“Silent witness: a donkey”
Mark 11:2
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wasn’t Jewish like most of the other victims of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” He was Christian. Even more, he was a pastor and professor of theology. And he was about to be hanged. What he didn’t know was that the Allied forces were less than two weeks away from liberating the Flossenburg Concentration Camp, and that Germany itself would surrender within a month--too late to do him any good. The prison guards waited outside his cell.
Just a few years before, he had been one of the most well-respected pastors and theologians in the world and was invited to teach at Union Theological Seminary in New York. But he was German, and he felt as though he had betrayed his country by leaving Germany and coming to America. That’s why he caught the last ship to cross the Atlantic, resisted the Nazi regime, smuggled dozens of Jews out of Germany, and joined in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.
So what does a man who is about to face death look like? How does he carry his worry and anguish?
A doctor from the camp wrote of what he saw: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer kneeling on the floor and praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God had heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer, then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”
Today we celebrate Palm Sunday, the day on which Jesus triumphantly rode into Jerusalem, the day that marks the beginning of the most important week in all of history. On Thursday, He’ll join in a Last Supper with His disciples, He’ll fall face down to the ground in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and sweat great drops of blood, and Judas will betray Him with a kiss. And on Friday, He’ll stand in judgment before Annas and Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate. And He will be crucified.
And while we today celebrate Palm Sunday with special hymns and songs, the first Palm Sunday was a much more traumatic event than we can even begin to imagine, for that first Palm Sunday was a day that many hoped for, and a day that many prayed would never come.
Those who prayed it would never come were people like Annas and Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate. They didn’t want to see it because it meant an end to them and a beginning for Jesus Christ. To them, it was another feared Jewish rebellion, another squabble the Romans would soon crush. They had done it before. They would do it again.
And those who hoped for a day like this were common people like you and me. They were tired of the Romans with their endless, godless bureaucracy and taxation. And they desperately wanted to be free.
But when Messiah comes, they prayed, God will bless our families and fields with prosperity and peace. All war and hostility will cease. And all our exiles will at last come home.
Then came Jesus Christ, Who, it seemed could make all their dreams come true. He fed thousands with fish and bread. He healed the sick. He opened the eyes of the blind. He raised the dead. And now, all that was left, was to proclaim Him Savior and King.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus had avoided every opportunity like this. In the book of Matthew, He said to a leper, “See that you don’t tell anyone.” He said to two blind men, “See that no one knows about this.” He warned a group of believers to tell no one who He was. And He told His disciples to not tell anyone that He was the Christ.
But now this. Now it’s Palm Sunday. And He welcomes their cries of anticipation and joy.
Historians tell us that, in Bible times, Jerusalem’s population was typically some eighty thousand people. But at Passover time, it could swell to over two million, thronging the streets and hillsides of Jerusalem. Pilgrims, visitors and travelers of all kinds from all across the country came to share in the feast. And quickly the rumor spread throughout the city: “Jesus is coming!”
And with a few short commands, it all began. Mark chapter 11: “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately’” (Mark 11:2-3).
Strange words to come from Jesus’ lips: “The Lord needs it.” Jesus doesn’t need anything, for as Paul wrote to the Colossians, all things in heaven and on earth are His, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. He wrote to the Philippians that, even though He’s God, He became Man and made Himself nothing. He is our “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.”
So why did He say, “The Lord needs it”?
He said, “The Lord needs it,” to fulfill the words of Zechariah written five hundred years before: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, one a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
He said, “The Lord needs it,” to remind us that His kingdom was not of this world. Though He could have ridden a horse, bearing the weapons of war, instead, He rode a donkey to proclaim His kingdom of peace.
And He said, “The Lord needs it,” to show that His enemies were not Annas or Caiaphas, Herod or Pilate. His enemies were the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh. That’s why He said, “The Lord needs it.”
And who attended Him that day? He could have summoned legions of angels, cherubim and seraphim, and all the hosts of heaven. Every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth should bow before Him. Instead, He said, “Find a colt, untie it and bring it here.”
So the scene began--a Savior riding a donkey, to die for all the sins of all the world.
Early in the twentieth century, a hundred years ago, English writer, speaker, and Christian apologist, G. K. Chesterton, wrote about that donkey. This is what he said: “When fishes flew and forests walked/And figs grew upon thorn,/Some moment when the moon was blood/Then surely I was born./With monstrous head and sickening cry/And ears like errant wings,/The devil’s walking parody/On all four-footed things./The tattered outlaw of the earth,/Of ancient crooked will;/Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb/I keep my secret still./Fools! For I also had my hour;/One far fierce hour and sweet:/There was a shout about my ears,/And palms before my feet.”
As another author put it: “King Jesus, why did You choose a lowly donkey to carry You to ride in Your parade? Had You no friend who owned a horse--a royal mount with spirit for a king to ride? Why choose a donkey, a small, unassuming beast of burden trained to plow, not carry kings? And King Jesus why did you choose me, a lowly, unimportant person to bear You in my world today? I’m poor and unimportant, trained to work, not carry kings--let alone the King of kings. Yet You’ve chosen me to carry You in triumph in this world’s parade.
“King Jesus, keep me small, so all may see how great You are. Keep me humble, so all may say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
Today, art critics consider Rembrandt to be one of the greatest painters and printmakers in the history of European art. But the year was 1633 and, at the age of 27, he was only beginning to become a master at his art.
And in a work he painted that year, a depiction he called, The Raising of the Cross, you see at the center Christ’s body extended, stretched out, His hands and feet nailed to the wood. His body is basked in light. Beneath Him, to His left and right, there’s a crowd of people, hands outstretched, gawking and crying, as they see Jesus dying for the sins of the world. And at the very foot of the cross, helping to raise the cross, wearing a blue painter’s beret on his head.
Who is it? It’s Rembrandt. It’s a self-portrait. It’s the artist himself, standing at the foot of the cross.
As you consider the events of Holy Week, as you go from the joy of Palm Sunday to the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane and to the agony of Good Friday, remember to put yourself into that picture, because it happened because of you. It happened for you.
And ask that same question that Pilate once asked: “What shall I do with Jesus Who is called Christ?”
What will you do? Will you wash your hands of Him, or will you rest on Him as your Savior and Lord?
Take your place beside the centurion and cry out with him, “Surely this Man was the Son of God.” Then remember Easter and its open tomb, and the meaning it has for your life now and for the life to come, and say with Thomas: “Surely He is my Lord and my God.”
One more thing. It all began at Cornell Middle School in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. It’s where a security guard named Thomas Hose began to talk to and become friendly with one of its students, a fourteen year-old girl named, Tanya Kach. Within just a short time, the two grew so close that he sometimes took her out of class, just to talk. Then later, as their relationship grew even stronger, he convinced her to run away from home, and come to live with him. So in February of 1996, she left her family, to move in with him.
At first, she lived in a second story bedroom, because Hose was living downstairs with his parents and son. And for the next four years, he locked her in that bedroom, and never let her leave the house. And he gave her a new name. He called her, “Nikki Allen.” After all, he said, her family didn’t love her, they didn’t even want her, and that he was the only one who truly cared for her.
Then for the next six years, since he believed she was sufficiently brainwashed, he occasionally let her leave the house with the promise that she’d return home soon.
Finally in March of 2006, after being held prisoner for ten years(!), she gathered up enough courage to tell a local grocery store owner her story, and asked him to send police to her house.
When she was finally reunited with her family, she demanded to know why her father didn’t want her, or least even try to find her. But he explained that he had never stopped looking for her, and that he never gave up hope that he would someday see her again.
For a long time, we too have believed the lies of the Enemy that God doesn’t want us or even care about us. We can hardly imagine the truth of God’s love.
But you have a kingdom purpose. You are part of God’s plan. And if God can use even one of His most humble and lowly creatures--a donkey--for His great glory, just imagine what He can do with you.
Dear Father, in the triumph of Palm Sunday overshadowed by impending tragedy, Jesus rode a donkey. In royal beauty and in gory shame, He came to save His people. Grant that we may honor Him as Lord, Savior and King, for His sake. Amen