Sunday, April 14, 2019

The Donkey Preaches on Palm Sunday: John 12:12-19


Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is John 12:12-19.

How do you see Jesus? It depends on your perspective. If you try to see Jesus without the cross, you’ll always be disappointed in the Jesus you find. 

The Jewish leaders saw Jesus as a threat to their power and control over the worshipping community of Israel. His teaching and His preaching demonstrated that they are no longer in God’s grace, they are misleading God’s people and His anger is growing against their work. In retaliation, they are planning and plotting how to get rid of Jesus through any means necessary. The crowd’s reception only fuels their lustful desire for His downfall.

The crowds that lined the streets of Jerusalem, waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna!”, saw Jesus as a restored Davidic king, one who would throw out the Romans and restore Israel to a political powerhouse, able to stand on her own against neighboring rival nations. When Jesus raises the three-day-dead Lazarus, this only fuels their misconception of who Jesus is. Imagine a king who can resurrect the army that dies in battle! Their cry is sadly ironic: Hosanna means “Save us” or “Help us”. That’s exactly what Jesus came to do, but they don’t understand how.

The disciples…they should get it, right? But they see Jesus as a mishmash of an Old Testament prophet who speaks powerfully and is able to perform mighty miracles of God, but also as a socio-political leader whose coattails they want to ride into their own positions of power and authority. After all, if the people are flocking to Jesus, and they are His closest friends and confidants, surely there is something in this for them as well.

The Romans see Jesus as just another pseudo-Messiah, someone to keep an eye on, lest he stir up trouble that incurs the wrath of the Emperor. 

They were all seeing Jesus without the cross. Without the cross, this is all Jesus is: a troublemaker, a rabble-rouser, a curiosity, someone who needs to meet expectations to please and appease the crowds.

Of all those who gathered that first Palm Sunday, there is only one who recognizes Jesus for who He is, only one who realizes this is God-in-flesh, the Son of David riding back into the City of David to do what He must to do redeem, to rescue, to save. That was the donkey. That’s right: the donkey. 




I’ve not spent much time with donkeys, so I am assuming what is true about horses is true for them as well. A young horse doesn’t take well to being ridden. It takes time, patience, and a lot of skill to break a horse to ride. You start with a bridle, then a saddle blanket, and then a saddle, slowly letting the horse acclimate to each step. Then, and only after it’s gotten used to having something on its back, does a rider attempt to try to ride it. Even then, it’s almost a guarantee the horse will do everything he can to remove the rider as quickly as possible.

Jesus sits on this young donkey’s colt and it doesn’t buck, it doesn’t bolt, it doesn’t blitz through the noisy crowd. It simply goes forward. It’s no small thing that this simple beast of burden – who, remember, is also part of God’s creation that Jesus has come to redeem – the donkey gets it. In the Palm Sunday excitement, the donkey is the only one who provides a faithful witness to Jesus. The donkey is obeying not his master, but The Master. The donkey, with Jesus astride, is heading to the cross. 

It’s not mere happenstance. This is a fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophesy from centuries earlier: “Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt.” Don’t misunderstand the donkey. Our modern, American mindset sees donkeys as a joke. In western movies, only the town drunk rides a donkey – except for Clint Eastwood, and no one laughs at Clint Eastwood more than once. The heroes ride horses – big, strapping animals. That’s post-Romantic era America. But in ancient Israel, donkeys were seen as strong, sure-footed animals, noble beasts. In fact, when David rode into Jerusalem as the conqueror, he did so on the back of a donkey – not a massive stallion. Jesus enters Jerusalem, the city of David, in the way of David, to assume His rightful throne. 

But, unlike David, His throne isn’t made of the finest woods and inlaid with gold and precious stones. It’s not found in a palace surrounded by servants to do every whim and fancy. It’s not surrounded by layers of security to protect the king from all harm and danger. Jesus is King of all – He could have all of these and more. This King, who is in the world, is not of the world; nor is His kingdom. Jesus has emptied Himself of His heavenly and divine majesty. He will be labeled “The King of the Jews,” but not as a title of honor or sincerity. His throne will be made of two massive wood beams. It will be sunk into the ground on a hill called Golgatha, the place of the skull. Jesus will ascend to His throne, but He will do so to be suspended between heaven and earth, rejected by both God and man. He will be surrounded by soldiers, yes, but not for security but to make sure He dies in the most gruesome way possible. He will die for the Jewish leaders, even though they reject Him as Messiah. He will die for the crowds whose cries will change from hosanna to crucify. He will die for the disciples who run away. He will die for the soldiers who drive in the nails. He will die for you and for me, carrying our sins to the cross, dying the death we deserve. He even dies for fallen creation. Jesus dies for the donkey.

The Jewish leaders don’t get it; the crowd certainly doesn’t; the disciples don’t yet understand or believe; the Romans don’t care. But the donkey is carrying Jesus. He is heading to the cross. With the cross, Jesus is Messiah, the Christ, the Savior, the Son of God who fulfills all of the promises of God.

If you look at the back of a donkey, there’s a dark line that runs down his spine. It meets a dark line that runs laterally across the shoulders. From the side, it’s hardly noticeable, but from the top down you’ll see that those lines form a cross. There is a legend – please hear that word, legend, so it goes in the same category as Paul Bunyon and George Washington’s cherry tree speech – that the cross appeared on the donkey after he carried Jesus into Jerusalem, and that his descendants are thus marked for the honor he had in carrying the Master. It’s a legend, a cute story: I don’t buy it. But it is interesting that the only one who recognized Jesus for Who He is has the God of Creation sitting on his back.

The English poet, philosopher and lay theologian G. K. Chesterton wrote a poem called The Donkey. [1]

When fishes flew and forests walked
                And figs grew upon thorn,
            Some moment when the moon was blood
               Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
                And ears like errant wings,
            The devil’s walking parody
                On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
                Of ancient crooked will;
            Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
                I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
                One far fierce hour and sweet:
            There was a shout about my ears,
                And palms before my feet.

The donkey is the faithful preacher, preaching to us in silence. But, he carries us where we also need to be this Palm Sunday, entering Holy Week just as Jesus entered into Jerusalem. The donkey takes us to the cross. That’s where we need to be. That’s where we see Jesus.

In His name, amen.



[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47918/the-donkey

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