When you think about the way a formal state visit is conducted at the White House, it probably conjures up images of a military band and an honor guard flanking the driveway. As the row of black limousines arrive, trumpets blare and flags flutter and everything is formally festive. The President greets his distinguished guests and grandly escorts them down the plush red carpet into the executive mansion.

Now, compared to all that "pomp and circumstance," our Lord's "grand entrance" would seem to appear more comical than triumphal. Even in those days a king would at least make his entrance to the capitol city astride a white stallion - and not on some undersized donkey with the rider's toes dragging in the dust. Common people's cloaks and some branches cut from the fields were the best substitute they could come up with for a red carpet. There was no formal greeting by any dignitaries, just a crowd of nobodies shouting the lyrics of Psalm 118. And instead of receiving a royal welcome, Mark says that Jesus simply went directly to the temple, looked around, and then without a word, he left the city to spend the night in the nearby village of Bethany.