I believe your interpretation of the crowd on Palm Sunday is the most common, but Pope Benedict XVI differs in his exegesis in the second volume of his Jesus of Nazareth series writing:
"All three Synoptic Gospels, as well as Saint John, make it very clear that the scene of Messianic homage to Jesus was played out on his entry into the city and that those taking part were not the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but the crowds who accompanied Jesus and entered the Holy City with him.
This point is made most clearly in Matthew’s account through the passage immediately following the Hosanna to Jesus, Son of David: “When he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying: Who is this? And the crowds said: This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee” (Mt 21:10–11). (Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: Part Two: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 8.)
Pope Benedict XVI's exegesis of the Gospels passages brings about an astute observation, which crowd do you find yourself in? Are you coming into the Holy city with Jesus as your king or are you in the Holy City of Jerusalem scandalized by the commoner riding on the poor man's beast annoyed at the marginalized crowd coming into Jerusalem? It's even deeper when theologians throughout the centuries have interpreted Jerusalem as the Church.
I believe your interpretation of the crowd on Palm Sunday is the most common, but Pope Benedict XVI differs in his exegesis in the second volume of his Jesus of Nazareth series writing:
"All three Synoptic Gospels, as well as Saint John, make it very clear that the scene of Messianic homage to Jesus was played out on his entry into the city and that those taking part were not the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but the crowds who accompanied Jesus and entered the Holy City with him.
This point is made most clearly in Matthew’s account through the passage immediately following the Hosanna to Jesus, Son of David: “When he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying: Who is this? And the crowds said: This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee” (Mt 21:10–11). (Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: Part Two: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 8.)
Pope Benedict XVI's exegesis of the Gospels passages brings about an astute observation, which crowd do you find yourself in? Are you coming into the Holy city with Jesus as your king or are you in the Holy City of Jerusalem scandalized by the commoner riding on the poor man's beast annoyed at the marginalized crowd coming into Jerusalem? It's even deeper when theologians throughout the centuries have interpreted Jerusalem as the Church.