Read Luke 19:28–40

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“Then the Pharisees said to each other, ‘There’s nothing we can do. Look, everyone has gone after him!’” (John 12:19 NLT)

Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.

Part 13: The Altar of Popularity. Palm Sunday feels like a victory. The road is lined with people. Cloaks are thrown down. Branches are waved. Voices rise together in celebration. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”

It looks like faith. It sounds like devotion. It feels like certainty.

But popularity is not the same as allegiance.

The crowd is not lying. They are responding. They see something in Jesus that stirs hope, and they respond with what they have—praise, excitement, expectation. There is sincerity here. There is even joy.

But there is also assumption.

They are welcoming the kind of king they expect. A king who will restore, elevate, and vindicate. A king who fits their vision of how God should act. The celebration is real, but it is built on a particular understanding of who Jesus is and what Jesus has come to do.

And that understanding will not hold. Jesus is the embodiment of “I AM WHO I AM”—“I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE”—not who we wish Jesus to be, not who the crowd demands Jesus to be.

Because the road does not end in Jerusalem’s throne rooms. It leads somewhere else entirely. It leads to confrontation, to disruption, to suffering. It leads to a cross.

Palm Sunday celebrates arrival.

But it does not yet reckon with direction.

This is where the altar reveals itself.

The altar of popularity is built when faith is measured by approval. When what is affirmed by the crowd is assumed to be what is faithful. When the volume of praise is mistaken for the depth of commitment. It doesn’t take long to see how easily this happens. Even in something as simple as a show like The Traitors, herd mentality takes over quickly—people align with the crowd, suspicions spread, and “faithful” players turn on one another just to stay in step with the group. It is unsettling how quickly belonging outweighs truth.

It is easy to follow Christ when the path is lined with voices that agree. It is easy to join in when the movement feels like momentum, when the story feels like it is going somewhere triumphant and visible.

But the same road that receives praise will soon demand something else.

Not louder voices.

Not greater numbers.

But deeper trust.

The Gospels do not present a crowd that slowly drifts away in confusion. They show something more unsettling. The energy shifts. The expectations collapse. The same public enthusiasm that welcomed Jesus does not sustain when the path becomes costly.

And this is not just about them.

We are not outside that crowd. We are formed by the same instincts. We know how to celebrate what feels right. We know how to align ourselves with what gains affirmation. We know how to participate when following Christ looks like belonging, like clarity, like movement.

But when Christ leads somewhere uncomfortable—when obedience disrupts what we would prefer to keep intact—the question changes.

Not, “Do we agree?”

But, “Will we continue?”

Popularity creates the illusion that we are further along than we are. It allows us to believe that agreement is the same as commitment, that enthusiasm is the same as trust. It gathers us into something that feels like unity, even when that unity has not been tested.

But faith is not formed on the road where everyone agrees. It is formed on the road where following becomes costly.

Palm branches are easy to carry. They require nothing but participation in themoment.

Golgotha requires something else.

It requires staying when the crowd thins. It requires trust when the outcome no longer looks like victory. It requires a willingness to follow Christ not just where it is celebrated, but where it is rejected.

And that is where the altar breaks.

Because the altar of popularity cannot survive that road. It depends on affirmation. It depends on agreement. It depends on a version of Christ that keeps the crowd intact.

But Christ does not move according to the crowd. Christ moves toward the cross.

So the question is not whether we have praised. The question is not whether we have participated.

The question is whether we will follow.

Do we follow Christ to Golgotha…or do we follow the crowd?

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Popularity may gather a crowd, but only trust follows Christ to the cross.

PRAYER
God, guard me from confusing approval with faithfulness. Give me the courage to follow Christ not only where it is easy, but where it is costly. Form in me a trust that remains when the crowd fades and the road becomes uncertain. Amen.

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Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).