The Good News Is...Inspiring Us to Act
A reflection on Mark 11:1–11 | Palm Sunday | March 29, 2026
Editor’s Note: This article is not the sermon manuscript verbatim. It is an adapted blog post based on Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing’s Palm Sunday sermon, prepared for web reading and shared as a reflection on the message preached at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church.
Sometimes, we do not recognize the things we should.
We miss grace when it is right in front of us. We overlook beauty when the world feels too broken to bear. We ignore our need for rest because we have been trained to keep moving, keep producing, keep pushing. And often, we miss Jesus for the same reasons. We are looking for the wrong signs of power, the wrong kind of victory, the wrong sort of king.
Palm Sunday invites us to see differently.
In Mark 11, Jesus enters Jerusalem not on a warhorse, but on a borrowed colt. He is not surrounded by soldiers, but by disciples, common people, and shouts of hope. The crowd cries out “Hosanna!” and lines the road with cloaks and branches. It looks like a parade, but it is also a revelation. Jesus is showing the world what kind of Messiah he is.
“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”
Recognizing the King We Almost Miss
Throughout Mark’s Gospel, the disciples struggle to recognize Jesus for who he is. They witness miracles, hear parables, and watch him confront the powers of death and oppression, yet they still misunderstand him. Again and again, they expect glory without suffering, power without humility, triumph without sacrifice.
And truth be told, so do we.
We still prefer a Messiah who looks strong by the world’s standards. We are often more comfortable with spectacle than service, dominance than mercy, aggression than gentleness. But Palm Sunday interrupts those instincts. Jesus comes in humility. He comes in vulnerability. He comes in peace.
The question Palm Sunday asks is not simply whether we admire Jesus. The question is whether we recognize him when he comes to us in ways that do not match the world’s usual script.
A Different Kind of Procession
The people of Jerusalem would have recognized the kind of pageantry unfolding in this story. Public processions were common in the ancient world, especially when empires wanted to display military might and political control. But Jesus reshapes the scene entirely.
Instead of a stallion, he chooses a donkey. Instead of weapons, he comes with openness and vulnerability. Instead of marching toward conquest, he moves toward the cross.
Palm Sunday is not just a parade to admire. It is the moment when Jesus shows us what kind of king he is—and asks whether we are ready to follow him.
This is what makes Palm Sunday both beautiful and unsettling. It is celebratory, yes, but it is also confrontational. Jesus forces us to reckon with how deeply we have been formed by the world’s assumptions about power. Can we recognize holiness when it comes without swagger? Can we trust leadership that does not rely on fear? Can we follow a Lord who rides toward suffering instead of around it?
The Verbs of Recognition
One of the most striking features of Mark’s telling is how active the story is. Palm Sunday is full of movement. Jesus sends disciples to go. They untie the colt. They bring it to him. Cloaks are thrown. Branches are spread. The crowd shouts. The people follow.
This is not a static scene. It is full of verbs.
And those verbs matter, because they show us that recognition is not just something that happens in the mind. Sometimes we come to recognize Jesus by stepping into the life he calls us to live.
Go. Untie. Bring. Spread. Shout. Follow.
These are not just actions for the first disciples. They are invitations for us.
Making the Story Our Own
So what might it mean for the church today to make the verbs of Palm Sunday our own?
It means we go where Jesus sends us, even when discipleship is inconvenient, even when love asks something real of us.
It means we untie what has been bound. We work to loosen the grip of fear, prejudice, isolation, indifference, and despair. We help unbind one another from the habits and systems that diminish human dignity and choke off communal life.
It means we bring what we have. The disciples brought a colt. We bring our time, our courage, our prayers, our tables, our presence, our witness. We bring casseroles to grieving families. We bring meals to Greensboro Urban Ministry. We bring tenderness to hospital rooms and steady companionship to those who feel forgotten.
It means we spread mercy. In the Gospel, people spread cloaks on the road. In our own lives, we spread mercy through acts of care, protection, generosity, and compassion that make the path gentler for someone else.
It means we shout Hosanna not only with our lips, but with our lives. Our hosannas become public witness. They become advocacy for justice, compassion, and the common good in a world so often shaped by cruelty, domination, and us-versus-them thinking.
And it means we follow Jesus in a way that may look strange to a world that has confused strength with aggression and leadership with control.
Retrieving the Truest Parts of Ourselves
Perhaps Palm Sunday also calls us to retrieve something. The disciples retrieved a colt. We are called to retrieve the truest parts of ourselves—the parts buried beneath resentment, numbed by rage, or hidden under the pressure of constant urgency and toxic individualism.
Jesus comes not only to save us, but to restore us to the people God created us to be: merciful, courageous, communal, and alive to grace.
Palm Sunday invites us to rediscover the selves God made us to be.
That kind of recognition does not always happen in dramatic flashes. Sometimes it happens quietly. Grace gets our attention because we have started looking for it. Beauty catches us off guard, and suddenly we find ourselves with a hosanna to offer. Rest begins to feel less like a luxury and more like a holy gift—one that makes us more present to God, to neighbor, and to ourselves.
From Recognition to Action
As Holy Week begins, Palm Sunday places a question before us: Where will you recognize Jesus?
Where will your hosanna rise this week? What will be the holy interruption that moves you from admiration to discipleship, from recognition to action?
Because Palm Sunday is not only about remembering a procession long ago. It is about recognizing the living Christ still in our midst—still coming toward us in humility, still challenging our assumptions, still calling us to join the movement of mercy, justice, and courageous love.
And when we do—when we go, untie, bring, spread, shout, and follow—we may discover that the Jesus we almost missed has been leading us all along.
Reflection Questions
- Where are you tempted to look for power in the wrong places?
- Which Palm Sunday verb speaks most urgently to your life right now: go, untie, bring, spread, shout, or follow?
- What might it look like for you to embody “Hosanna” in public and practical ways this week?
- What part of yourself might God be inviting you to retrieve and restore?
Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing preached this message on Sunday, March 29, 2026, at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church.
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