I can still remember Sunday School, waving homemade palm branches made of green paper and the gold pipe cleaners. It was like a party. Our Sunday school teachers told us we were celebrating Jesus’ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. I didn’t know what it really meant, I just thought it was a parade.

Later, I learned that “Hosanna” wasn’t just a “happy” word. It literally means “save us” or “help.” So those people waving branches were celebrating, yes but they were also begging and pleading. They were desperate for someone to change things. Jesus came, not as a conquering king, but riding a donkey. He chose humility instead of power.

This is kenosis. In Philippians 2, the Apostle Paul talks about Jesus given up everything. Jesus “emptied himself.” Jesus didn’t hold on to power or glory, He let it go. He stepped into our world. He entered our pain and He didn’t run or hide. He chose it.

Kenosis means pouring out becoming nothing. But in a way that reveals everything about who God is. God stepping into creation into pity. God, not staying distant, but stepping into our mess. Not removing us from suffering but meeting us in it. This is the Gospel – Good News.

Jesus flips everything upside down. Following Jesus is to “regress” not “progress”. Jesus did not climb but descended; into humility, into weakness. Jesus didn’t avoid the hard stuff. He lived it. He knew betrayal and what it meant to be tired and to suffer in body and mind.

And when He rose, the wounds were still there. He didn’t cover them. He showed them. His scars weren’t gone, they were transformed. Still visible. Still present.

There is hope in this. If Jesus carries His wounds maybe we don’t have to hide our own. Maybe I don’t have to be perfect or polished. Maybe my brokenness and my messiness aren’t something God avoids, it’s where God meets me. John Swinton puts it like this: “Life in all of its fullness is discovered in the broken body of Jesus.” [1]

Holy Week reminds us that Jesus understands. He knows exhaustion. He knows grief. He knows lament. He gets the need for comfort. And because of that, God is with us not just in pews, but in hospital beds, restless nights, and in quiet weeping.

When Paul says “have the same mindset of Christ” it’s not about being a hero. It’s about being real. Loving others in their struggles. Offering presence more than solutions. Swinton, in Becoming Friends of Times, says it better than I ever could:

“To give generously of one’s time—to care, notice, value, and appreciate time—is to adopt the attitude of Jesus and to begin to tune one’s body into the cadence of God’s time and the redemption of all time.” [2]

Jesus’ broken body wasn’t a failure. It was perfect love. And our own bodies and minds, no matter how broken or complicated can be places where love shows up. Where grace is.

As we begin Holy Week, we need to remember it is not about trying to be strong and perfect. Maybe it’s about just showing up. Maybe our “hosannas” aren’t neat but messy. Maybe there isn’t perfect palm branches, but wrinkled, bent ones. And maybe that’s what worship looks like. Maybe that’s enough.

Jesus emptied himself. And somehow, He filled everything, our pain, our weakness, our brokenness, with glory. Maybe the cry of “Hosanna” is worship at its most honest, a plea to the King who chose, us.