There’s a classic psychology experiment on attention and perception. Researchers asked participants to watch a video of two teams—one in white shirts, the other in black—passing a basketball. Their task was simple: count how many times the team in white passed the ball.

At the end, participants were asked two questions: How many passes did you count? and Did you see the person in the gorilla suit walk through the scene?

Remarkably, about 50% of participants, so focused on counting, completely missed the gorilla, despite it standing in plain sight for nearly nine seconds. This experiment demonstrates inattentional blindness—how we can be so focused on one thing that we fail to see what’s right in front of us.

I’m glad we’re doing Palm Sunday twice this year. Sometimes, stepping outside of our usual context helps us see something new. What A.J. Levine pointed out in her book is that there are no palms in Matthew’s version of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

It may seem like a minor thing—maybe even nitpicky—but in verse 8 of today’s text, it reads, “A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.”

Laying cloaks and branches on the road for Jesus in Matthew 21:8 was a symbolic act with deep historical and cultural significance:

• In the ancient world, spreading cloaks before someone was a way to honor royalty. In 2 Kings 9:13, when Jehu is declared king, people lay their cloaks under his feet. By placing their garments on the road, the crowd was treating Jesus as a king, even though he rode a humble donkey.
• Laying down personal garments was an act of submission, showing they recognized Jesus as someone worthy of authority—perhaps even the Messiah.
• For those without fine carpets or banners, branches and cloaks served as a simple but powerful way to create a path of honor. This was common in celebrations for military victors or rulers.
• Jewish festivals, especially Sukkot, involved waving palm, willow, myrtle, and citron branches to celebrate God’s provision (Leviticus 23:40). The act of using branches may have drawn from this tradition of joy and expectation for deliverance.

Matthew does not specify palm branches. The people may have cut branches from native trees like olive, fig, oak, locust, or willow—whatever was available along the roadside. Palms grew in Judea, especially in Jericho and lowland areas, but were not as common in the hill country of Jerusalem. John’s Gospel (12:13) is the only one that explicitly mentions “palm branches.” Matthew’s wording suggests a spontaneous, grassroots moment rather than a pre-planned political demonstration.

I like that idea of using what is around us. I like that this parade is spontaneous. Scholars like John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg point out that this wouldn’t be the only parade happening the week before Passover. There would have been a Roman procession of power.[1]

Jerusalem would have been teeming with pilgrims during Passover, a festival celebrating liberation from Egyptian oppression. The Romans, always wary of rebellion, would have been on edge. Pontius Pilate would have entered the city from the west, leading an imperial cavalry and soldiers.

Jesus, however, entered from the east, from Bethphage. The opposite side. Mark and Matthew highlight this tension throughout the last week: Jesus sits across from the temple, teaching with authority and silencing scribes and Sadducees with parables. He sits across from the treasury, discussing giving Caesar what is Caesar’s and God’s what is God’s. The authors seem to ask us: Where are our loyalties?

Would we be drawn to the Roman procession of power on the west side? Or would we stand with Jesus and the ragtag, impromptu parade of locals? When we shout “Save us!” what are we asking? Save us from what—Rome? Disease, famine, poverty?[2]

What exactly are we expecting? Are we seeing the humble king from a backwater town with his disciples, or are we seeing our expectations—perhaps a militant leader coming to overthrow Rome?

We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are. Often, we don’t notice the gorilla walking through the scene—we see our expectations.

By approaching Jerusalem from the east, via Bethphage and the Mount of Olives, Jesus was making a deliberate statement:

• He was fulfilling messianic expectations—but not in the way people expected.
• His arrival hinted at divine judgment and the coming transformation of Jerusalem.
• His path followed the traditional entry route of kings and conquerors, yet he rode a donkey—a sign of humility and peace.

In the summer of 2003, I studied in Germany for six weeks. One week, we visited a modern art museum. Modern art has always puzzled me. If you paint one color on a canvas, it does nothing for me. I once looked at such a painting and said, “I could have painted that!” My sister-in-law, Sarah, an art teacher, replied, “Yeah, but you didn’t.”

There’s life lesson number one.

Anyway, I entered the museum with my professor. We turned a corner, and there on a sleek white pedestal, encased in glass and custom LED lighting, was an aluminum folding lawn chair. Is this a joke? My grandma had a dozen of these hanging in her garage! Now, if I have a thought that hasn’t been put into words, did I really ever have it? Extroverts gonna extrovert after all. I turned to my professor and voiced my displeasure: “That’s just a stupid lawn chair like my grandma’s. What’s the deal?”

“This is where it was invented,” he said.

Suddenly, the chair became beautiful. This wasn’t just any museum—it was the Bauhaus. That chair was invented in the 1920s! I had always associated it with the 1960s, but it was designed a full 40 years earlier! Someone had to think it up. By the time I was done reading about the chair, it was glowing—practically the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I finally understood.

Sometimes, we grow accustomed to things in our life. We take people and places for granted. We don’t see them—we see our expectations of them. This is especially true under stress. Given that “the whole city was in turmoil” when Jesus arrived, it makes sense that many failed to truly see him.

He still isn’t seen. I often hear folks say that when Jesus comes back, he’ll arrive in judgment, fire, and brimstone. Yet that’s not how he typically enters. He was born in an out-of-the-way place. He surprised people with his stories and knowledge. Even his grand entrance on Palm Sunday was not militant, but humble.

One last observation. We are the church on the Square—the only one remaining here. The Disciples used to be by the library. The Baptists were where Sully’s parking lot is. The Methodists were where Castle Noel is. Yet when folks ask where our church is, I often have to explain. “It’s next to the courthouse, right beside Polish Pottery.” They still look puzzled. They aren’t looking for a church, so it doesn’t register. Yet here we are, since 1880 or so. Hidden in plain sight.

And our Square—it’s rather magical. Spend some time out there, and you’ll see a parade: neighbors, shoppers, tourists, the unsheltered, teens on dates, middle schoolers heading to the library. A parade of neighbors.

The Square bursts our bubbles. When I first moved here, folks worried about the recovery center: “If we build it, they will come.” But that fear ignored the fact that folks with addictions were already here. We just didn’t see them. I’m grateful there has been little to no outcry about our Next Step-Up Emergency Shelter. We see our unsheltered neighbors. We see the need.

The Square is a powerful social media tool. It bursts the illusion of isolation. We become accustomed to what we see every day and assume the same is true everywhere.

Occasionally, it’s good to sit and watch a parade. To look beyond our expectations and see the humble servants of God in our midst. Doing so is what actually saves us from so many things. Thanks be to God.

Works Cited

[1] Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 2.

[2] AJ Levine, Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginners guide to Holy Week, DVD 2018. Session 1.