A talk given in the Steele Creek Ward on Palm Sunday, 2025
Over two thousand years ago, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey, a large crowd gathered to mark his entry into the Holy City. Some of these humble believers laid their threadbare clothes on the ground in front of Him; others cut down branches from the trees and strawed them in the way. As they waved palm leaves, overcome with emotional reverence, some of them cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Hosanna in the highest.”
It must have taken a great deal of faith for these believers to place their hope on this man from Nazareth – to shift from the grand ideas they had about a mighty conqueror who would save them from Roman oppression to this unassuming man who had quietly, sometimes even secretly, ministered and taught amongst them. Maybe some of the believers who laid their precious clothes down had seen His hands laid upon the sick. Perhaps the words He had preached on the mount reminded them of truths their spirits had learned before they came to earth. Maybe the people who waved the branches had heard his injunctions to love their enemies and had felt the oppression of hate lifted from their hearts. Perhaps they had once felt eternally doomed because of their sins and had learned to hope again in His presence. For whatever reason, their belief in Jesus as their Christ was so great that they chose to leave their work and homes to be a part of this witnessing crowd. To their neighbors, to Jesus’s disciples, and to Jesus himself, they were acknowledging Him as their King, as the Messiah who would save them. To Him, they pleaded for salvation from their despair, from their anxious existence, from their present and very real sorrows.
Can you imagine the scene? Do you wish that you could be there now? What would your cries of “Hosanna” or its translation, “Save us now,” be about?
We live in an entirely different world than the city of Jerusalem then. In many ways, we have it easier. We don’t haul jugs to wells for clean water, and a bacterial infection is no longer a death sentence. We have glasses and wheelchairs, cars and hearing aids, and free education. But we do face challenges unknown to those believers. We do not spend our lives in the confines of a walled city, but in a vast universe of information and opinion, spinning and scrolling in every direction imaginable. We are not guided by Pharisees and Sadducees in our synagogues, but by influencers and algorithms in our pockets. We still ask, “Who is our neighbor?” and feel disdain for those who think, look, and vote differently from us. Most of us have never faced a physical famine, but even as we binge on movies and memes in every form, we walk away feeling hungry, weak, and disoriented. We are in just as much need of unity, of healing, of hope, of clarification, and of eternal truths that will whisper to our spirits,
“You are more than a body.
You are more than this mortal existence.
You are more than your mistakes, more than your diagnosis, more than your grades, your beauty, or your earning power.
You are a precious and loved child of God.”
Jesus Christ told us, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you will find rest unto your souls.”
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
We do not need to walk with the Savior to receive His healing. We do not need to hear Him speak to receive His wisdom. We do not need to wave palm fronds to acknowledge Him as our Messiah, a gift from a wise God in heaven who has never ever forgotten us.
Speaking of God’s plan for us, President Utchdorf gave us a challenge. He said:
“You and I play a crucial part in this great, continuing story.
What, then, is your and my part?
It is to learn of Jesus Christ. To study His words. To hear Him and to follow Him by actively participating in this great work. I invite you to come and belong!
You don’t have to be perfect. You only have to have a desire to develop your faith and draw nearer to Him each day.
Our part is to love and serve God and to love and serve God’s children.
As you do so, God will encircle you with His love, joy, and certain guidance through this life, even under the most serious circumstances, and even beyond.”
These are simple words that are similar to ones we have heard a hundred times at church, but can we take them seriously this week before Easter? We, like those in Jerusalem, are steeped in tradition – tradition that tells us who our enemies are, how they have oppressed us, and a million different ideas about how to overcome the damage that they have done to us. If we are to do what President Uchtdorf asks, it will require us to shift our faith over to a humbler, quieter, more personal form of battle than the ones the world tells us to fight, but we will also have the power of our Savior to help us. Can we try this week?
When we pick up our phones every morning, can we turn first to Christ’s words? Will we let His wisdom fill our earbuds? When we need rest, will we take our weary hearts to Him instead of TikTok? Will we actually, like literally, pray for and love our enemies? Will we reject judgmental or petty anger in favor of meekness and forgiveness? Will we go to the temple to find our Savior, and to help others find Him? Will we choose to work, actually work for Him, trusting we will find rest?
Going back to that original Palm Sunday, remember His believers and their pleas for salvation. They did not understand perfectly how that salvation was going to be carried out. They would be filled with grief and confusion when their Redeemer was crucified just days later. They did not understand that their Prince of Peace would bring that peace not through force, but through the gifts of His gospel and His sacrifice. If they had understood, they would have been spared so much fear and heartache.
Do we understand that we do not need to wait for the second coming to let the Prince of Peace reign in our lives? Are we waiting for the day He will come again, when every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that He is the Christ? Or are we, His disciples, already, through our actions and words, kneeling to Him and confessing that He is our Christ?
President Spencer Kimball: "When Satan is bound in a single home—when Satan is bound in a single life—the Millennium has already begun in that home, in that life.”
The Millennium – that period of growth, restoration, redemption, rest, and healing- can begin for us now.
President Nelson said, “When you reach up for the Lord’s power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air, power from Jesus Christ will be yours. When the Savior knows you truly want to reach up to Him—when He can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw His power into your life—you will be led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you should do. When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you have ever done before, then His power will flow into you.”
I want to testify to you that the peace and joy that will come when our Savior reigns can be ours in the here and now. I know this because I have felt it. Each day that I humbly stretch towards the Savior with that kind of intensity, when I kneel to worship Him, when I acknowledge Him as my Redeemer, that day is a day of growth, restoration, redemption, rest, and healing, no matter what kind of stuff happens around me. I believe in Christ. He is my King.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
