What The Procession Always Meant
This sermon was preached at Sherwood Community Friends Church on Sunday, March 29. You can watch the video in full by clicking below.
Palm Sunday is one of those moments in the Gospels where the crowd understood something we have never known. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, the people who ran out with palm branches weren't just being spontaneous. They were performing something specific. Something that took cultural shape. Something all the people in their community knew.
That's what I want to recover for us today.
Because the same cultural event that drove that crowd into the streets also drove the Apostle Paul's language when he wrote to a grieving church in Thessalonica about the return of Jesus. These two passages are reading into the same cultural river. And once you see that connection, it opens up one of the most beautiful and hope-filled pictures in all of Scripture.
Let's start where Jesus started — on the road into Jerusalem.
Part One: On The Road Into Jerusalem: What the Crowd Was Actually Doing
Here's the scene from John's Gospel:
John 12:12-13 CSB "The next day, when the large crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him. They kept shouting: 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord — the King of Israel!'"
Those palm branches and garments weren't random acts of celebration. They were a message. A very specific one.
To understand it, we need a real quick history lesson. When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, his empire fractured and was divided among his generals. One of those successor kingdoms was the Seleucid Empire, which eventually came to control the land of Israel. And they weren't kind about it. In 167 BC, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV marched into Jerusalem, desecrated the temple, and slaughtered a pig on the altar — the most unclean animal in all of Jewish law — as a direct act of contempt toward God and his people. It was a declaration: your God means nothing here.
That was the breaking point.
A Jewish priest named Mattathias and his son Judas Maccabeus led a revolt that drove the Seleucids out, recaptured Jerusalem, and cleansed and rededicated the temple. That victory is still celebrated today as Hanukkah.
When Maccabeus rode into Jerusalem triumphant, the crowds sang and waved palm branches. Go back even further and you find crowds laying garments before King Jehu at his coronation (in 2 Kings 9) and right after taking the throne, Jehu systematically annihilated every one of his enemies.
This is the script the Palm Sunday crowd was working from. Their kings and generals had always arrived on majestic warhorses — chest out, sword ready, power on full display, either freshly victorious or riding to claim a victory. That is exactly what they were expecting from their Messiah. Someone to ride in hard, put Rome in its place, and restore Israel to glory the way Maccabeus did.
What they got was a humble man on a borrowed donkey.
And when they shout Hosanna — that word is straight from the Hebrew hoshi'ah na', simply meaning: Save us.
They are begging for a warrior. They want the sword. They want Rome dealt with the old way.
Instead of slaughtering his enemies, Jesus allowed himself to be slaughtered. Instead of crushing Rome, he was crushed for our sin and death from the inside out. The King had indeed arrived, but just not the sort of king they had held in their imagination.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey, the practice of the palm branches waved and garments laid down was exactly what happened when a king, a general, or a dignitary was approaching a city. The citizens didn't wait inside. They went out— excitedly! They processed out to meet him on the road, they greeted him, they celebrated his arrival, and then they turned and escorted him back into the city with them. The whole point was the return. The whole movement ended with the king or general or dignitary coming home to his people.
This ceremony was called apantēsis — a Greek word (ἀπάντησις) that means a formal civic escort ceremony in which the citizens of a city go out to meet a returning dignitary and escort him back in.
So when that crowd ran out with palm branches to meet Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, every person in that crowd who knew anything about the world they lived in— and they all did know— understood exactly what they were doing.
They were declaring him King. They were going out to meet him, greeting him, celebrating his arrival, and they were bringing him home.
Why the Donkey
Most kings or generals or dignitaries would ride in on the most majestic stallion they could find. Jesus didn't.
John tells us the disciples didn't understand the donkey details until later.
John 12:14-16 CSB "Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written: ‘Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion. Look, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt’ (Zechariah 9:9). His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him."
The reference “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion. Look, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt” is from Zechariah 9:9. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that donkey in approximately 33 AD, Zechariah’s Messianic prophecy had been sitting in the Jewish scriptures for roughly five centuries and the disciples recognized it only in hindsight.
Jesus wasn't making a military entrance on a war horse. He was entering as a servant King who comes in peace, who lowered himself to the status of a peasant, a King who comes to his people rather than demanding they come to him.
The crowd saw it. The disciples processed it later. And the religious leaders were threatened by all of it. They felt it before they could name it. Something ancient and unstoppable was moving beneath everything they had built, and it made them afraid. That reaction alone tells us something was stirring no institution could contain. They could feel the pressure. They just couldn't stop it.
But the shape of the event was unmistakable: the King is arriving, the people go out to meet him, and they bring him in.
Part Two: Paul and the Thessalonians
Fast forward about twenty years. Apostle Paul had planted a church in the Greek city of Thessalonica. It was mostly Gentile believers, new to anything from the Jewish way of life, Jewish beliefs, new to Jewish resurrection theology, and new to the promises of the Hebrew prophets. Paul had to leave quickly due to persecution, so this community was young and had gaps in their understanding.
By the time he wrote his first letter to the church in Thessalonica, some members of their community had died. And this created real anxiety. They're worried and wondering: Did our people miss it? When Jesus returns, will the ones who have already died be left out?
Paul writes to comfort them and to help with their confusion. The image he reaches for is the one they already knew.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 CSB "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel's voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words."
Right there in verse 17 is the word that ties this entire passage to Palm Sunday.
The phrase "to meet the Lord in the air" — the word translated "to meet" is none other than apantēsis. The exact same word we talked about earlier meaning: the royal civic escort.
N.T. Wright, one of the most respected New Testament scholars in the world, addresses this directly in his book Surprised by Hope.
N.T. Wright writes, "When a king or emperor came to visit a colony or city, the citizens would go out to meet him on the road and escort him back into the city. The point of the 'meeting' was not that they would stay out there, but that they would come back with him." (Surprised by Hope, HarperOne, 2008)
He points out that apantēsis appears in two other places in the New Testament, and in every case the shape is the same: you go out, you meet the arriving dignitary, and you escort him back.
In Matthew chapter 25, the ten virgins go out to meet the bridegroom and they escort him back to the wedding feast.
In Acts chapter 28, the Roman believers hear Paul is approaching and they go out on the road to meet him and then they walk him the rest of the way into Rome.
Every use of this word carries the same movement: out to meet, then back together.
What Paul Was Actually Saying
So here’s the picture Paul is painting for the Thessalonians. When King Jesus returns, the dead in Christ rise first. Then those who are still alive join them. Together, they go out to meet the returning King, not to leave with him, but to escort him back. To bring him home. To welcome our King into his creation.
This is the exact shape of Palm Sunday. The crowd goes out, they meet Jesus on the road, and they bring him into Jerusalem. This was a living picture— a preview— of what his final return will look like.
And Paul's point to the grieving Thessalonians, about their deceased loved ones who were followers of Christ, was simple and beautiful: your people who have died are not missing anything. They will rise and be part of the greatest procession in the history of the universe. You will join them. And together, you will all escort the King home.
You thought Palm Sunday was glorious! You just wait for what’s coming!! Amen?!!
"Therefore encourage one another with these words."
Paul’s using hope language here to comfort them and get them excited. That's the language of people who know how the story ends and can't wait to be in it.
Part Three: The Context We've Been Missing
One of the things that happens when we read the Bible is we tend to read it through the lens of our own moment in history rather than the moment it was written in and for the audience it was written. That's not a character flaw, but it's just how we're wired. It means we sometimes import assumptions into the Biblical text that the original audience wouldn't have carried with them.
Paul's Thessalonian audience didn't need a footnote explaining apantēsis. They lived it. They'd seen it.
When a Greek or Roman dignitary came through their city, the people went out to meet him on the road and escort him back in by walking together with him. That was their world. So when Paul used that exact word to describe the return of Jesus as King, they heard it immediately and correctly. What Paul was telling them just clicked.
What they heard was: Jesus is the true King. Caesar is not. And when the real King comes back, we will go out to meet him— not to flee with him somewhere else— but to bring him home to the world he created for us to be in together.
The Resurrection Hope
This also connects to what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where he spends an entire chapter on the theology of resurrection. His concern there is the same.
He's addressing Gentile believers who had a Greek cultural background and were skeptical of physical resurrection. The Greek worldview tended to see the body, in death, as something to depart, not something to be redeemed.
Paul pushes back on that hard for his Greek friends.
His message of the Christian hope is not the soul floating free of the body into some ethereal spiritual existence. The Christian hope is resurrection: embodied, physical, redeemed existence.
The same Jesus who rose bodily from the tomb is the first fruits, giving a preview of what's coming for all who belong to him.
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 CSB "Listen, I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality."
Paul is describing transformation, not evacuation. He's describing the resurrection body that the returning King brings with him for us will be the same kind of body Jesus himself has. He's not describing a departure from creation. He's describing the redemption and restoration of it.
Where History Is Going
The whole arc of Scripture is moving toward a specific destination. And it's not a destination away from creation. It's a destination within it. God has always been moving toward his creation, toward us, to give a renewed, redeemed, restored creation where the King finally dwells with his people.
Revelation 21:2-3 CSB "I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God's dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God."
Notice the direction. The city comes down. God moves in. His people, the bride, are already there. The dwelling of God is with humanity on the renewed earth, not in a disembodied spiritual realm apart from it somewhere else.
God doesn't abandon his creation. He redeems it.
The simple and well-known prayer Jesus taught us points the same direction: thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. That's not a holding pattern prayer. That's a declaration about where things are heading.
Part Four: The Galilean Wedding
To fully understand what resurrection theology means, we need to step into the world Jesus came from. Not the modern Western world we live in, but the first-century Galilean world he and his disciples breathed every day. Because in that world, there was a wedding tradition that Jesus was drawing on constantly, and once you see it, everything about Holy Week— and everything about the Gospel— starts to look different.
In a Galilean betrothal, the groom would come to the bride's family, negotiate and pay a bride price, and then offer his bride a cup of wine. If she accepted the cup and drank, the marriage covenant was sealed. He was hers and she was his. Then he would make her a promise: I am going to prepare a place for you. I will come back when it is ready.
And then he would leave.
The bride didn't know the day or the hour. Only the father of the groom determined when the chamber was complete and the time was right. So she waited, actively. She prepared. She stayed ready. She kept oil in her lamp in anticipation of her groom coming— because she had his word, and his word was covenant.
This is the framework Jesus was operating inside. And once you see it, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter morning all start reading each other in a completely different way.
Palm Sunday fitting snuggly into that framework shows us the crowd going out to meet the King is the same image as the ten virgins going out to meet the bridegroom in Matthew chapter 25. The shape is identical because the reference given by Jesus in that story is intentionally the same.
Jesus is the Bridegroom. The Church is his Bride. And the return of the King is also the arrival of the Groom. The groom is coming back for the one he paid for, the one he promised he would return to, the one who has been actively waiting and preparing and keeping the lamp lit.
The wedding feast at the end of Revelation isn't a footnote. It's the destination of the whole story. Everything in the Biblical narrative is moving toward that wedding table, that reunion, that marriage feast which never ends.
Revelation 19:6-7 CSB "Then I heard something like the voice of a vast multitude, like the sound of cascading waters, and like the rumbling of loud thunder, saying, Hallelujah, because our Lord God, the Almighty, reigns! Let us be glad, rejoice, and give him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has prepared herself."
What Communion Has to Do With It
This is why the table we gather around every time we share communion is more than a memorial. It's a rehearsal dinner, a betrothal act.
The cup Jesus offered at the Last Supper was the cup of the marriage covenant between himself, as the groom, and us as his bride. This is the exact cup a Galilean bridegroom offered his bride at the betrothal. He was saying: I am going. I will prepare a place. I will come back. Until then, do this in remembrance of me.
Every time we take the bread and the cup, we are renewing our marriage covenant vow with him. We are saying yes to the cup. We are the betrothed Bride declaring that we belong to our Groom, that we are in the waiting season, that we are actively keeping oil in our lamps, that we believe and know and anticipate that he is coming.
Matthew 26:29 CSB "But I tell you, from this moment I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
Our Groom set the cup down and waited. He is still waiting. And he will not drink again until we are at the table together with him at the wedding feast, on the renewed earth, when the procession is complete and the King has finally come home to his people.
Palm Sunday Is a Rehearsal
Every Palm Sunday, we aren't just remembering something that happened two thousand years ago. We are practicing something.
We are the people of the New Jerusalem city— and our King is coming. We know he's on the road. We don't know the exact day. But we know the shape of what's coming.
We keep watch. We prepare. We stay ready. We anticipate that when he comes, the dead will rise first. Those still living will join them. And together we will go out to meet our King and escort him home. This is the greatest apantēsis the universe will have ever seen!!
The crowd on the road to Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday certainly didn't know they were enacting a preview of the end of the age. They were just doing what people do when they know their King is coming. They went out. They celebrated. They escorted him in.
That's who we are. That's what we're rehearsing every time we gather together at the table. That's what we're practicing every Sunday we declare that Jesus is Lord and King. Amen?!
Wouldn’t you like to be part of that wedding feast— one that never ends?
So today, let the shout of that crowd become our shout. Hosanna!!!
Let the waving palm branches in their hands become our declaration to signal: The King Is Coming. We are his people. And we will be part of that procession. Amen?!
Matthew 21:9b CSB “Hosanna to the Son of David! He who comes in the name of the Lord is the blessed One! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus- You humbly rode into Jerusalem as a King on an ordinary donkey, and the crowd knew exactly who you were. They fell into their cultural routine to honor who you are and be your escort. We know who you are. You paid the bride price for us on the cross. You went to prepare a place for us. You told us you would come back. We are actively waiting. We are watching. We are preparing. We are staying ready. We are keeping oil in our lamps. Help us, with urgency, gather more people to join us in getting ready. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.
Sources
N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne, 2008) — Primary source for apantēsis and resurrection hope
N.T. Wright, 'Farewell to the Rapture,' Bible Review, August 2001 — ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/farewell-to-the-rapture/
Gordon Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (NICNT, Eerdmans, 2009)
N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians (Westminster John Knox, 2004)
Kenneth Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (InterVarsity Press, 2008)
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