“What if you misunderstood Jesus?”
Luke 19:28–40
Frisco knows hype.
Hype feels like a Friday night in the fall at The Star or Toyota Stadium. The sun is setting. The team is warming up. The stands begin to fill. High schoolers gather with their friends. Parents find their seats to cheer on the band, the drill team, the cheerleaders, and the players. The energy builds long before kickoff ever happens. There’s anticipation in the air. Something big is about to unfold.
We know that feeling in other ways too. We track development plans. Like when is Trader Joe’s finally coming to Frisco? When H-E-B opened, people lined up before sunrise for the grand opening. We rally around small businesses and want to see Main Street thrive. We love progress. Momentum. The promise that something better is coming.
But we also know how quickly excitement can turn.
When downtown construction takes longer than expected…when timelines stretch…when parking becomes inconvenient, and businesses struggle…frustration rises. We scroll for updates. We ask how long it’s going to take. We wonder if it’s worth the walk for Summer Moon. What we once celebrated can start to feel like a burden if it doesn’t meet our expectations.
Jerusalem felt like that.
Passover week had filled the city with pilgrims, merchants, families, and expectation. The air carried dust, conversation, and rumor. Some said the teacher from Galilee had just raised a man from the dead. Others believed this might finally be the moment—centuries of waiting—when God would send the Rescuer.
As Jesus approached the city gates, the noise began to swell. People rushed to cut palm branches from nearby trees, waving them high above their heads. Cloaks were thrown into the road. “Hosanna!” they shouted. “Save us now!” The kind of welcome reserved for kings was unfolding in the streets.
But before the celebration, there was an interruption.
In a quiet corner of the village, a colt stood tied up, just where it had always been. Its owner was going about an ordinary day with work to finish, errands to run…nothing remarkable. He had heard the buzz about Jesus, like everyone else, but from a distance. Then voices broke the routine. Two men were untying his colt with a simple explanation: “The Lord has need of it.”
In a matter of moments, what was ordinary became part of something eternal. The colt would carry Jesus into the city. The crowd would cheer. Expectations would rise.
And yet, for all the noise and palm branches and hope in the air, many did not understand what kind of King was entering Jerusalem that day.
They weren’t wrong to celebrate.
Jesus had performed miracles. He had taught with authority. He had challenged the religious elite. Hope had been building for years—and in recent months, it had intensified. They had reason to believe change was coming.
They were crying out for a Savior, and Jesus did come to save.
But not in the way they expected.
They wanted liberation from Rome.
Jesus came to liberate them from sin.
They wanted a King who would overthrow the government.
Jesus came to triumph over death.
When our expectations don’t match reality, confusion creeps in. Frustration follows. Celebration can quietly shift toward disappointment and sometimes even rejection.
The crowd thought the question was, “Is this the King?”
But it unveiled a deeper question: “Have we misunderstood the Savior?”
And that question still matters.
It’s easy to see the crowd’s misunderstanding. It’s harder to see our own.
How have I shaped Jesus into the Savior I expect or prefer?
Many of us don’t reject Jesus outright. We just expect Him to fix what feels most urgent to us. Our marriage. Our singleness. Our anxious thoughts. Our child’s behavior. Our career trajectory. We pray for clarity, relief, and breakthrough. And when the timeline stretches longer than we hoped, we quietly wonder: Why doesn’t God answer my prayers? Is God silent? Does He care?
He calls believers sons and daughters. But when He doesn’t move on our schedule, do we begin to doubt His love? Do we question His power? Do we assume His silence means neglect?
Do we really want the King we say we want?
Do we want a Savior who only changes our circumstances?
Or one who changes us?
Do we want comfort more than transformation?
Relief more than redemption?
Do we praise Him only when He aligns with our plans?
Or will we trust Him in the waiting and in the storm?
What if the delay is not neglect?
What if His silence is not absence?
What if the King you need is different from the King you imagined?
What if the King you need isn’t one who fixes your circumstances on your timeline?
What if His delay is not indifference but intention?
We tend to live zoomed in. We fixate on the one piece of the puzzle in front of us—the unanswered prayer, the strained relationship, the diagnosis, the waiting. We try to interpret the entire picture of God’s faithfulness through that single fragment. And when it doesn’t make sense, we assume the whole thing must be broken.
But God is not limited to your vantage point.
He sees the edges of the canvas. He sees how the pieces connect. He sees the parts still in the box. What feels random to you is arranged in His hands.
For four hundred years between the Old and New Testaments, heaven was silent. No prophets. No new revelation. Just generations waiting. If you were an Israelite during that stretch of history, you might have wondered if God had forgotten His promises. You might have assumed He had stopped working.
But while God was silent, He was not still.
The Roman Empire was building roads that would one day carry the gospel across continents. The Greek language was spreading, creating a shared vocabulary across cultures. Political structures were forming that would allow the message of Jesus to travel farther and faster than ever before.
What felt like silence was strategy.
What felt like absence was preparation.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, He wasn’t late. He wasn’t scrambling to meet expectations. He wasn’t reacting to the crowd’s energy. He was moving with deliberate purpose toward a cross, toward a deeper rescue than anyone in the crowd had imagined.
This King does not operate on panic or popularity. He is not rushed by your urgency or swayed by applause. He is building something eternal, even when you can only see what is immediate.
So if you feel disappointed…
If you’ve wondered why He hasn’t answered the way you hoped…
If you’ve quietly questioned whether He sees you…
Look again at the kind of King entering Jerusalem.
His silence is not neglect.
His delay is not cruelty.
His plans are not small.
The question isn’t whether He is King.
The question is whether we will trust the kind of King He is.
Questions:
What kind of King are you actually hoping for right now? If Jesus answered your prayers exactly the way you want, what would change first? Your circumstances or your heart? What does that reveal about what you most long for Him to do?
Where has disappointment with God quietly shaped your view of Him? Have there been moments when unanswered prayers, delays, or suffering caused you to question His power, His love, or His timing? How might Palm Sunday reframe that disappointment?
In what areas of your life are you tempted to celebrate Jesus when He aligns with your plans but struggle to trust Him when He does not? What would it look like to follow Him not just as the King you prefer, but as the King He truly is?
If God’s silence is not neglect and His delay is not indifference, how might that change the way you wait? What would trust look like this week if you believed He is working on a bigger picture than you can currently see?