For six weeks, we have been braving the wilderness. We

began on a Wednesday night in this space with ashes

smeared on our foreheads and a hard truth spoken.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

We’ve faced the temptations. We’ve encountered the

doubts, the fears, and the despair that threaten, always

threaten, to overtake us and overwhelm our faith.

We’ve chosen the path of vulnerability—confessing our

weakness and trusting in God’s mercy. We have learned

that the wilderness is not a hospitable home. It has

taken courage to walk this road.

But today. Today feels different. Put away the ashes and

bring out the branches. Strike up the band. Cue the

parade. It must be Palm Sunday. And we have earned it!

We’ve earned this day of celebration, this summons to

sing sweet hosannas.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, and we follow him there.

He enters the city at the start of Passover, the streets

pulsing, packed with visitors, all in town for the festival. A

crowd gathers when they hear that Jesus himself is on his

way into the city through the eastern gate. They line the

roadside. They roll out the green carpet. They wave their

palms, and they shout words they know by heart. Words

they learned as children. Words of sacred scripture:

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Look at you, Jesus! They call him king, and it is not the

first time. Earlier, after Jesus feeds five thousand hungry

bodies with five loaves and two fish, John’s gospel

records a perplexing moment. It we paid attention,

our minds return to that moment this morning. The

awestruck crowd chases Jesus down, and John writes,

“When Jesus realized that they were about to take

him by force and make him king, he withdrew to the

mountain by himself.” Jesus deflects the attention and

retreats to the mountains.

And the scene in the streets of Jerusalem this morning

has that same dynamic. It is so crowded that we might

be surprised by the gospel writer’s singling out a

seemingly minor detail. As the multitudes clamor again

to coronate Jesus, John shifts his focus from the parade

and the palms to a pack animal, a beast of burden. This

moment, it seems, is not about the festival or the crowd.

It is a day for donkeys.

Quietly, Jesus slips away to find a young donkey. He

awkwardly climbs onto its back. In case we were

unaware, John reminds us that this is how the prophet

Zechariah had predicted the Messiah would come:

“triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on

a donkey.”

John then tells us that the disciples did not understand

these things. Who could? Not now. It was only later that

they realized the meaning. Your king is coming—humble

and riding on a donkey.

What did it mean? What was Jesus claiming with

this deliberate decision, this provocative action, this

retreating from the clamor of the crowd to find a donkey?

The crowds at the Passover festival thought they knew

what he was doing, that an uprising had begun. When

they saw Jesus enter the eastern gate, they thought

they had found their knight in shining armor. Their longawaited Messiah. An even more powerful version of

King David. Conquering hero.

The word they shout is the same one you’ve been

singing this morning: Hosanna. It is a Hebrew

expression. Save us. Save us.

That is what they cried, and it is what they hoped.

Save us. Wrestle the throne away from the puppet king

Herod Antipas. Take on Emperor Tiberius. Establish

your kingdom on earth. Save us, Jesus! Save us. They

want the parade to shift to righteous insurrection. They

are convinced Jesus is with them. They’ve been in the

wilderness so long, but today…today feels different.

Today, victory is ours. Power is ours.

Imagine the scene as it could have unfolded. Jesus

rides to the palace where he and the masses following

him take control by force. A little bloodshed maybe, but

then it’s all in the name of victory. It is the way we might

write the scene. If we’re honest, even now, it is what

we hope. It was the great preacher Fred Craddock who

suggested, “Many people are obsessed with the second

coming [of Christ] because, deep down, they were

disappointed with the first one.”

Save us! And do it our way. We are all prone to this kind

of projection. We assume we can know who God is by

looking at ourselves and then making it all bigger. By

looking at ourselves and making our qualities stronger

and more powerful. We are vengeful, so God is vengeful.

We want to destroy our enemies, so God wants to destroy

our enemies. What we are tempted to see today is the

powerful king come to take power back…and give it us.

But here’s the truth. We cannot be saved by a God who

is just like us only bigger, with more lightning bolts and

warrior angels.

No, violence in the streets is not how this parade will

end. If we want to know who God is, we must look not at

ourselves but at Jesus.

The king is riding a donkey. And the donkey is the point.

Of course, the disciples did not understand, and the

truth is, many still don’t. There is a tragic irony in the

attempt of some in our time to mix state power with

Christian faith. It is blasphemy. I’ve heard pastors who

have been denounced by members of their churches

for speaking of love for enemies or the virtue of humility.

Never mind that these lessons are drawn explicitly from

the life of Jesus.

These pastors are told that such messages have no

place in this moment. That today, Christians must be

prepared to fight, to take over political and cultural

institutions, to exclude others and consolidate power.

Jesus, ride that donkey right into the palace and take the

throne. Sacrifice and servanthood are no longer options.

Not now. We need that throne. We need the kingdom, the

power, and the glory for us.

But what if the donkey is the point? What if the kids who

describe this Sunday as “Donkey Day” are exactly right?

They tried to take him and make him king by force.

He retreated to the mountain. They called him king;

he found a donkey. You see, it is a parody of the grand

procession of the emperor. The parade is a parable.

The starring role belongs to the humble donkey, often

disregarded and mocked.

I love Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Poet Thinks about the

Donkey.” She writes,

On the outskirts of Jerusalem

the donkey waited.

Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,

he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow, leap with delight!

How doves, released from their cages, clatter away, splashed

with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.

Then he let himself be led away.

Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!

And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.

Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.

I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,

as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

Where does true power lie? Who will rescue us? Who

will save us from ourselves? These are the questions

that confront us this Palm Sunday, and they will be our

constant companions throughout the week ahead. Dare

I say for months to come?

As we travel beyond the beauty of this Palm Sunday to

crueler days of struggle this week, we will meet the true,

saving power of Jesus. We will meet it in unexpected

places previously reserved for grief and punishment.

Today, that place is the back of a donkey. Oh, there will

be violence this week, but it will not be righteous. There

will be displays of brute force, but they will not bear

witness to God’s will. Soon we turn to stories of suffering

caused by those who worship power, and we should pay

attention. We should pray for courage.

The crowd wants to crown Jesus, but he knows a deeper

power at work—a love so strong it needs no army, no

stockpile of weapons, no appeals to violence. If you

want to see God’s power this week, you will have to

climb a hill called Calvary. If you want to know the power

of God, you will have to stare up at the image of God’s

Son hanging from an old rugged cross. You will have to

hear him forgive the very ones who crucify him. That is

where power lies. Nothing else can save us.

The disciples did not understand, not until later, and I

find hope in that. They needed the whole story. So do

not try to understand it all today. Go ahead. Join the

procession. Wave the palms. Clear the way for the one

whose power redefines what the word means. But for

God’s sake, keep your eyes on Jesus.

He’s riding a little donkey into the holy city. And the

donkey is the point. Ride on, King Jesus. Ride on in your

majesty and in your humility. Overturn our expectations.

Change our hearts. Save us. Save us. Save us. Amen.