A Palm Sunday Homily 2025
This is the manuscript of the Palm Sunday Homily I preached on Palm Sunday at Trinity West Seattle in 2025.
You can watch it here or read it below.
INTRODUCTION
Good Morning! I am so glad to be here with you on this day in the liturgical calendar. Today is Palm Sunday. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week. Holy Week is the time when the church remembers the final week of the life of Jesus.
The texts you heard this morning remind us of the events that lead up to this first day of Holy Week. Palm Sunday is when Jesus, who is God in human flesh, entered triumphantly into the city of Jerusalem. A city of people he both loved and mourned, and a city which would shortly become the agent of his death.
Calling Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem “triumphal” is interesting to me. He enters on a donkey, like we read from the gospels. Traverses a road covered in palm fronds. And the remainder of the week, he spends time talking and eating with his disciples. But by the end of the week we see Jesus betrayed, arrested like a criminal, put through a sham of a trial. Then he is tortured, brutalized, and crucified. He dies. So in what way is all of this a triumph?
I want to explore that tension with you, and then share how it actually is a triumph. Jesus answers this for us in his first words that we have recorded in the Gospel of John following his triumphal entry.
CONFLICT
In order to explore the tension that is present, we first need to take a look at what was going on in Jerusalem at the time. We read from John 12:12 that “The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.”
Many are in Jerusalem to feast! This is the same feast mentioned a few verses later in John 12:20, “Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.” The feast is Passover.
Passover was to celebrate Jews’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt. It remembers the final plague that God sent upon the Egyptians who were brutalizing and enslaving the Hebrew people. That plague was the plague of death, the first born of all families who did not cover their doorposts in the blood of a lamb would die. But if their homes were covered by the blood of the sacrificial lamb, their homes would be passed over. Their lives would be spared by God.
The Jews, and some Greeks (or Gentiles as they were known), were there to celebrate deliverance! To celebrate salvation! To celebrate God’s work of restoration in their lives.
In the midst of this celebratory fervor, we have the person of Jesus coming to town. Recently, as we read, he performed the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. So people were curious…is this the Messiah? The one we have longed for, the one the prophets spoke of…
And pairing that with the phrase, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” from John 12:13, they are hopeful! In the midst of this feast, this celebration for past deliverance, there is an ache for future deliverance. Is this the one from whom our future deliverance will come? Are we seeing the Messiah, the promised man, like we once looked for the Promised Land?
I can only imagine what they dreamed for during this time. What families for generations had desired. As their ancestors sat in exile, as they themselves sat under Roman occupation…they wanted the glory the prophets of old spoke of. They wanted the deliverance that God had promised over and over again.
There is a picture I want you to have in your head. Have any of you seen the newer Dune movies? Or read the Dune books from the 70s and 80s? In the movies, and in the first books, the main character is named Paul Atreides.
In the first movie, Paul is set up as a special leader needed to save this planet, the planet Dune. Here is a picture from the second movie. In the second movie he is thrust, almost forced, toward a messianic role. And in the movie, he marches toward a gathering to claim his throne. He wades toward the gathering through thousands of onlookers who are all whispering with anticipation. All wondering if he is their messiah.
Paul claims this messianic title and role. And leads the people of Dune to deliverance. He starts a war and wins back the planet Dune. But that war becomes galactic in scale. And…spoiler alert for those of you who have not read the books…this war costs trillions of lives across the Dune universe. Not the best messiah, huh?
SUDDEN SHIFT
I can’t help but parallel that welcoming of Paul Atreides with that of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. One is fact and one is fiction of course, but in both, there is a palpable fervor and trembling of souls all looking on with anticipation. They move through the crowds. The temperature of both crowds rises. They both accept their roles as messiah in these moments.
The Jews wanted, or at least expected, a Messiah like what we see in the Dune universe. A conqueror, a dictator. One to storm the gates of Rome itself and take back what was theirs.
Put yourself in the shoes, or sandals, of the people watching all of this take place. They heard the prophets their whole lives. Waited for a promised messiah over and over. Zechariah 9 talks about the donkey the messiah rides in on, but it also mentions the swords of warriors, the rule of a king from sea to sea, bows, arrows, arrows like lightning, trumpets initiating a march, and so much more. This is the type of messiah they expected.
Without the full story of Jesus in mind, the words of the prophets sound very political and militaristic. Why do you think Peter had a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane that night? (Luke 22:36)
GOOD NEWS
But there is a key difference. Paul Atreides accepted the role the people of Dune wanted him to assume. And we who are familiar with the gospel story, know that Jesus accepts the role of Messiah as the Creator of the world intended. The path to real salvation is not what the Jews expected. And to be clear, I do not think it is one we expect either.
They expected a man to rule an earthly kingdom. They wanted their current world to be a better one, give them their own space and rule. They sought transformation.
And guess what? Jesus is going to deliver on the desired transformation. But it will also require a transformation of the type of messiah they even expected…and it is revealed in his first words here in the Gospel of John following the Triumphal Entry. Let’s see what Jesus says…
20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Remember, we have these Greeks, or Gentiles, non-Hebrews at the feast. They tell Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Asking to see Jesus is a great start :)
But think about it, they want to see this guy who might be the Messiah the Jews have whispered about, prayed for, and hope for…for generations! Their excitement grabs hold of them and they just have to ask.
22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…
Jesus responds to the non-Jewish people by saying, “it's time.” The hour has come. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Personally, I think this is a very cool moment. The Jewish people, and those at the feast who welcomed him, he’s been doing ministry for many years…all this time, Jesus just keeps doing what he’s been doing…but when the Gentiles ask to see him once he is back in Jerusalem, Jesus says, “The hour has come…”
When we knock, he WILL answer.
His response to those who have been apart from God’s family for so long, asking “can we see God too?” Jesus responds with, “Now everyone can.”
THIS is what God came for, those far from him! To transform and save ALL of humanity.
The hour has come! Have you ever lived under the anticipation of something big? A new job start date? A marriage? The ending of a huge sporting event? A baby’s arrival? It’s here! Let’s go! Imagine the feelings these people are having! A messiah figure is finally saying its time!
What’s next? How do we get to participate? What kind of revolution will this be?
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
The feelings of anticipation rush in…then are abruptly halted by some puzzling words.
We who know the end of the story realize that Jesus is talking about his resurrection. We know this week ends with Jesus’ brutal murder, false trial, and nail pierced hands…death is absorbed then beaten back and utterly transformed into new life. We rejoice that we get to celebrate the resurrection every year at Easter.
Yet, put yourself in these hearers’ sandals…what must they be thinking? This possibly historic moment…the guy we are hoping is the messiah is talking about seeds, and death, and fruit? What is this?
Jesus is not the messiah they expected. He is subtly revealing to them that the path to life goes through death itself, and his defeat of death through his resurrection. He is planting the seeds of transformation.
That is the glory he, the Son of Man, is gaining. God wants the fruit of this victory. God wants life freely given to all humankind. That life is bought with the price of death. He will transform the enemy we all face.
The hearers in the passage would not have put all of this together in the moment. But they would soon understand, only days later.
UNFOLDING
Jesus goes on to explain one of the implications of the resurrection. Transformation.
25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
These verses provide a stark contrast between love and hate. We should love Christ, the Messiah, that it almost appears as if we hate this life.
We should believe in the transformation from death to life that he secured for the world in such a way that it alters the very day to day of our lives.
Sit with that for a second…what would it look like to be so in love with Christ, to be so utterly transformed in our innermost parts by him, that any other affection looks sickly, even malnourished, in comparison?
Are we so transformed by the resurrection that is coming that we can say, “God, you can have my life! All of it. Every bit. You can have my spouse. My kids. My job. My money. My hobbies. My habits. You can have my time. My energy. My focus.”?
We Christians know that what Jesus is talking about in these verses is his death and resurrection. His resurrection is utterly transformative. It leads to our loves being shaped, not our hates being inflamed. Our hearts bent toward serving others, not dominating others.
C. Kavin Rowe in Christianity’s Surprise states the following:
“The power of the resurrection meant transformation…To deny the possibility of transformation would be to deny the resurrection…Resurrection, however, does not undo the crucifixion as if it never happened, but takes it up, absorbs it, and makes something new from it.”
Jesus is foretelling the resurrection in verse 24. And we see in 24-26…The result of the resurrection is something new…transformation.
Jesus is preparing his listeners. You cannot encounter what is about to take place in mere days and NOT be changed.
The seed can’t stay a seed.
It goes to dust or is transformed into more life. But it is no longer a seed.
That is why his entry into Jerusalem is Triumphant. The Messiah is here! Transformation is coming!
The glory for the Son of Man shines through the transformation of all things. Death is embraced, then made into life. Our hearts are morphed from self-serving into the service of the one who changes every heart.
Jesus’ work in these final days means…
The true triumph is transformation.
The true triumph of Holy Week is transformation.
From crucifixion to resurrection, death is transformed into life.
Affections, expectations, salvation, everything is touched by it…Jesus is in the business of transformation.
As we depart from here, I challenge each of us to ponder the transformation that this final week of Christ’s life offers. In what parts of your life have you refused to allow Christ’s life and death to transform you, intentionally or not? Is there something you are holding onto so tightly that your affection for Christ is less than it should be? What in your life needs to fall to the ground like the seed?
Will you be like the Gentiles, the Greeks, in this story? We wish to see Jesus!
He alone can transform all things for God’s ultimate purposes and our ultimate good.
I encourage you to read John chapters 12-21 this week. Go see Jesus in the text. Chapter 12 through the end. Prepare to sit with the crucifixion on Good Friday, and the resurrection on Easter Sunday. Meditate on what Jesus did for me and for you. Transformation. That is what Jesus offers.
