I not making sense? Jordan says no. Thank you for that, Jordan. So on one side you're writing like something that you thought God might do, like maybe a prayer that you had about something, and then how did that turn out?
How did God actually respond to that?
So as you're thinking about this and writing something down, you're reflecting on a situation where life or faith didn't unfold as expected. Is everybody good? All right, so now we're just going to have a short prayer thanking God for who he is even when the outcomes differ from our expectations. So let's pray.
God, we thank you that we can trust you with the big picture. That even though we don't know, we don't know everything, we don't know how things are going to turn out, we don't know, we still come to you with expectations. We know that you will respond, but our expectations tend to place you into a box of how you are going to respond, and it's in the way that we want you to respond. So God, we thank you that you know what is best for us. You know what is best, the best way to respond to our expectations.
And we just want to lay down those times that we have placed you in a box for how you are going to respond. And instead, we want to thank you for the way that you did respond, the way that you did answer us, even if it wasn't the way that we expected. God, we know that you love us and that you care for us. And that you always want what's best for us. And even when that disagrees with what we think we know is best for us, we know that we are always safe with you.
So God, we just ask that you continue to come alongside us, each of us, in this journey. May we trust you more and more to just be— understand that you'll always be far more than we can possibly expect or understand.
And that we just are so grateful that we have a God who loves us and cares for us even when we step out of the right way, when we're not following you the way that we should. You're always hanging on so that we can come back, and we are just so thankful for that. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
