Episode Description
Text: Mark 11:1-11
Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing
Power rarely looks the way we expect it to. We start with prayer and Mark 11’s Palm Sunday scene, then sit with an uncomfortable truth: we often fail to recognize what we most need. We miss grace when it is right in front of us. We overlook beauty when the world feels too broken. We ignore our bodies asking for rest because urgency gets mistaken for faithfulness.
Palm Sunday pushes back on every version of leadership that relies on spectacle. Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey, surrounded by ordinary people and borrowed things, while the crowd cries “Hosanna,” meaning “save us.” In Mark’s Gospel, that moment becomes a recognition test. Can we see God’s power when it arrives as humility, service, and vulnerability rather than aggression and domination? Can we follow a king who moves toward the cross instead of around it?
We also lean into the verbs that drive the story and refuse to let us stay in the bleachers: go, untie, bring, spread, shout, follow. We talk about untying what has been bound in our lives and communities, bringing what we have in practical care, spreading mercy in quiet daily ways, and letting “Hosanna” become public witness that rejects cruelty and “us versus them” thinking. If you are walking into Holy Week asking where Jesus is showing up now, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us: what will be your Hosanna?
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