Donkey or Horse

THE DONKEY OR HORSE

In 2006, my wife and l sat in the Franciscan Church at Bethapage whilst on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

On the East wall, in front of us, was a mural depicting our Lord's journey from the village of Bethapage to the city of Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday.

After recalling the story of the first Palm Sunday from the Bible and offering a prayer, we sang the hymn, ‘Ride on, ride on in majesty'. As we sang the hymn, we processed out of the church and on to a bus.

The journey from Bethapage to Jerusalem commences with a steep climb to the top of the Mount of Olives, before descending down the other side. Hence the use of the bus before we got off at the top and walked down the other side, following the route, or a similar route, that Jesus would have used on that first Palm Sunday.

Slowly, we made our way down the rugged terrain into the Kidron Valley before climbing out of it to enter Jerusalem. Sadly, we could not enter via the Golden Gate, as Jesus would have done, since it is bricked up.

We were quite exhausted and able to imagine how tired Jesus and his disciples must have felt on reaching the city.

However, the exhaustion of Jesus and his disciples was quickly forgotten as the welcoming crowds tore down branches of palm and strewed them in his way and shouted, 'Hosanna', which means, 'Save us'.

Yet that same crowd of people would a few days later shout 'Crucify'.

Why was the crowd so fickle? Why did they welcome Him one day and reject Him a few days later? Why did the people turn against Him?

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The answer to that question is very simple. They confused the donkey with a horse.

Let me explain.

For many years, the Jewish nation had lived under various oppressive regimes. The latest was that of the Roman Empire.

Needless to say, the Jewish people looked forward to the day when God would raise up a new leader who would rescue the nation from their Roman captivity, in the same way that God raised up Moses who had rescued the Israelites from their Egyptian captivity many years earlier.

They looked forward to a person who would usher in a new age of peace and prosperity as promised in the Jewish scriptures.

Now it was against this background of present captivity and future hope that Jesus appeared on the scene.

Over the years, in a remarkably short time, this nomadic preacher had attracted quite a following. He had spoken about an alternative rule and kingdom. Hence, they had come to see Him as the promised Messiah who would inaugurate a new age in their nation's history.

And what more appropriate time could such a leader choose to enter the nation's capital city of Jerusalem and lead a revolution, than at the annual Passover time? A time when as many as two and a half million people were likely to be there for the festival, according to Eusebius, the first century Jewish historian.

No wonder the crowds were excited and shouted, 'Hosanna'. No wonder they cut down branches of palm and threw them on the road before Him, just as they had done some years earlier to welcome Simon Maccabeus when he sought to rescue the Jewish nation from the hands of Antioculus Epiphanes and his Greek influence. No wonder they shouted, 'Save us'.

But unfortunately, as I said earlier, they confused the donkey on which Jesus rode, with a horse.

Now a horse was a symbol of war. They therefore thought they were welcoming a military leader. Instead, Jesus was a spiritual leader. He entered the city riding upon a donkey, a symbol of peace.

True, they were right to recall the words of the prophet Zechariah when he said, 'See now, your king comes to you; he is victorious, he is triumphant'. But they forgot to finish the sentence which goes on to say, 'humble and riding upon a donkey’.

Thus they confused the donkey for a horse. And when things did not work out as they had expected, they turned against Him. They replaced the word 'Hosanna' with the word 'Crucify' only a few days

later. Their joy turned to anger since they felt let down.

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And our joy often turns to anger when we feel let down by God. When God appears not to come up to our expectation, we too often turn against Him, as we too confuse the donkey with the horse.

Like the Jews of the first century, we often look for a God who will come in power and glory to rescue us from our enemies, be they real or imaginary. We look for a God of strength who will come to our help whenever we call upon Him.

A God who will save us from the pain of watching a loved one die from cancer, or the humiliation of being passed over for a new job, or the distress of seeing one's children go off the rails.

We want to believe in a God who will save us from the war in Iraq, or the famine in Ethiopia or the civil unrest in the Sudan.

Oh,yes, we want to believe in an interventionist God who can come and rescue us whenever we call upon Him. And when He appears to fail to come up to our expectation, we clench our fists and shout in anger 'Why?' Or worse still, we turn our back upon Him and in our disappointment mutter 'Crucify'.

You see, my friends, we find it hard to believe in a God who comes to us in humility. A God who comes to us as a helpless child born in a manger, and dies as a helpless victim upon a cross of shame.

Yet this is the great paradox of Christianity which is revealed to us throughout the Liturgy of Holy Week, namely, that in weakness is to be found God's strength.

As St Paul reminds the Church in Corinth, ‘we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.' [1 Cor 1.23-25]

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It is said that what impressed the people most, when the First World War victorious General Allenby entered Jerusalem, was not the pomp and ceremony of the occasion, but his humility in getting off his horse and walking into that Holy City on foot.

May you come to know the God who comes to rescue us, not in power but in humility, not on a horse but on a donkey.