Borrowed Burro Messiah
Beginning at the Mount of Olives, the place from where the prophet Zechariah promised God would send the Messiah to deliver the people of God from their enemies and occupiers, Jesus began his triumphant procession into the seat of the region’s political and religious power. Jesus had been making this journey, stopping in town after town along the way teaching, preaching, and revealing that in and through him the Kingdom of God was present. The disciples following along had been accustomed to seeing miracles and healings along the way but ever since Jesus faced toward Jerusalem to focus, Jesus’ focus has been the Kingdom of God.
Every year, around this time, Jerusalem would fill with Jewish pilgrims gathering for the Passover Festival. They would recall how they were once under the rule of a different empire and how God had sent someone to say them. Throughout the week shouts of, “Hosanna!” and, “Save us,” quoting Psalm 118 would be heard throughout the city. This created the potential for a flashpoint. In recalling how God delivered them from one conquering empire Israel worried their new conquerors, the Roman Empire, so much so that the Roman Governor of the region - Pontius Pilate - would flex the might and power of the empire by entering Jerusalem from his seaport home in the west, opposite the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives being the spot Zechariah had foretold the Messiah would gather his forces on, taking back Jerusalem, the spot where Jesus’ Palm Sunday journey began.
As Pilate and the Roman army assembled their gaudy yet unmistakable display of power for their entrance to Jerusalem Jesus had instructed his follower to prepare for their entrance into the city for the Passover Festival. Jesus told two disciples, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’”[1] These two disciples did as they were told and procured the underwhelming colt or donkey for Jesus to make his empire-overthrowing entrance into Jerusalem. Jesus had called the disciples away from the security of their families and paying jobs. As they followed him they had been witness to healings, feedings, miracles, and saw with their own eyes the power of the kingdom Jesus promised them. The church has as the disciples looked to the healings and miracles of Jesus ahead of his teachings which often leads us, like the disciples, looking to the power of the Kingdom of God, not expecting the final procession to be on the back of a borrowed burro.
This must not have been the beginning of the climatic ending to the story that the disciples envisioned. Teacher of preacher Thomas Long suspects that, though Mark does not explicitly name the two disciples assigned to donkey duty, the two disciples sent to procure Jesus’ barnyard chariot were James and John. You see, James and John, were the two disciples who had just a few hours earlier requested special seating in Jesus’ kingdom - at his right and left hand, in his glory.
Jesus is preparing for a confrontation with the principalities and powers of the world, a moment of vindication for his disciples for sure, and these two disciples in this mighty moment are not sent to find a warhorse and chariot or arming to fight alongside the soon-to-be conquering messiah. No, they are dispatched, perhaps being humbled along the way, to procure the most humble of transportation accommodations for Jesus.
Along their journey with Jesus, the disciples had been told exactly what the Kingdom of God would be like, and never once did Jesus detail or outline a kingdom that would be able to go toe-to-toe with the might of the Roman Empire. My mentor Bishop Will Willimon likes to point out that while many of the disciples expected that as the crowds grew and the teachings and preaching of Jesus took root, perhaps with the nudging of the Holy Spirit, that the powers of the world - Caesar - would recognize Jesus’ authority and yield to the Kingdom of God. But the triumphal procession that was to begin this reordering of the world began two disciples sent to wheel and deal with a local donkey dealer. A humble way for the Savior of the world to take his reign. Such is the Kingdom of God.
The Apostle Paul wrote to be a disciple of Jesus we, each of us like the original 12, should, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”[2] That is as Paul continues being like Jesus who, “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”[3]
The cross.
The cross is ultimately where the Palm Sunday procession leads. While the might and power of Pilate’s procession would lead to the seat of power, Jesus, the donkey riding Savior, would ultimately end up being put to death. Jesus, riding a borrowed colt, is making clear that he is not the Messianic king the crowds expected. There would be no violent overthrow of the Roman Empire. His disciples still, even after this parade did not get it, so much so that Peter would bring a sword with him to Gethsemane. Jesus, entering Jerusalem on a borrowed burro opposite Pilate and the might of Rome is the modern-day equivalent of borrowing a 1976 Ford Fiesta and entering DC opposite a Presidential motorcade entering the city from Joint Base Andrews. And yea, throughout the Gospels and affirmed by Saint Paul, this is exactly how God will upend the principalities and powers that stand opposite the Kingdom of God.
Paul continued in his letter to the Philippians, “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”[4] The Good News of the Gospel in three verses.
To be of the same mind as Christ, to build a life that does not fall into the fallacy of thinking six weeks Lenten of intentionality and introspection are enough for a lifetime of discipleship means that we are of the same mind as Jesus, as suggested by Saint Paul. And we see this clearly on Palm Sunday as Jesus is humble, obedient, and still to be exalted by God. Life as a disciple of Jesus begins as John the Baptist did and our two unnamed, potentially glory-seeking disciples continued - preparing the way. Preparing the way of the Lord.
Will Willimon likes to point out that we, disciples of Jesus are not the Messiah. Yeah, Will, duh. We are not even close and yet the mission and ministry of Jesus’ church rest in our hands. Two thousand years later we are the ones - with a little bit of help from the real presence of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit - sent to procure the money and prepare the way for the Messiah’s triumphant return. Preparing for that moment when the principalities and powers of this world will yield, bowing and acknowledging the reign of God in Christ.
As we enter Holy Week it will b the disciples who secure the room required by Jesus for the Last Supper. For generations, disciples have been doing the mundane, unremarkable tasks of the church. Tasks that often go overlooked - taking groceries to someone with health conditions to precarious to be out in a pandemic, calling someone in need of prayer, learning to use Zoom to teach Sunday school, I could go on - these things are not done for fanfare or glorification. These are the things that have got to be done to, like the disciples and John the Baptist, prepare the way of the Lord.
At its best, this is what we do - humbly, obediently preparing the way of the Lord so that the Lord may be exalted. And yet, when we miss the mark - asking for a seat at Jesus’ right or left hand, abandoning him as his arrested or fleeing to a nondescript room after his death - the tomb will still be empty and the Lord, Jesus, is still exalted.
