Wanting Jesus to conform to our expectations
Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2026 Blog #9
March 30, 2026
Wanting Jesus to conform to our expectations
Holy Week began yesterday as we celebrated Palm Sunday. This Sunday commemorates Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week in which he was arrested, tortured, killed and raised from the dead. How can Jesus have been so hailed when he arrived but be so hated by the end of the week?
Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, not a horse as crowds waved palm branches. These were the first “rally flags.” The people of Jerusalem believed that they were on the verge of political liberation. Jesus chose to ride on a donkey for a reason. He was sending a clear message that he was indeed the Messiah of Israel. The Israeli prophet, Zechariah described the Messiah entering Jerusalem on a donkey. The people of Jerusalem, assuming that he would be a military messiah, were quite disappointed when he did not raise an army to attack the Roman garrison.
At some point during the week, Jesus made a visit to the temple. He was appalled at what he saw in the Court of the Gentiles. It was there that coins were exchanged from Roman coinage to temple cash, and sacrificial animals were purchased. Many people believed that these businesses were less than honest. Jesus disrupted the market. He overturned tables and freed the animals that were for sale. This, of course, made many people angry. Those who ran the temple depended on the profits that such trade generated. When one costs another person money, the other person becomes angry and very powerful people have ways of getting revenge.
Jesus spent much of Holy Week debating with Pharisees. These folks were the majority political party among Jews in Jesus’ day. They are similar to the Orthodox Jews of our day, with very strict compliance to the law of Moses. At the temple, Jesus was explaining that he was the Messiah, as well as the son of God. If someone walked into my office and claimed to be the son of God, I might have a bit of skepticism also. He did offer miraculous signs to bolster his claim, but many Pharisees were unimpressed. They viewed him through the lens of the law. When Jesus violated the law, he could not be Messiah by their definition.
The Zealots were not impressed with Jesus either. This group was in a constant revolution against the Roman occupation. It took a great deal of courage to violently attack the Roman army, but the Zealots did. They assumed that Jesus would get an army together and finally throw Rome out of our land. He didn’t. He saved all of his bad opinions for the religious and seemed to ignore the Romans. It was as if he didn’t know that they existed. Jesus did not fit the image that the zealots had of the Messiah.
And so it was that the temple leaders, the pharisees, and the zealots, all had issues with Jesus. He did not fit the definition of Messiah as they viewed that role. They wished for the Messiah to fit their definitions of what that role should be. In short, they wished to define what Messiah should be.
Have we changed in the last 2,000 years? We are still tempted to view God as we wish him to be, and we get angry when we read that God does things differently than we expect. At times, rather than worshipping God as he is, wish to construct a God who agrees with us on every political belief.
We have modern day pharisees who know that God is against anyone who is not as “pure” as they.
We have religious people who earn money from religion and live lavish lifestyles. Some even preach that Jesus wants us to be rich. These folks are pretty far from the real Biblical, Jesus.
Others want Jesus to support them on quests for power. They believe that we must make a Christian nation, with a military backing up that plan. Such people believe that Jesus is a God of power. This reminds me of the historic inquisition when people were tortured in the name of Jesus. Jesus told the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, that his kingdom was not of this world. That does not sound like someone who wants military or political power. Yet there are groups of people who profess to be Christian who want to gain power in the name of Jesus.
Some folks want Jesus to make us feel good. Such folks get offended if a Bible reading or a sermon that challenges us or does not make them feel good. In their mind, Jesus is the giver of good feelings.
We humans love to make God conform to our expectations. I hope that during this Holy Week, we can all take a good look at scripture as well as a good look into ourselves. Perhaps then we can finally encounter Jesus as he really is, not a Jesus who conforms to our definition of him. Perhaps it is time for us to get to know the real Jesus.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus did not live up to the expectations of the crowd. By the end of the week, we had Good Friday and Jesus was killed. I hope that we would not have been in the crowd that shouted for his death, but somehow, I suspect that many of us might have been part of that crowd when Jesus just won’t do things our way.
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