Matthew 21:1-17 (Palm Sunday 2025)

Sunday message · The Book of Matthew series

Phillip Santillan  ·  Matthew 21:1-17

Listen to the message

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Watch on YouTube

Message Summary

On Palm Sunday, Pastor Phillip Santillan turns to Matthew 21:1–17, where Jesus sends two disciples to bring him a donkey and her foal. He starts with coffee, good for you one year and bad the next. Phil admits he seeks out the research that confirms what he already believes. Some call this wearing “hope glasses,” seeing what we hope is true rather than what is true, and that tendency, he says, is why we have Palm Sunday.

The prophet Zechariah foretold a king coming righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9). First-century Jews latched onto the victory and expected a king who would triumph over Rome. Matthew wrote when everyone knew Jesus had not removed the Romans, so he reminds readers of Zechariah’s words, leaving out the victory and stressing a king who comes gentle, on a donkey. The crowds spread clothes and branches on the road and shout Hosanna to the Son of David.

But Matthew shows other reactions. The whole city is in an uproar asking who this is, and the crowds call him the prophet from Nazareth, a town as small, Phil says, as Watertown in Carver County. Jesus overturns the money changers’ tables, heals the blind and the lame, and defends the children’s praise when the chief priests and scribes grow indignant. To some he was a conquering Messiah, to others a small-town prophet, and to the leaders annoying and dangerous. The leaders were in the wrong, Phil says, but in many ways so were the crowds shouting Hosanna.

People’s views of Jesus are often shaped by upbringing: a good teacher, a prophet, one god among many, a crutch, as a former Minnesota governor once called religion, or a cosmic killjoy, an angry Jesus or one who is always serious. With typical sarcasm, Paul chided the Corinthians for easily accepting a different Jesus than the one preached. His point, Phil says, is to look to the eyewitness accounts and get to know the real Jesus.

Jesus did not come to defeat a military superpower, and he was more than a good teacher. As the angel told Joseph, he came to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). People need a Savior, not a life coach. When Phil hears of strife, racism or violence, he catches himself asking what is wrong with those people, yet their selfishness and greed are only extensions of what is in him, and in all of us. It is tempting to call sin a mistake, but a mistake is forgetting to carry the one. If we are merely “mistakers,” we need no Savior, and the one who wins when sin is dumbed down is the evil one.

Palm Sunday, Phil closes, reminds us that Jesus came to save real sinners, not polished people but those who know they are broken and cry out Hosanna, which means “Lord, save us.” For anyone who knows they need help, it is not just a story but their story, and the good news that their Savior has come.