We don’t usually think of God or Christ needing anything, but “The Lord needs it” were the words Jesus used to explain his disciples taking the colt for Palm Sunday.
Here’s a transcript:
Holy Week begins this Sunday. If that seems awfully early to you, well, that’s because it is. I’m thinking about the eleventh chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 11:1-11), his account of the events of Palm Sunday.
I’m sure you know the basic outline. Jesus sent some of his disciples to find him a colt to ride before entering Jerusalem. They found it. He mounted it. As he rode up into the city people came out and spread cloaks and green branches they cut in the fields across the road in the way, and they shouted and cheered, “Hosanna to the son of David.”
Mark’s version ends a little anticlimactically. After Jesus had arrived in the city he looked around for a little bit, and then left.
It’s not the end of the story, however, but the beginning that intrigues me this year. When Jesus’ disciples were asked to go find that colt they said, “What do we tell people if they ask us why we’re taking the colt?” And Jesus said, “Just tell them that the Lord needs it.”
Now “Lord” has a number of layers of meaning in the first century, but we tend to use it (and it was used then) to refer to, well, to God and to Jesus. That this implied a divine authority. And we’re not used to thinking of the Divine as needing anything. Indeed, theologically we maintain that God does not need. God gives.
But that’s not the way they thought of the Divine in the first century and it’s not necessarily the way that we should entirely understand our relationship with God. Maybe not in terms of need, but maybe in terms of being full participants in a relationship. It’s not a real relationship if one person is always receiving and another is always giving; that’s not how things work. And to expect it to be that way between us and God is to essentially leave ourselves entirely irresponsible.
I don’t think God wants us to be irresponsible. I think God wants us to be, if not equal partners, at least partners in the relationship that we have with the Holy Trinity, with the Holy Spirit, with the Creator and especially with our Redeemer.
“The Lord needs it.”
The Lord needed a colt on that Sunday morning. The Lord needs us to be a part of the healing of the world. The Lord needs us to be a part of making the things that are not so good better. The Lord needs us to resist the evils of the world. The Lord needs us, maybe not to lean upon, but to carry some of the burden. Because otherwise we are mere automatons, robots carrying out the programming of our Maker.
Instead, God made us with the ability to choose, to choose poorly and to choose well. Choose well and be a part of God’s salvation.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
