Our Gospel reading describes Jesus’ Triumphal entry into Jerusalem - which happened at the beginning of one of the most momentous weeks in Antiquity – in AD 29.
And as you walk towards Walsingham this Holy Week, you will have a lot of time to think about Holy Week
And so I would like to suggest to you that the key to understanding the events of Holy Week can be found in the ownership of the donkey
Let me explain
Jesus told his disciples to go into the next village, Bethphage and he said:
30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”
32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.”
This was a well planned clandestine operation.
Why?
St Luke gives us a clue when he says that the donkey had owners (plural).
So the owners had to be poor.
And given that they were poor, the donkey would have had to be a sizeable investment for each owner.
So have you ever wondered WHY the owners would have parted with the donkey to complete strangers - the disciples.
Would you part with your car if someone came up and asked you?
The disciples were obviously strangers to the donkey’s owners – otherwise Jesus would have simply told them to go and get the donkey from “Fred Bloggs” or the Jewish equivalent
However these complete strangers let their donkey go when the disciples said: “The Lord needs it."
Notice the owners didn’t ask “Who is your Lord”
Why - because it seems to me that it was a pre-arranged codeword.
Jesus has put a lot of meticulous planning into this event.
I think he had to do this because his enemies were no fools.
If they had realised that Jesus was going to Jerusalem to fulfil Zechariah's prophecy –written about four centuries earlier - that one day the true King would come on a young donkey - they would have confiscated or killed the donkey!
Jesus planned Holy Week very carefully.
We see the clandestine nature of Holy Week a second time in the preparation for the Last Supper in Luke 21
7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
9 “Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.
10 He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, 11 and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 12 He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”
13 They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
Jesus didn’t want his enemies to disturb him , - remember Judas was still about - so we see the sort of planning MI5 would have been proud of.
Jesus knew what lay ahead of him – and he wanted to do his Father’s will not his own.
The Jews were looking forward to an all conquering hero – Messiah – a 1st Century “Superman” to throw the Romans out.and re-establishing Jewish sovereignty.
Indeed that was probably one of the reasons that the crowds turned out hoping that at last the Romans would be booted out
Indeed this might well have been part of Judas Iscariot’s motivation when he betrayed Jesus.
Yet Jesus challenged the folk religion of his day and eventually the crowds turned on him
The scandal of Holy Week for many is this.
Jesus - God in human form - didn’t come as a King in the way we would expect a king to come.
He came as a servant – a suffering servant.
He came to take away the sin of his people. His death on the Cross was to make atonement for our sins.
And the simplicity of the Gospel is this. That we don’t have to jump though hoops to please God.
Ours is not a faith of works. St. John puts the simplicity of the Gospel like this:
12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
Conclusion:
May I conclude with the words of Pope Benedict himself in his homily last Sunday in St Peter’s Square when he said this
But what are we really doing when we join this procession as part of the throng which went up with Jesus to Jerusalem and hailed him as King of Israel?
Is this anything more than a ritual, a quaint custom?
Does it have anything to do with the reality of our life and our world?
To answer this, we must first be clear about what Jesus himself wished to do and actually did.
After Peter’s confession of faith in Caesarea Philippi, in the northernmost part of the Holy Land, Jesus set out as a pilgrim towards Jerusalem for the feast of Passover.
He was journeying towards the Temple in the Holy City, towards that place which for Israel ensured (in a particular way) God’s closeness to his people.
He was making his way towards the common feast of Passover, the memorial of Israel’s liberation from Egypt and the sign of its hope of definitive liberation.
He knew that what awaited him was a new Passover and that he himself would take the place of the sacrificial lambs by offering himself on the cross.
He knew that in the mysterious gifts of bread and wine he would give himself for ever to his own, and that he would open to them the door to a new path of liberation, to fellowship with the living God.
He was making his way to the heights of the Cross, to the moment of self-giving love.
The ultimate goal of his pilgrimage was the heights of God himself; to those heights he wanted to lift every human being
Let us use the time we have in Holy Week to reflect on what it cost Jesus to go to the Cross for our sakes – let us celebrate and give thanks that we are children born of God.
For the events in that first Holy Week in AD 29 wasn’t just an unfortunate chance. It was a well planned event in the plans of almightly God
The ownership of the donkey shows us that
Amen.
