Many of us have heard the story of the “triumphal entry,” when Jesus was received as a superstar by the crowds who shouted “Hosanna!” They had heard that he had fed 5,000 people with just a loaf of bread and a few fish. They had heard that he could even raise the dead, as he had done with Lazarus. “This is a man we can get behind,” they thought, “surely with his power and ability he is the one to lead us to throw off our Roman oppressors.”

But Jesus has a different view of kingship in mind. God is not a vending machine, who helps us get what we want and puts a holy stamp of approval on it. He doesn’t give us what we want; he does better than that: he gives us what we truly need, what our hearts long for. “If anyone serves me, he must follow me,” Jesus says. He is the servant king, not subject to our agenda, and it is we who must follow him.