The King on a Donkey

Hosanna! The shout rolls down the hillside like a wave. Cloaks fly onto the road. Branches wave in the air. And in the middle of it all, riding slowly, is a man on a donkey.

It is springtime, and the Passover festival is almost here. Every road into Jerusalem is busy with pilgrims, whole families walking up from the villages to celebrate how God set his people free from Egypt long ago. Jesus and his disciples have been walking too, all the way from Galilee, through Jericho, and up the long climb toward the city. Now they reach the little village of Bethphage, on the Mount of Olives. From here, Jerusalem is just across the valley, its temple gleaming in the sun.

Jesus stops and sends two of his disciples ahead. “Go into the village in front of you. Straight away you will find a donkey tied up, and her colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, The Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.” The two disciples go. And everything is exactly as Jesus said. They bring the donkey and the colt, throw their cloaks over them, and Jesus sits on them.

Matthew wants us to notice something. Hundreds of years earlier, the prophet Zechariah had written about this moment. “Say to the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, gentle, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Kings usually rode into cities on great war horses, with soldiers marching behind them. Not this king. Jesus comes humbly, on an ordinary working animal. He is a king, but a king of peace.

And the crowd goes wild. A very large crowd spreads their cloaks on the road in front of him, like a carpet for royalty. Others cut branches from the trees and lay them down. John's Gospel tells us some were palm branches. People are walking ahead of him and following behind him, and they are all shouting. “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” The donkey's hooves clip along over the cloaks and leaves, down the hill and toward the city gate.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem, the whole city is stirred up. Matthew uses a word that means shaken, as if by an earthquake. People lean out of doorways and push through the streets. Everyone is asking, “Who is this?” And the crowds answer, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.” They have it partly right. In a few days, this same city will see who Jesus really is, in a way none of them expect.

The crowd's words weren't made up on the spot. They come from Psalm 118: “Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Hosanna comes from the Hebrew for “save us, please.” Psalm 118 is the last of a group of psalms, 113 to 118, known as the Hallel, meaning praise. The Mishnah, a collection of Jewish teaching written down around the year 200, describes the Hallel being sung at Passover. So these pilgrims were singing their festival songs, and turning them toward Jesus.

The King on a Donkey. You'll find it in Matthew chapter 21, verses 1 to 11. The whole city asked, Who is this? It is still the most important question anyone can ask. So here's the question to carry with you. Who do you say Jesus is?