He Is Not a King Who Passes By

The crowd that lined the road into Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday was expecting a certain kind of King — one who would ride in on a war horse, scatter Rome, and restore the nation’s glory. What they got was something far more radical: a King on a donkey, with tears in his eyes, who was about to do something that no military campaign could ever accomplish. 

Below are five truths shared by Pastor Julius Rwotlonyo Watoto Church, Kampala, Uganda  on March 29, 2026

 One -God keeps His word — every word: The Triumphant Entry did not begin in Jerusalem. It began centuries earlier in the writings of Zechariah, who saw — in precise prophetic detail — a King riding into the city of David, humble, on a donkey. When Jesus made that ride, he was not improvising. He was fulfilling a commitment that heaven had already made on earth’s behalf. This matters more than we often pause to consider. God’s word is not a suggestion, a sentiment, or an aspiration. It is a divine commitment — the kind you can, as Pastor Julius put it, take to the bank. Isaiah declared that the word of God would not return empty; it would accomplish what it was sent to do (Isaiah 55:11). Palm Sunday is Exhibit A. What God says, God does. What God promises, God fulfils — on His timeline, through His means, in a manner that often surpasses what we imagined and occasionally confounds what we expected. 

Two-Jesus meets our deepest need over the onslaught of darkness: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” Isaiah 9:2 Isaiah’s prophecy was not merely poetic. It is named a condition — deep darkness, the kind that settles into a people, a culture, a life — and announced that light was coming to address it at the root. When Jesus rode through those city gates, Colossians 1:13 tells us what was actually happening beneath the surface of the palm branches and the hosannas: God was actively rescuing humanity from the domain of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. The crowd may not have fully grasped what they were celebrating. But heaven knew. This King was not coming to merely improve conditions. He was coming to dismantle the architecture of bondage — sin, death, and spiritual captivity — at their foundations. And 1 John 3:18 insists that this victory is not meant to remain a spectator event. Love, John writes, must move from word and sentiment into action and truth. We who have been transferred from darkness into light are now called to embody that same triumphant love — not in theory, but in the lived, sometimes costly choices of every ordinary day. “Palm Sunday is not nostalgia. It is a summons.” 

Three-Jesus came — and comes — to each of us, individually: Matthew 21:5 quotes Zechariah with a detail that is easy to miss in the drama of the crowd: the King arrives not on a war horse but on a donkey. This is not a logistical footnote. It is a theological statement. The animal of ordinary roads and common people — that is the vehicle the King of all creation chose. In a world that expected a Messiah who would sweep in with overwhelming force, Jesus rode in a manner that was accessible, unhurried, and personally proximate. Any individual standing on that road could have reached out and touched him. This is the grammar of his coming: he does not descend into the crowd as an abstraction or a political symbol. He arrives in a form that allows the individual to receive him. The same is true now. The same Jesus who fulfils cosmic prophecy and triumphs over the works of darkness also rides toward you — toward your particular road, your specific burden, your private darkness — with gentleness and without the intimidation of raw power. He is not a King who passes by. He is a King who comes to you. 

Four-It is possible to miss the visitation: Luke 19:41–42 contains one of the most sobering moments in the Passion narrative: Jesus, surrounded by the jubilant crowd at the peak of his entry, weeps over Jerusalem. He weeps because the city did not recognise the things that made for its peace — and now, he says, they are hidden from its eyes. This is a quiet but urgent warning embedded inside the celebration. It is entirely possible to be in the procession, to wave the branch, to shout the right words — and still miss the visitation. God does not force recognition. He invites it. He makes himself accessible. He rides close. But the eyes of the heart must be open to receive what he is actually bringing, which is always peace on his terms, not ours. The tears of Jesus remind us that nearness is not the same as reception. He can be right in front of us — in the sermon we heard, the neighbour we overlooked, the moment of quiet we dismissed — and we can still be absent. Palm Sunday asks: Are our eyes open? 

Five-Jesus saves — and the curse of sin has been broken: The hosannas shouted that day were not merely celebratory. Hosanna means, at its root, save us now. The crowd was crying out — even if they didn’t fully understand it — for exactly what Jesus had come to give. And he did. The King who entered Jerusalem that week would, by Friday, carry the full weight of sin and darkness to a cross; and by Sunday, he would walk out of a tomb, having broken the curse at its source. This is the deepest reality beneath Palm Sunday: Jesus saves. Not as a slogan. As a fact, accomplished, sealed, and available to every person who receives him. The domain of darkness has no final claim on those who belong to the kingdom of his beloved Son. 

A personal word: I am grateful that Jesus chose me before the foundations of time, that he created me, and that he knows every hair on my head. From my childhood on the streets of Warri, Nigeria, to the gift of fatherhood, Jesus has watched over his word, met our deepest need for love, and shown up in ways that communicate not a transaction but a relationship. My prayer — for myself and for you — is that in these days of uncertainty and sometimes doubt, we remain faithful to the knowledge and action that declares: our every waking hour can reflect the love of a God who keeps his word, who rides toward us, and who saves. “The triumph is real, but it arrives in a form that allows the individual to receive it. He is not a King who passes by. He is a King who comes to you.” 

Written in reflection after a Palm Sunday sermon by Pastor Julius Rwotlonyo Watoto Church, Kampala, Uganda · March 29, 2026