A King Like No Other
Reflections from Palm Sunday 2025
Matthew 21; Zechariah 9:9–12
I was walking through a market in New Orleans and saw a Rolex for $29.95. Tempting, but obviously not the real thing.
That’s the danger with counterfeits: they might look good, but they’ll fail you when it matters. Nowhere is that more serious than with Jesus. A knock-off, bargain-bin version of Christ isn’t just useless—it’s dangerous.
It’s easy to build a “Fake Rolex Jesus” that fits our preferences. He becomes:
The President – we vote him in to represent our values.
The Personal Assistant – ready to help with our to-do list.
The Insurance Agent – only called in case of emergencies.
The Coach – focused on improving our brand.
The Advisor or Therapist – available when we’re stuck or hurting.
We need people in all those roles—but Jesus isn’t one of them.
He is King.
King of Kings. Not metaphorically, not symbolically. Literally.
The people in Matthew 21 shouted “Hosanna!” and waved palm branches because they thought the King had come to fix Rome. But Jesus didn’t come to rearrange the political chessboard. He came to overthrow something far more dangerous: sin and death.
Zechariah prophesied: “Behold, your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey.”
This is not the King we’re used to.
We’re not a monarchy-minded culture. We don’t know what to do with a ruler who doesn’t ask for our vote. We prefer leaders we can fire when we’re disappointed. But the Kingdom of God isn’t a democracy. Jesus never said, “Seek first the democracy of God.”
This King? He holds galaxies together by the word of his power. Astronomers recently captured an image of a black hole 55 million light-years away, 6.5 billion times more massive than the sun. Jesus holds that in his hand—and your heart too.
You don’t hire someone like that. You bow.
And yet, this King comes humbly. He comes to serve, to suffer, to die. To take the rejection we deserved.
The crowds cried out “Hosanna!”—a mix of praise and desperate prayer: “Save us, Lord!” And they were right to do so. But they also got it wrong. They expected a throne. Jesus walked toward a cross.
That same week:
Judas sold him out.
Peter denied him.
The people turned on him.
He was crucified.
He was buried.
And through that crushing week, he accomplished the King’s mission: to rescue, redeem, and reign—not by force, but through sacrifice.
This is the kind of King Jesus is:
He calls you from death to life.
He places you in a community of grace.
He rewards obedience, corrects disobedience.
He supports you in suffering.
He defeats your enemies.
He orders all things for your good and his glory.
He will execute judgment—now and at the end of history.
This might not be the King you were expecting. You wouldn’t be the first to resist. Many still reject him because he won’t play the role they’ve assigned.
When I was seventeen, a customer stormed into the department store where I worked, demanding to speak to the boss. I told him, “I’m in charge.” He snapped, “Not you, kid. I want the real boss!”
That’s what Palm Sunday confronts us with:
Who’s really in charge around here?
Jesus is. Whether we like it or not.
The same Jesus the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (Psalm 118). He was denied as King so he could become your Savior. But he’s not done. He will return—not on a donkey, but on a warhorse, in power with great glory. And on that day, the only thing that will matter is whether you bowed to him as King when it was still easy to pretend otherwise.
Hosanna. Save us, Lord.
He has. He will.
Behold your King.