Jesus decided to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. Normally, he would have walked, but this was no normal day. The excited Galilean pilgrims wanted to crown Jesus as their king; the frightened political elite of Jerusalem wanted to have him executed. It was important that he set the right tone in order to avoid a blood bath - so he decided to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey.
Christian art and iconography shows this event with Jesus sitting with regal dignity on his chosen mount. However, you may like to take a brief break from reading this, and do a Google image search of ‘man riding donkey’. You will quickly see that regal dignity is not the look that goes with donkey riding. Men riding donkeys, the world over, look somewhat ridiculous. The other thing that the Google search reveals is that, aside from tourists and comedians, donkey riding is generally the province of old men who - presumably - struggle to walk. The donkey is the mobility scooter of non-technical society.
Jesus decided to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. He knew it was important that he set the right tone as he entered the city, so he chose to look somewhat ridiculous; he chose to identify with the arthritic old men; he chose to look un-regal and un-dignified.
As Christians, we are committed to following Jesus as we make our way in a society that is highly image-conscious. So, from time to time, we need to remember to choose the donkey - to belittle ourselves - to make ourselves look somewhat ridiculous. This is the Jesus way.
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