He enters Jerusalem anyway.

A call to worship.

Themes

Palm Sunday • Reconciliation • Incarnation • Atonement • Jerusalem • The King • Human rejection • Violence • Human brokenness • Participation • Hosanna • Crucify Him! • Royal glory • Spotless Lamb

God’s “YES!” in Jesus Christ was deeper than our shouts of “NO!”

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Scripture reading

Luke 9:51
Luke 19:41–44
2 Corinthians 5:18–21
Philippians 2:5–11

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This call to worship¹ is about the road to the cross and our own walk through joy and sorrow in union with Christ.

Here’s the linchpin. It is about Christ’s resolute obedience to go where death reigns, and to overthrow it by love. Luke tells us this:

When the days drew near 
for Him to be taken up, 
He set his face 
to go to Jerusalem.

Ten chapters later, Luke writes about the depth of His compassion. This is God in tears, mourning over a world bent on rejecting Him. Luke writes:

And when He drew near 
and saw the city, 
He wept over it...

And to the Corinthian Christians, Paul wrote about God’s self-involvement in the tragedy of our sin. Paul wrote:

In Christ, 
God was reconciling 
the world 
to Himself... 
For our sake, 
He made Him 
to be sin 
who knew 
no sin...

And to the Philippian Christians, Paul wrote:

He humbled Himself 
by becoming obedient 
to the point of death, 
even death on a cross.

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Prayer

Father in Heaven, 
we confess: 
it might be easy for us 
to pass off Palm Sunday 
as a quaint historical commemoration, 
just a prelude 
to the “main event” 
of the Cross. 

But. 

In Christ, 
You have united Yourself to us—
united Yourself to our estranged, 
and broken, 
death-bound, 
fallen condition. 

In Him, 
You have not simply promised reconciliation. 
In Him was the place 
where our reconciliation with You took place, 
where it all unfolds, 
where it actually happens. 
The life of Jesus 
wasn’t the passing of time 
just so He could get to the Cross. 

The entire Incarnation
—all of His life—
was atoning. 
Every step He took, 
every act of obedience, 
every encounter with our human need and suffering, 
every breath taken 
was part of uniting us with You. 

Our atonement 
didn’t start on Good Friday. 
It started in the womb of Mary; 
it moved through the Jordan River, 
into the wilderness, 
through all the table fellowship with sinners, 
right on into Jerusalem—
the city of David, 
and the city of fallen humanity. 

And He is the One 
in whom Your divinity 
and our humanity 
are indivisibly now united—
and He IS THE KING who enters, 
but not to conquer with power, 
but to be conquered 
in love for us. 
Only He can reconcile us with You, Father. 
And out of love for us—and You—
He obediently enters Jerusalem. 

Unlike what it seems, 
this is not a happy moment of public acclaim. 

Given all that He knows 
that is about to unfold for Him, 
and to Him, 
and in Him, 
He enters anyway—
deliberately into the epicenter of human rejection, 
deliberately into the epicenter of human religion, 
deliberately into the epicenter of human violence and power, 
deliberately into the heart of human brokenness, 
deliberately toward the Cross, 
the place where He will bear the full weight 
of the complete and utter estrangement 
of entire fallen humanity.
He will bear 
the fullness of human alienation—
all in His own body 
and in His own person.  

And Father, 
we are in Him, 
and He is in us. 

This is not something 
that we observe 
from the sidelines. 
We are drawn in; 
we are participating 
in His humanity
—and He in ours—
with all of our brokenness 
and illnesses 
and cancers 
and loneliness 
and joblessness 
and disillusionments 
and mental illnesses 
and anxieties 
and fears 
and pain 
and betrayals, 
and all of our own perpetration of sin 
and injustice 
and hatred. 

And even our joy 
and our celebrations, 
even our healings 
and our successes. 
All of our hopes 
and every dream. 
None of it 
is outside of His movement 
toward the Cross. 
He carried it all. 
He carried all of us. 
All of who we each are. 
It is all gathered up 
into the movement of His redeeming life 
and carried by Him 
in His own flesh 
as He walks.

His journey 
is our journey. 

In a tragic sense, 
the crowd’s shouts of “Hosanna!” 
were shouts of “NO!” 
for the kind of king 
You were about to unveil.
It was our rejection 
of Your way 
of being God. 
But Your “YES!” in Jesus Christ 
was deeper than our shouts of “NO!” 
The very fact that He enters Jerusalem 
is His “YES!” 
to Your way of atonement. 
Your decisive “YES!” 
spoken over a humanity 
that will soon be shouting, 
“Crucify Him!”

He enters His city. 
He is the King to be enthroned—
but the throne is a cross. 
His royal dignity, Father, 
consists in the fact 
that He is obedient to You—
obedient unto death, 
even the death of the cross. 
His royal glory is veiled, 
and yet in this veiling, 
He is truly King.

He enters the City. 
He is the spotless Lamb representing us. 
We are not left behind. 
He assumes all of our humanity into Himself. 
He suffers for us, 
in us, 
and with us. 
We are taken into His offering, 
and He heals us from the inside out. 

In the name of Jesus, 
divine majesty in humility, 
the elected One 
bearing rejection 
to reconcile the rejecters, 
to reconcile and heal us,
Amen.

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1. This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on Sunday, April 13, 2025.