S2 Palm Sunday: Hosanna! Peace Comes Home

Hosanna is a beautiful word until you realize how much you’re loading into it. When the crowd welcomes Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they’re not clueless, they’re desperate for change. And if we’re honest, so are we. We want the breakthrough, the rescue, the moment where everything finally shifts and the pressure lifts. 

We read Matthew 21:1–11 and sit with the strange, striking detail that Jesus chooses a donkey. Not a warhorse. Not a display of strength that makes the powerful nervous. A quiet, prophetic sign of a different kind of King. That gentle entrance exposes the tension at the center of Holy Week: the people are right to shout “Save us,” but they misunderstand what salvation will look like. 

To sharpen the point, we bring in The Hobbit and Thorin Oakenshield, a character who finally gets the throne and treasure he craves, only to find that fear and control can become their own prison. It’s a mirror for our own lives, especially when we confuse power with freedom. Jesus offers something deeper: victory through self-giving love, peace that doesn’t depend on “winning,” and healing that reaches the root, not just the surface. 

If you’re heading into Holy Week carrying big hopes, old disappointments, or a tired heart, come listen and reflect with us. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a different kind of peace, and leave a review with the question you’re sitting with right now.

Let's Get Into It!!

Transcript

Palm Sunday On The Horizon

Speaker 0:08

Welcome back again, friends, to Ancient Truth for the Modern Heart. I am Steve Pozzato, and as always, I am so glad that you are here to spend this time with me. Well, my friends, we have been walking this Lenten road together through wilderness, through questions and darkness, through the slow work of becoming, and now the road leads us to a city. There's movement, there's anticipation, and there's a kind of hope that feels almost electric. Today is Palm Sunday. And we're going to talk a little bit about what that means today. So in the city of Jerusalem, a crowd is gathering. Branches are lifted, voices rise, and a cry is simple but deep. Hosanna, save us. And maybe the most honest question that we can ask about this is, what kind of salvation were they expecting? And more to the point, what kind of salvation are we expecting? So let's talk a little bit more about Palm Sunday and what had happened biblically, and we'll get into those expectations a little bit too. So first, let's hear the scripture. Matthew chapter 21, verses 1 through 11. Very simple today. As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away. This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet. Say to Totter Zion, see, your king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt the foal of a donkey. The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, Who is this? The crowds answered, This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. Now, friends, the people shouting that day are not naive. They know what it is to live under pressure, and they know what it is to long for change. So when Jesus enters the city, they respond with everything they have. They shout words from Psalm 118: Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. They lay down cloaks, they wave branches, palms. They are welcoming a king. And underneath all of it is a deep, honest hope. Things are about to change, and we understand that hope because we carry it too. We long for things to be made right, for broken things to be restored, and for something to finally shift for us. Yes, friends, we carry that hope too. But this crowd on this day has a picture in mind, a picture in their heads that they think the Messiah is: a warrior, a victor, or a freedom fighter, someone who will overthrow what oppresses them, someone who will bring victory in a way that they can see and measure. And that expectation makes sense because when we feel struck, and when we feel like we are overwhelmed, when we feel imprisoned by the moment, we often imagine salvation as something powerful and immediate. A breakthrough, a rescue, a decisive moment. We want a king who wins. There's a story in The Hobbit since we've been talking about J.R.R. Tolkien, the book The Hobbit. There's a story there that echoes this kind of expectation, and it's the story of the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield. Thorin spends much of the story longing to reclaim his home and his glory as king under the mountain. He wants to reclaim the mountain itself, the kingdom that was taken from his people. And when he finally does, when he returns to the mountain and sits again as king, it feels like victory. The king has come home, the kingdom restored, but something begins to shift. Because once Thorin has the throne, he becomes guarded, protective, and suspicious. What he thought would bring freedom begins to close him in. And it isn't until the very end, after battle, after loss, that something in him finally opens. And he says to Bilbo, Child of the Kindly West, this is wonderful of him to speak to Bilbo this way. But he goes on through this quote to say, if more of us valued food and cheer over hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. In that moment, Thorin sees clearly that the kind of kingship he had been chasing, power, wealth, control, tradition, was not the deeper way. True strength and true kingship looks more like peace, more like shared life, and much more like love. And I think for a lot of us, this message rings true for us. This story of Thorne, of course, he does not see that this is how he would value kingship until it is too late. But my friends, that is not the story for us. And it is not the story for Jesus. So let's return to Palm Sunday. Because Jesus enters the city, but not like Thorin returning to reclaim power. Not like the king the crowd expects. He comes on a donkey. Gentle, humble, peaceful. And this is not weakness, friends, it is revelation. Jesus is showing us the kind of king that he is. A king who does not conquer through force but transforms through love. And here is where the tension lives. The crowd is not wrong to welcome him, but they're mistaken about what he will do. They cry, Hosanna, save us. And Jesus does answer that prayer, but not in the way that they expect. And if we're honest, this is where the story meets us too. Because we also carry expectations. We pray for change often. We hope for resolution. We long for victory, and often we imagine that victory looks a very certain way to us. But Jesus offers something deeper. A victory not built on defeating enemies, but on transforming hearts. A victory not achieved through domination, but through self-giving love. And that can be hard to trust because love looks vulnerable and peace can look quiet sometimes. It doesn't always feel like enough. But the story of Holy Week will show us something very profound. It'll show us that love is not weak, and it is stronger than anything that opposes it. Thorin in The Hobbit had come to the end of himself to see what mattered most, to realize that peace was greater than power, that shared life was greater than control, and Jesus does something even more profound than this. He doesn't just realize it. Friends, he lives it all the way. Through misunderstanding, through suffering, and to the cross. He embodies a different kind of kingship. One rooted not in force, but in love that does not give up. So unlike Thorne, who realizes it too late, Jesus has been living this love and peace the whole time. And it's a lesson that so many will learn. That love overcomes. That love conquers all. So when the crowd cries, Save us, Jesus answers. But he answers by going deeper than they had imagined. He does not just address the surface, he addresses the root, the fear, the brokenness, and the separation. And he brings a salvation that does not fade, a peace that is not dependent on circumstances or winning battles. He brings a love that continues even in the face of loss. So maybe the invitation of Palm Sunday looks a little bit more like this. To notice what kind of salvation we are hoping for. To notice what kind of salvation we are hoping for. Where we are expecting something forceful and where God may be offering something transformative. To remain open to a Christ who comes differently, gently, patiently, and faithfully. And to trust that this way, through quieter, meaningful ways, well, this way leads to something greater than we can imagine now and that we had imagined before. So my friends, Palm Sunday is filled with hope and misunderstanding and beauty and attention, but at its heart it tells us this Christ comes anyway. Even when we fully misunderstand the situation, or even when we don't fully understand the situation at all, even when our expectations are incomplete, even when we are still learning. And the good news is this the way of love, the way of peace is not a lesser victory. It is a greater one. It is a victory that does not fade. And as we continue this journey into Holy Week, we do so trusting that the king who comes gently is also the king who makes all things new. Because the king who comes to war finds himself desiring peace at last. But the king who comes in peace to begin with. Well, he carries love, my friends. And that love is for you. Let us pray. Christ of peace, you come to us not with force but with love. Not to conquer but to transform. Help us to recognize you even when you come in unexpected ways. Give us courage to trust your way, the way of peace, the way of love, and shape us into people who carry that same presence into the world, so that through us your deeper victory in that love may be known. Amen. As we go into Holy Week, there will be special edition podcast episodes on Maundy Thursday, that's this Thursday, and on Good Friday, the day after. So if you'd like to, tune in. There'll be messages then, and one on Easter Sunday as well. But my friends, I hope that wherever you go in this world, today, during Holy Week, and all the days that follow, I hope that you carry love, not war. I hope that you carry hope, not thoughts of overthrowing all. I hope that wherever you go, you carry the light of love in your heart with you. Because my friends, wherever you carry the light of love, there will you go in peace. And now, my friends, until next time, farewell and be well. And my friends, love as hard as you can because that kind of peace is much better than the peace on the other side of war. Take care of the