When he took office, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. likely hoped that a year later, he could begin his first State of the Union address with an inspirational exhortation about a united country rejecting authoritarianism, provoking standing ovations and flag-waving from both sides of the congressional aisle.

On Tuesday night, he did just that. But the unified country that he spoke about was Ukraine, united for the horrific reason of its brutal invasion by Russia. The standing ovations were for its people. The flags being waved were Ukrainian blue and yellow.

As for American unity — well, it lasted for all of several minutes.

The crisis in Europe was not the issue pundits would have expected to hang over this address when Mr. Biden took office. But it ended up making what is often a perfunctory speech a significant TV event, for the message it would send to the besieged Ukrainians and the Kremlin.

Overseas, at least, there was an eager audience. Earlier in the day, CNN interviewed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, whose defiant viral videos from Kyiv rallied support for his country. Unshaven, weary-looking and wearing green fatigues in his bunker, Mr. Zelensky implored Mr. Biden to send a “useful” message as his country fended off conquest. As the House chamber filled up, images from Washington were split-screened with shots of the darkened Kyiv skyline.

It was an unusual run-up for the annual address. But it ended up imposing a sort of normalcy on the top section of the speech. Like during the Cold War or after 9/11, you had a president declaring that “freedom will always triumph” to cheers from the full house.

It was a familiar scene, while it lasted. There was also a more familiar tableau in the room compared with Mr. Biden’s address to Congress last year, which was subdued by Covid safety measures. “This year,” Mr. Biden said, “we’re finally together again.”

There were only a few, optional masks in the crowd. The house was fairly full (though some Republicans announced they would skip the speech over Covid testing requirements). Once again, there was the complement of guests for the president to call out mid-speech, including the ambassador from Ukraine. As Mr. Biden walked the House aisle, there were handshakes and close talking, not fist bumps.

If you turned the sound off, it was an image of the return to normalcy one might have expected or hoped for a year ago.

But with the sound on, you were quickly reminded that “normal” is a relative and elusive state these days.

For starters, there was the heckling. It was once a rare and remarkable breach when Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled, “You lie!” at President Barack Obama at a joint-session speech in 2009. Now there was a jeering section, with the Republican representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia starting a “Build the wall!” chant, and a mortifying moment when Ms. Boebert yelled at Mr. Biden about the Afghanistan withdrawal just as he began to tell a story about losing his son Beau to brain cancer.

It was shocking, but not surprising. After all, the last time we watched Ukraine’s security discussed in Congress, it was at impeachment hearings. When Mr. Biden spoke to a joint session last spring, it was just months after the Capitol was attacked by a mob trying to overturn his election victory.

And the pre-buttals in conservative media anticipated a fight. A screen caption on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show before the speech read, “Biden Will Likely Discuss Ukraine’s Borders More Than America’s” — which you might think would be unremarkable, given that there aren’t tank columns rolling across ours, but here we are.

Mr. Biden was not quite so combative, at least not toward his opponents in the room. But he was also feistier than he has often been as a speaker during his first year in office. This was not the consoling Mr. Biden who shared the country’s sense of loss amid last winter’s Covid death wave, though he did sometimes drop into a whisper, assuring Americans worried about the grim war news, “We’re going to be OK.”

Instead, he had the sharp, cheerleading tone of a president trying to rally the country — and taking advantage of an opportunity to be heard after a year in which his soft-spokenness has often gotten him lost in the media ruckus.

Mr. Biden’s personal style, like other presidents’, has served a political message. He was elected by voters whose ears were ringing from President Donald Trump, voters who presumably wanted a break from the me-me-me chorus. And as the older, white nominee of a younger, diverse party, he has positioned himself as more the center of an ensemble than the star of a solo act.

Sharing the spotlight has its uses, especially when assembling an international coalition in a crisis. But Mr. Biden’s approach has meant that he hasn’t always been the protagonist of his story.

For one night, he had the camera to himself. His speech wasn’t a fluid piece of rhetoric; like most State of the Union addresses, it eventually turned into a steamer trunk of policy line items with the occasional zinger. But it was spirited, down to the closing rally cry: “May God bless you all. May God protect our troops. Go get ‘em!”

It wasn’t immediately clear whom that last exclamation was speaking to — America? Ukraine? God? — or what or who we were supposed to go get. But sometimes in politics, the volume itself is the message.