Downwardly Mobile

How many of you have ridden horseback? Do you remember the first time you got on one? Most people feel either terrified or omnipotent - but both have to do with how far off the ground you are and how much power you are sitting on top of. Horses are big. And no matter how you feel, the person on the ground is at a definite disadvantage. A cavalry charge will beat infantry every time ...

That’s why conquerors typically used to enter captured cities on horseback. It made them look and feel stronger, and it also reminded people who was in charge.

But a donkey... A donkey is another matter altogether. Kids look really cute on donkeys. There are pictures in my family album of my sister and me riding burros in Mexico when we were 5 or 6. They were just the right size for us, and the donkeys were so precious, with their long ears and big, dark eyes. But grownups just look silly. Even if your legs don’t quite drag on the ground, the proportions are all wrong. But that’s how Jesus came into Jerusalem. John doesn’t say much about it, but the other evangelists do. This is how Mark describes the scene:

"Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!'” [Mk 11:8-10]

Luke adds to the account. “'As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen ... Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, order your disciples to stop.' He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.'” [Lk 19:37,38-40]

The Pharisees know exactly what was going on. They’ve been worried about just this sort of thing happening. The crowds are shouting out a verse from Psalm 118, a standard welcome for the pilgrims coming up to worship. But they add a bit to it. Instead of just shouting out a welcome to all those who come in the name of YHWH, they shout a pointed welcome to this rabble-rousing Galilean, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”

Jesus’ reputation has preceded him, with all the reports of miracles and healings and so on, and now he has had the nerve to stir up the crowds by pressing another prophetic button! Because four hundred years ago the prophet Zechariah told them that when the promised savior-king came, he would be “riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” [Zech 9:9] The crowds had been remembering all the promises, no doubt counting up all the ways in which Jesus’ words and actions matched up with the prophecies. The ones they all remembered, of course, were the ones that spoke of victory. After all, the first part of the verse read, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he." It’s the beginning of the Passover week, too, the most holy time of the year, and pilgrims from all over the world are arriving in Jerusalem. This must have been another sign that the promised redemption was at hand. Zechariah had also said,

"Though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and they shall rear their children and return. I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria; I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, until there is no room for them." [Zech 10:9-10]

Neither the Pharisees nor the crowds wanted to worry about what the donkey meant. They didn’t want to remember the part about humility, or the fact that the donkey is a symbol of peace. They didn’t want to understand that Jesus’ riding on a donkey was an acted parable, a way of showing them something about what kind of king he was, and what kind of response he expected from his subjects.

In just a few days, when the people saw their hopes weren’t going to be fulfilled, they turned against the very one for whom they had been shouting. And Jesus knew, of course, what would happen. He didn’t expect them to understand, they never had before, why should now be any different? And so, Luke tells us, "When [Jesus] drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, ‘O that you knew today the terms of peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.'" [Lk 19:41-42]