Scripture readings:
Zechariah 9:9-10 (Mention that the Hebrew word “ani” means
humble, not only gentle: "humble and riding on a donkey"); and John 12:12-19
There is a lot to think about here.
One thing to think about is the
donkey. Jesus had a specific reason for riding on the donkey in that parade
into Jerusalem. The donkey sends a message telling us who Jesus is.
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| Burkett Lake, North of Mattawa/Desert Aire, WA March 2017 |
Each new thing we learn and believe about
Jesus, as the Christ, the Son of God, changes us. Each new experience of who
Jesus is gives us new life from him, in a new way.
We learn about who Jesus is from
that donkey. There is just the sheer fact that, five hundred years before the
birth of Jesus, the prophet Zechariah had predicted that the Messiah would come
to Jerusalem riding on a donkey. So, Jesus did it.
When Jesus rode the donkey, he wasn’t
doing something new. The Lord has one story to which everyone who ever lived
and ever will live belongs to. It’s the story of our creation, our falling
away, our new life from God in Christ, and the glory that is to come. It’s one
ancient story that isn’t finished yet.
The donkey wasn’t just a donkey. For
Zechariah, the donkey had meaning. The donkey meant (among other things)
humility and peace, and the horses stood for pride and war. So, there were no
horses in the Palm Sunday parade.
From time to time, especially during
the Roman occupation, individuals had come forward, with a lot of charisma,
claiming to be the Messiah, and coming forward to raise an army. They would
come for war, and they would succeed in killing some Romans, and some
collaborators. And then they, themselves would get caught and killed. Those
were the horse people.
Jesus rode on a donkey to say that
he had come forward for humility and peace. The only trouble with this is that
I don’t know if there was anyone there who actually believed him. I don’t know
if there was anyone there who was truly interested in humility and peace. Even
the disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was about or what he was really saying,
until after the crucifixion and the resurrection.
Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a
donkey to say that he was fulfilling God’s plan, as the prophet had predicted
over five hundred years before. But Jesus also rode on the donkey in order to
tell the people who saw him, what he was really all about, and what God was
really like. The donkey was a message about what God wanted to accomplish with
the Messiah, because of who he is, as God.
The donkey-riding-incident was one
of the deepest messages about who God is, and how God works. Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God. That is, Jesus is the Messiah, and Jesus is God with
us.
The theme of humility and peace go
right through the Bible. In the Old Testament book of the prophet Isaiah, in chapter
42, the Lord speaks of his Messiah this way: he says, “Here is my servant, whom
I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he
will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his
voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick
he will not snuff out. In faithfulness, he will bring forth justice; he will
not falter or be discouraged till he has established justice on earth. In his
law the islands will put their hope.” (Isaiah 42:1-4) There is something in the
heart of God that loves quietness, humility, and peace.
In some strange way, the new world
full of God’s justice (full of the work of God’s making things right and good)
were (from the beginning) supposed to get done without any show of force,
without a lot of noise. God’s great work was predicted, in these words from
Isaiah, to come with humility and peace.
In spite of all the violence in the
Bible, and in spite of the apparent violence of God in the Old Testament, I
believe there is one very simple, basic example of God’s humility and peace.
That example is the people of Israel. This is very mysterious (I know).
In fact, it sounds like a complete
contradiction of everything the Old Testament is so famous for. But I believe
that the simple fact that God called one single, little family (a sterile and
infertile couple), that became a little tribe, that became a little nation that,
often, betrayed God, and was often defeated, and enslaved, and slaughtered (and
did more than its share of slaughtering), and yet this family, and this part of
the story, has continued to exist to the present day: and it says something. It’s
a miracle that says a lot about the humility of God.
It even says something about the
peace of God. We should study that word “peace” sometime. Peace doesn’t mean
that you will have no problems, no trouble, and no conflict. What peace does
mean, among other things, is that you will be always held in the strength of a
faithful, and abundant, and enduring love: the love of God.
God was in Christ, offering his
humility and peace to Jerusalem. Jesus was the face of God’s humility and peace
looking Jerusalem in the eye, and looking us in the eye. The look in Jesus’ eye
offered forgiveness and a new birth, as a way of returning to the God of
humility and peace.
The strangest thing is this. The
humility and peace of Jesus on the donkey gives you the freedom to do with
Jesus absolutely whatever you want. It is as if he asks each one of us, “Here I
am. What will you do with me?”
There were many in the crowd who
celebrated the coming of Jesus because they thought he would raise an army and lead
a revolution. They thought he came to throw out the Romans and the Greeks. If
Jesus failed to do this, they would turn against him. And that’s exactly what they
did.
They didn’t care so much about
forgiveness and grace, or humility and peace. They wanted vindication. They
wanted to get even. They wanted the defeat of their enemies and their own
superiority. Maybe this is one kind of peace, but it’s not Jesus’ kind of
peace.
I often want to be vindicated. But I
am basically a man of words. So, what I notice about myself, when I get angry,
or when I feel slighted, or misunderstood, or mistreated is that I rehearse
words in my mind, after the event. I imagine what I might say to justify
myself, or to prove myself; or to produce shame, and guilt, and regret in others.
I make very unhumble and unpeaceful speeches to myself.
I do this. And I would rather run
through these speeches over and over again, in my head, rather than to step
down, and step away, and have peace. For me, this is a test. It’s God’s test. I
don’t always meet this test very well.
The Pharisees represent a different
group of people; the people who look into the eyes of Jesus and say: “I don’t
need forgiveness. I don’t need a new heart and mind. There is nothing wrong
with me. The problem is somewhere else. You’re the one who has the problem.”
This is pride. Pride never has
peace, and it’s always offended by the humble, and the peaceful, and the
peace-makers.
The Pharisees can represent any of
us, even when we love to be followers of Jesus, because we want to be right so
badly. We want to be good so badly. We don’t want to see our own failures or
our own shallowness.
It is the hardest thing in the world
for the proud to say: “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” I know this, because it is one
of the hardest things for me to do.
This is another test from God. The
Pharisees didn’t pass this test, and they couldn’t live with the challenge of
having Jesus looking them in the eye.
They had to close those eyes of
Jesus. They had to close those eyes to keep themselves from seeing their true
reflection in his eyes.
They had to get rid of Jesus, and
kill him. They wouldn’t admit that (in thinking this, and doing this) they were
actually killing themselves. The truth is that they were dying, spiritually, on
the inside.
Then, there was a different group of
people in the crowd. They saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. There were
people in the crowd who knew that the blind could see, and the deaf could hear,
and the lame could walk, and that people were being made new.
They were finding faith. They were
believing, and coming to life in Jesus’ name.
They were the thankful people, and
they felt a great freedom stirring in their hearts. It was the freedom of
humility and peace, and it was something that they could share with others. It
was a new way for them to live in this world.
Jesus came to Jerusalem on a donkey,
and people could do with him whatever they wanted. The Pharisees, and the
Temple authorities, and the Roman governor couldn’t maintain their authority,
and the order of the day, in the presence of a higher power that ruled with
humility and peace.
Jesus came the way he did to offer
himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, at their hands. He simply let
them be themselves, and he went on being himself.
In the greatest humility, Jesus
actually got his work done by letting them do with him what they most wanted to
do. He managed to die for the sins of the world, and our sins, by letting them
(and us through them) carry out their sins against him. The sins of our world
killed him, and he defeated those sins by rising from the dead as our savior.
This is the way he is.
This is the way God is. This is the
work of a God who rules and works with humility and peace. This is Jesus, and
when we believe in him, we have life in his name.
Because our king is Jesus, we have a
different kind of king. Because we have a different king, we have a different
life.
Other people boast about their
freedom, but their freedom doesn’t change them and it doesn’t make the world a
better place. Jesus said, “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free
indeed.” (John 8:36)
The freedom of Jesus takes us
somewhere new. His freedom helps us to grow and change, and yet his freedom
also helps us to hold onto the things that it would be a shame for us to lose
(a certain childlikeness, for instance). A different king lets us see life
differently and truly live.
Our different king shows us how to
find our way through this world. He makes our values different; and our morals
and ethics. He changes the way we see other people and treat them. He changes
the way we understand ourselves and our purpose in life as it is shaped by Jesus.
He makes our view of the world
different. Jesus makes us see our society, and our culture, and our laws, and
our government, and our world deeper than what television and radio and the
internet teach us to see. We learn to see to the roots of the real issues of
good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice.
But that different lens, through
which we see and live, is Jesus. Jesus is about forgiveness and mercy that give
us humility and peace. And peace is the strength of the faithful, enduring,
abundant love of God. This gives us a different life, and this is good news
that we can practice in our lives, and we can share this good news with others.
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