When the kids in my high school Bible course read Mark’s account of that first Palm Sunday, they missed the miracle.
“Down in the next village,” Jesus told his men, “you’ll find a donkey’s colt nobody has ever ridden. Untie him and bring him to me.”
Unlike my city-bred students, God gave me a grandfather whose pastures and pens always quartered a gaggle of goats and lambs and calves and pigs. At some time in our growing up days my brothers and cousins and I tried to ride most of them.
Let me assure you that a six-year-old boy atop a six-month-old heifer is about as good a rodeo as you’ll ever want to witness.
Critters who’ve never been ridden by a human don’t normally take kindly to the idea, I had to explain to my students. Who never had been thrown halfway to heaven by a recalcitrant colt.
“Look at Jesus!” I urged those bright kids in my class.
“Watch him ride that borrowed donkey down
In these days before Palm Sun-day, I’ll say to you as I did to my students: “Don’t miss the miracle.”
The same Lord who so effortlessly controlled that colt can calm our hearts, quieting every unbridled fear, reining in our greed, and taming the animal impulses that so often threaten to un-do us.
Has your life been one long series of chaotic upheavals? The Lord who mastered that Palm Sunday donkey can bring order and peace to your world as well, if you let him.
But that’s the clue. If you let him. The Palm Sunday story in Chapter 11 of Mark’s Gospel is often called “The Triumphal Entry.” Jesus entered the holy city as it was rocked by the praises of thousands who welcomed him as the coming King.
But he never goes where he’s not welcome. His triumphal entry into our hearts can take place only when we say to him, “Bring your peace into my life, Lord Jesus. Come in.”