March 24, 2024
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Mark 11:1-11
On its face, this story in Mark’s Gospel is about Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. We’ve got the crowds shouting, “Hosanna!” which means “Save us!” we’ve got the humble animal, we’ve got greenery spread over the road, we’ve got a quote from Psalm 118 “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD,” and we’ve got the Messianic reference to King David.
Curious, isn’t it, that Mark spent more time on the colt than on the parade? As Carl Gregg observes in his blog on Patheos, “Mark spends more than half of those eleven verses detailing the odd procurement of Jesus’ donkey.” By my count, Mark gave seven verses to the colt and three to the parade. And one verse to going back to Bethany.
Mark, who never used two words when he could use one, spent a lot of words calling our attention to that donkey.
It’s true that the donkey was another Biblical allusion, this time to the prophet Zechariah, who wrote,
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
(Zechariah 9:9)
Zechariah was a prophet active as the exile was ending and after it had ended. He encouraged the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, since Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed decades before. With Jerusalem’s fall the House of David had also lost its monarchical power. Zechariah promised that the ancient line of kings would be restored.
When Jesus decided to ride a colt or a donkey that day, he knew some people would recognize the reference to Zechariah and see a declaration that the new king, the Messiah, had come.
Let’s be frank, however. It’s likely that very few got the reference. How many of you are that familiar with Zechariah? It was probably much worse in the first century when most people simply couldn’t read. The Romans wouldn’t have recognized it; I’m pretty sure they didn’t spend a lot of time with Jewish religious writing. But the religious leaders of the city, the scholars, at least some of the priests?
Oh, they got it.
Well, maybe one or two.
Amanda Brobst-Renaud writes at Working Preacher, “So often, we read the Bible as if everything is by necessity and design. Most of us do not expect to laugh, nor to be delighted. But this scene is hilarious! Jesus instructs his disciples to steal a colt. It may be effective to cast the story in modern terms to gain a sense of what is happening: ’Go into the city, and you will find there a car with the keys in the ignition. Bring it here. If anyone questions you, tell them “The Lord needs it, and we’ll bring it back right away, we promise.”’”
Because yeah. That’s gonna work.
But it did work. That’s the confusing part, and that’s the part Mark insisted that we linger with. “The Lord needs it” doesn’t sound like much of a reason to us. “Oh, you speak for the Lord, do you?” We wouldn’t accept that for a moment.
In the first century, there’s a possibility that the owners, or the neighbors (Mark didn’t make it clear who those bystanders were), thought that the pair of Jesus’ disciples were talking about, well, somebody important. Somebody official. Somebody they would have knelt to and called, “Lord.” In the vicinity of Jerusalem that could have happened a lot. Nobles, priests, Roman officials, Roman army officers, Roman soldiers: Any of these could pass through on the road from Bethany to Jerusalem at any time of day. Any of them might look at the steep road down the hill and then back up the hill into the city and think, “It’s time for something else to walk for me. Get me a steed.”
“The Lord needs it.” “Yes, Lord!”
But would Jesus’ disciples have looked like the retainers of a Roman or a noble or a priest?
That seems… unlikely.
“The Lord needs it.” “Oh. Well. OK. I’m sure it’s fine then. If you bring it right back.”
“The Lord needs it.”
It shouldn’t have worked, but it worked. But I’m also wondering… why did Jesus need it? This is the only time in the gospel accounts where Jesus, or anybody else, rode anything. When Jesus moved about, he walked. In fact, he made the same trip from Bethany to Jerusalem and back on his own feet the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Yes, Jesus needed the colt to match the vision of Zechariah, but let’s face it, there were plenty of prophecies Jesus didn’t fulfill. If Jesus wanted to provoke the religious authorities of Jerusalem that was a good way, but it took days of debate and argument to scare them enough to seek his life.
“The Lord needs it.”
We do not usually consider that Jesus needed anything. Jesus doesn’t need anything now. Christian theology has definitely evolved to a point of view that says God is self-sufficient.
But what does God want?
It’s bigger than obedience. If God wanted obedience there are better ways that what God has been doing. God could have made us to be incapable of mistakes, or of resistance, or of sin. Instead, God made us capable of choice.
God could have engaged with us as a constantly present judge, one like our mother who was always over our shoulder when we were young saying, “No, you can’t do that.” Weren’t we all grateful when our parents stopped doing that? And weren’t we who’ve been parents or caretakers for children when they grew to a point where we were willing to stop doing that?
God could have set up a set of consequences for sin and error that would entirely prevent us from trespass. When my children were young, they would do things that we thought were bad for them or for others, behaviors we wanted to prevent. The trick was to make the cost of doing those things higher than they were willing to pay. Do the thing I don’t want you to do? I take away a thing you want for a while.
As they grew, they’d get to a point where they’d decide, “Ok. I’ll pay that price.” So we had to change the consequence. They were always just ahead of us, as I’m sure you can imagine.
God could keep the prices for us at a level that we would never be willing to pay.
But God didn’t. Hasn’t. Doesn’t.
What does God want?
I think that God wants a real relationship with us. We’re made in the image of God, says Genesis. Is that a coincidence? Wouldn’t a deity eager for relationship create living beings that bear some resemblance? Wouldn’t that deity risk disappointment and even betrayal for honesty and trust?
“The Lord needs it.”
These few words open up something about the relationship between God and human beings that made the Incarnation almost inevitable. Throughout the centuries the Scriptures record God’s efforts not just to make us straighten up and fly right, but to think beyond ourselves, to consider the needs of others, to extend our compassion beyond our smallest circles. To put in the front of our minds, “My neighbor needs it.”
When Jesus needed the colt, he needed to show that the people of Israel did not need another monarch in the style of the ancient warriors. Jesus’ neighbors did not need another war, another rebellion, another head beneath a crown. Tragically, they got it about forty years later. Tragically, human beings still choose war and violence when they might ride humbly on a donkey.
“The Lord needs it.”
The Lord needs partners in the quest for peace. The Lord needs partners in compassion for the poor. The Lord needs partners in the feeding of the hungry, the sheltering of the homeless, the healing of the sick. The Lord needs partners in the forgiving of the sinners, the comforting of the grieving, the inspiring of the hopeless. The Lord needs partners who are willing to carry some of the load through the confusion of the cheering crowds and across roads strewn with greens.
The Lord needs us to do our part.
Mark – and Matthew, Luke, and John – utterly failed to report whether the animal made it back home. We’ll have to assume that Jesus’ disciples kept Jesus’ promise. Jesus’ disciples haven’t always kept Jesus’ promises, I fear, but I have hope for this one.
Can we fulfill Jesus’ promises? Can we fulfill Jesus’ command to love one another, and to love those around us?
Can we be the ones Jesus needs to take on our burden and carry it faithfully until we can lay it down?
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches. Sometimes it’s intentional. Sometimes it isn’t.
The image is Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem by Wilhelm Morgner – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=155912.
