The sermon opens in Matthew 20:17-19, where Jesus tells his twelve disciples plainly that he is going up to Jerusalem to be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, condemned to death, handed over to the Gentiles to be mocked and crucified, and raised on the third day. The sermon then turns to Matthew 21:1-11, the account of the triumphal entry, and reads the passage in full before beginning the exposition. The preacher frames the whole scene as the story of a king who comes to his own city, is welcomed at first, and within a week is betrayed, rejected, and put to death by those he loved.

The sermon traces the geography of the journey: Jesus has spent his earthly ministry mostly in Galilee, in the north, where he preached, healed, and worked miracles that made people wonder whether he might be the promised Messiah. Now he travels south to Judea and to Jerusalem, the city of David's throne and the site of the temple, a trip the sermon calls controversial and dangerous, since Jesus is coming to claim what is rightfully his and will directly threaten the ruling authorities. The sermon explains Passover as the backdrop for the trip, retelling the Exodus narrative of the tenth plague and the blood on the doorposts that caused the angel of death to pass over Israel's houses. This Passover lamb, the sermon argues, is a metaphor fulfilled in Jesus: just as John the Baptist calls him the Lamb of God and Isaiah describes him as led to slaughter and pierced for transgressions, it is Jesus's blood alone that satisfies the wrath of God and heals by his wounds.

At the Mount of Olives, Jesus sends two disciples to fetch a donkey and a colt so that he can ride into the city rather than walk, as he had done for the whole journey. The sermon makes much of this deliberate choice, contrasting a young donkey — low, slow, unimpressive, and cheap — with a warhorse or a chariot, and drawing a modern analogy to what a person's choice of vehicle communicates about them. The donkey fulfills Zechariah 9:9, and the sermon walks through what that prophecy reveals: first, that the coming king is the son of David and the Messiah for whom Israel has been waiting; second, that this king's reign will not come through military conquest. The sermon contrasts the failed hope of "the war to end war" language after the World Wars and the United Nations with Zechariah's vision of a king who destroys the weapons of war and rides a donkey rather than a warhorse, arguing that he brings peace by being gentle and loving rather than by force.

The sermon then examines the two groups present in the narrative: the Galileans who travel with Jesus as his committed followers, and the residents of Jerusalem who are stirred up and alarmed, echoing Herod's alarm at Jesus's birth in Matthew 2. It notes the Roman occupation under Pontius Pilate as the political tension underlying the crowd's unease, and observes that even Jesus's supporters, who hail him as "the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee," fall short of the full truth — they honor him as a prophet and son of David but do not grasp that he must also be the suffering servant who dies for his people. The sermon points to Peter's rebuke of Jesus in chapter 16 as evidence that even the closest disciples resisted the idea of a king who must die, and argues that the donkey itself embodies this paradox: Jesus is both the enthroned son of David and the suffering servant in the same act of riding into Jerusalem.

The sermon closes by describing three dimensions of Christ's kingship: his reign is not over lands, armies, or economies but over people who confess and follow him, illustrated by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's refusal to bow to the golden image; his reign is eternal, beginning now in gentleness and culminating in the return described in Revelation 19, when he judges in righteousness; and his reign is a direct threat to every earthly and religious authority that claims supremacy, since as prophet, Messiah, son of David, and son of God he holds full authority from God. The sermon ends with a pastoral appeal: this gentle king, riding a humble colt without armies or wealth, gives rest to the weary, forgiveness to the sinful, and peace to the suffering, and the church is called to trust him and to imitate his humility, offering itself as a living sacrifice for the spread of the gospel.

Bible Verses Used

• Matthew 20:17-19: Jesus predicts his betrayal, death, and resurrection to the twelve as he sets out for Jerusalem, framing the triumphal entry that follows.

• Matthew 21:1-11: The primary text; the triumphal entry on the donkey and colt is expounded verse by verse as the fulfillment of prophecy and the introduction of Jesus as king to Jerusalem.

• Zechariah 9:9: Cited as the prophecy Jesus deliberately fulfills by riding a donkey, establishing him as the humble, peace-bringing king rather than a militant one.

• Matthew 2:3: Used to draw a parallel between Herod's alarm at Jesus's birth and Jerusalem's alarm at his triumphal entry.

• Matthew 16 (Peter's rebuke): Referenced to show the disciples' resistance to Jesus's announcement that he must suffer and die.

• Revelation 19: Used to point forward to Christ's final return as a conquering judge, contrasted with his gentle first arrival on a donkey.