Beasts of Burden

We celebrated Palm Sunday a few days ago. As somewhat of a biblical nerd, there are interesting details in Matthew's story of Jesus' ride into Jerusalem. This same ride is told quite straightforwardly by Mark and Luke. But, unlike Mark and Luke, Matthew features an interesting scenario in which Jesus seemingly rides two animals simultaneously.

Matthew got this idea from a statement in the Jewish scriptures, "Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Mark and Luke correctly understand the mention of two animals as a form of Hebrew poetry known as parallelism. There aren't really two animals. The second line merely clarifies the meaning of the first. There's only one animal. But Matthew uses this poetry to create a striking image. 

Matthew has Jesus tell two of his disciples, "Go into the village and you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me." 

Matthew continues, "They brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat over them." Again, notice the plural. He sits "over them." Matthew deliberately literalizes the poetic parallelism to give us a picture of Jesus mounted astride two separate creatures. The first is a donkey, which was the kind of beast on which king Solomon rode to his coronation, as did all the kings of Israel after him. The second is, literally, "the son of a pack animal." It is a common beast of burden, whose life is lived serving people.

The story goes on to describe the lame and the blind coming to Jesus in the temple. To catch the significance of this, we need to know the story of King David's original royal ride into Jerusalem after the city had been taken from its occupants. King David rode majestically into Jerusalem not to serve its inhabitants but to order the murder of all the lame and the blind (2 Samuel 5:8). 

In contrast, Matthew makes the point that it was the lame and the blind who came to Jesus to be made whole when he arrived in the temple at the end of his ride. The two animals are a metaphor that point to greatness: Jesus is King David's royal son, known as the "greater David." He shows us what greatness really is.

In Lent we admit that it is easy to become a person who needs recognition and control, gets into a position of power, and then uses it to oppress others. In contrast, Jesus calls us to be a people who use greatness to serve humanity. 

How can we better use our "greatness," our power, our sphere of influence, our gifts, our talents, our treasure, our time to serve the Kingdom of God? 

We will have a beautiful opportunity to serve and be served on Maundy Thursday evening. It is my prayer that we find our greatness in humble service to one another, to the world, and in receiving the Bread of Life for our true sustenance.