March 24, 2024 – Palm Sunday Text: Zechariah 9:9-12
Dear Friends in Christ,
A few weeks back I was watching a college basketball game between Creighton University and the University of Connecticut. U Conn at the time was the #1 ranked team in college basketball. Creighton beat them. This brought the usual storming of the court by the students. As I watched this unfold on our television, I focused in on one student in the middle of the melee. He was hopping up and down with his phone in one hand well over his head, probably filming the whole thing. He was totally oblivious to everything else, but he was getting the picture or video he wanted. It was all about him. Can’t anybody enjoy the moment these days without getting out their phone? Don’t we all have less pictures in our homes these days because we no longer have cameras? So much of history is going to be lost to cyberspace, but that is a whole other sermon.
Today is Palm Sunday, and while we don’t get the gospels we used to get as kids that told the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey, we get a glimpse of it in today’s Old Testament lesson. So come along . . .
“FOLLOWING THE DONKEY”
We begin, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Jesus is riding into the fray of chariots, war horses, and battle-bows. He rides and is ready to cut them off with merely a word. Once more today we welcome heaven’s King. He arrives in triumph but still rides that same old donkey. His technology hasn’t changed. His mount is as effective in cutting off a chariot or war horse as it would be in a dogfight against an F-15. Apparently, no matter the age, this is the only way he enters the world’s battles.
He faces the hostile crowds and the empire’s governor and soldiers with nothing but his integrity, memory of His Baptism and the word of truth that declared who He is. We have seen him arrive so many times that we know how the journey ends, with beatings and torture. The King comes into his glory on a wooden, cross-shaped bloodied throne.
Every year we follow the donkey. We walk beside the donkey-rider. What are we going to witness when we get to Jerusalem? Are we jumping around the donkey rider with our phone trying to get a picture for our Facebook or Instagram account? Or are we paying attention to what is happening? See, it is not about you and snapping the right photo. Nobody cares….except the one on the donkey. That is where our eyes and ears should be focused.
We follow closely as he takes us into places he warned us about. We too stand before kings, governors, the powerful rulers for his sake, armed with our integrity and grounded in our Baptism. We hear that voice, “You are my child. Our lives are bound up with each other.”
The donkey rider leads us into boardrooms and classrooms and prisons and kitchens and bedrooms where people with powerful words rip and tear at each other. He leads us to so many places, all named Golgotha, where the innocent are caught in deadly traps, where children and dreams die together in such numbers that we cannot even remember them for their sheer multitude. Those places become our places in this world, the places where we most truly belong.
What is this donkey rider going to do? He is going to cut off the chariot and the war horse and the battle bow. He is going to speak peace to the nations and through his blood bought covenant he is going to set us prisoners free from our waterless pit. He will restore us and make us prisoners of hope. Knowing the dungeon of our sin has been expunged by the donkey rider.
Our journey in following the donkey can be at times fearful and lonely. But we have been following since Advent when Isaiah bid us to rise up from our far-off exile and make a glorious return to Jerusalem on the King’s grand, new highway. The prophet promised that we would go out in joy and be led back in peace. The hills and mountains would burst into song and the trees would clap their hands in accompaniment.
So, when we find ourselves in the wilderness, we need to remember to sing. “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna!” The hills echo our songs. And the trees? Yes, they did applaud.
We are still singing today as we go into Jerusalem. We must follow the donkey because we are about to witness our salvation. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Jerusalem! The praise of our gentle King will carry us onward as we follow the donkey.
Amen.