They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes upon it, and he sat on it. Many people spread out their clothes on the road while others spread branches cut from the fields.  Those in front of him and those following were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!^[a]  Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!” 

Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. After he looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he returned to Bethany with the Twelve.

^[a]  Psalm 118:26

Mark 11:7-11,  Common English Bible (c) 2011

An impromptu parade?  Not really.  Jesus, as Mark tells the story, has it mapped out.  Biblical scholars^[1]  point out that Jesus rode a humble donkey, not a mighty war horse.  He enters Jerusalem from one direction; the representatives of the Roman Empire from another.  He was accompanied by ordinary people waving branches, not soldiers waving weapons of war.  There is a sense of joy, not a feeling of doom.  All signs that God’s kingdom is not the same as the kingdoms on earth.

-Teressa Clark, 2012, 2019

^[1]  Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem  (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).