Mark 11:7-11: in context

Jesus enters Jerusalem to the acclaim of crowds who spread their garments and branches on the road and cry, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! It is a moment of triumph, the King welcomed to his city. And yet the King comes not as the crowds might have imagined a king, not on a warhorse at the head of an army, but seated on a borrowed young donkey, humble and lowly. The manner of his coming is itself a message about the kind of King he is.

The contrast is deliberate and worth pondering. Jesus is hailed as king, the son of David, coming in the name of the Lord; the acclaim is fitting, for he is the King. But the way he comes overturns every expectation of what a king should be. He does not ride a warhorse or lead an army; he sits on a donkey, a beast of humble service, borrowed for the occasion. The prophets had foretold exactly this: behold, your King comes to you, humble, riding on a donkey. His kingship is real, but it is unlike the world's; it is marked by humility, not by the display of force and grandeur that the world associates with power. This tells us what kind of King we have, and it corrects our expectations of him. The crowds who cried Hosanna largely wanted a king who would come in worldly power, throw off the Romans, establish an earthly kingdom by force; and when he did not, many of the same voices would turn against him. They wanted a king on a warhorse, and were given one on a donkey. But the humble King on the donkey is the true one, whose kingdom is not established by force but by humility, whose throne would be a cross. He humbled himself, Paul says, becoming obedient to the point of death. The King comes in humility, not in the grandeur the world expects. This searches whether we receive Christ as he is, or as we wish him to be. We can want a King who serves our purposes, who comes in the power we would prefer, who fits our expectations of what he should do for us. And when he comes instead in humility, when his way is the way of the cross rather than the worldly triumph we wanted, we can be disappointed, even turned against him, as the crowds were. But the humble King on the donkey is the real one, and to receive him truly is to receive him as he is, in his humility, rather than demanding the worldly king we might have preferred. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord: he comes humble, riding on a donkey, a King whose greatness is in his lowliness; and we are called to welcome him as he is, the humble King who saves not by force but by the humility that led him to the cross.

Do I receive Christ as he is, the humble King who came not on a warhorse but on a donkey, whose way is the way of the cross, or do I want a king who fits my expectations, who comes in the worldly power I would prefer and serves my purposes, and can the humble King entering Jerusalem move me to welcome him as he truly is, in his lowliness, rather than being disappointed that he is not the king I wished for?