From Hosanna to Crucify

Texts: Matthew 21:1–11; Philippians 2:5–11; Matthew 27:11–54 

Palm Sunday is a strange liturgy—built for whiplash. The service begin outside, blessing palms and hearing the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The crowd shouts, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” 

And then we process into the church… and suddenly we’re in the Passion. The same service moves from praise to rejection. From Hosanna… to Crucify him. 

It can feel disjointed. But maybe that’s the point.

Palm Sunday doesn’t just tell the story of Jesus. It tells the truth about the spiritual journey as it’s actually lived—not only two thousand years ago, but in us, right now. 

The mirror Palm Sunday holds up

When life is going our way—when things feel aligned, when we feel secure—we’re quick to shout “Hosanna.” 

But when life turns… when something disrupts our plan… when reality doesn’t cooperate with our expectations… we can turn quickly too. Sometimes dramatically. Sometimes subtly. But it’s real. 

Palm Sunday isn’t mainly about judging the crowd. Palm Sunday is a mirror. It reveals how easily our praise can become conditional—how easily faith can become transactional:

“God, I’ll welcome you… as long as you support my story—my expectations.” 

What’s underneath the turn

Underneath that mirror is something most of us don’t love admitting:

We are attached. 

Attached to outcomes.

Attached to being right.

Attached to life making sense on our terms. 

We carry a deep need for the world to be ordered according to our expectations—our sense of fairness, logic, and how things “should” go. 

And when that ordering breaks down—when we can’t control the narrative—we get scared. Fear makes us reach for what feels familiar: blame, certainty, power, control. 

That’s what the crowd is doing in the Passion narrative. It’s what we do too. When the story we want collapses, we look for someone to punish—someone to remove—so we can feel safe again. 

Why Philippians belongs on Palm Sunday

This is exactly why Paul’s words to the Philippians land so sharply on Palm Sunday: “Have the mind of Christ.” 

Paul describes that mind as the opposite of clinging, grasping, or exploiting power. Instead, it is self-emptying—kenosis. 

This Greek word carries the sense of pouring out, like water poured from a pitcher into a cup. It violates our conventional wisdom which says: hold onto your power. Protect yourself. Secure your status. 

But Christ does the opposite.

Christ does not cling to advantage. Christ does not build identity on public approval. Christ doesn’t need the crowd’s “Hosanna” to know who he is. 

His identity is rooted in God. He knows who he is—Beloved of God. 

The alternative Palm Sunday offers

Palm Sunday places a choice before us:

A crowd-rooted life is unstable. It rises and falls with approval and threat. 

But a God-rooted life remains steady—even when the crowd turns. Not because it’s numb or detached from reality, but because it knows what is most real. 

This is what the Passion reveals. Not simply history, but a human pattern: what happens when fear and attachment drive the story. 

And right in the middle of it, Christ shows another way to be human—free enough to love without coercion, free enough to remain rooted in God even when everything feels like it’s collapsing. 

Palm Sunday isn’t about religious performance. It’s about conversion—how we live when life doesn’t meet our expectations. 

A practice for Holy Week

As we enter Holy Week, don’t just attend the services as historical remembrance. Recognize your story in the Story. 

Pay attention this week to your own “Hosanna to Crucify” moments—the places where you welcome God when it’s easy, and resist God when it challenges your expectations or your sense of well-being. 

And when you notice one—just one—practice a small detachment:

a pause,

a releasing of control,

a choice to stay rooted in God’s love rather than the conventional wisdom of our society. 

Because the point of Holy Week is not that Jesus endures rejection and suffering so we can stay the same. The point is that in Jesus we see what a truly human life looks like: not clinging to external approval for validation, but staying rooted in God—knowing we are beloved, and therefore free to love. 

From Hosanna to Crucify—the mirror is honest. And the invitation is real:

Choose the mind of Christ.