Palm Sunday – March 28, 2010
Luke 19:28 – 40
After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "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. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' say, 'The Lord needs it.' "
Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?"
They replied, "The Lord needs it."
They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!"
"Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!"
"I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."
In Mark 14:12 – 16 Jesus prepared to eat the Passover with his disciples. When they inquired about a place in which to eat the meal, Jesus instructed them to go into the city and follow a man carrying a jar of water. When the man entered a house, they were to find the owner of the house and simply say, “The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” After the owner showed them a large upper room, they were to prepare the feast.
The method was very cryptic and typical of Jesus.
Today’s text from Luke’s Gospel is equally cryptic, not in terms of finding a room in which to share the Passover, but about finding an animal for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem.
There are all sorts of unresolved questions in the text.
Would the owner of the colt be okay with Jesus using it?
How would the two disciples know if it had ever been ridden or not?
Would an “anyone” who asked about the behavior of the disciples really know who “the Lord” was who needed it?
It would be easy to get lost in these unresolved questions. In fact, many times our efforts at personal or group Bible study get stuck in the bogs of such issues. For some of us, our need-to-know is so hyper-developed that we can’t get beyond the questions and details. Yet in texts like these, we are given few answers.
What we are given is an image of Jesus who has a depth of spiritual attentiveness that others do not have. It is a part of who he is as the Son of Humanity (my language for the traditional “Son of Man” of the Bible), the human person of fully developed consciousness. Jesus is able to see what others cannot see because his filters for seeing are God’s filters. His own rational filters, emotional filters, and psychological filters have been so purified and are so translucent that he sees life, others, and the world as God sees.
One result of this spiritual attentiveness that resides in Jesus is that he knows things other people do not know. He knows beneath and around. His depth of knowing goes beyond those around him. It’s not that others could not know and see as he does if they wanted, but most of us aren’t willing to engage the difficult work of spiritual transformation that would allow us to see and know in different ways. What Jesus knows may be accessible to others, but they do not stretch their know-ers enough to engage them.
This spiritual intuition that resided in Jesus is also available to God’s people as a gift of the Holy Spirit. It may sound like some crazy religious practice, but in truth, God’s Spirit makes accessible to every one of us what is available in Jesus.
Contemplative guide Thomas Merton wrote: “In Christ, everything that is divine and supernatural becomes accessible on the human level to every person . . .” (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 150).
I believe Merton got it right.
After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "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. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' say, 'The Lord needs it.' "
Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?"
They replied, "The Lord needs it."
They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!"
"Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!"
"I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."
In Mark 14:12 – 16 Jesus prepared to eat the Passover with his disciples. When they inquired about a place in which to eat the meal, Jesus instructed them to go into the city and follow a man carrying a jar of water. When the man entered a house, they were to find the owner of the house and simply say, “The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” After the owner showed them a large upper room, they were to prepare the feast.
The method was very cryptic and typical of Jesus.
Today’s text from Luke’s Gospel is equally cryptic, not in terms of finding a room in which to share the Passover, but about finding an animal for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem.
There are all sorts of unresolved questions in the text.
Would the owner of the colt be okay with Jesus using it?
How would the two disciples know if it had ever been ridden or not?
Would an “anyone” who asked about the behavior of the disciples really know who “the Lord” was who needed it?
It would be easy to get lost in these unresolved questions. In fact, many times our efforts at personal or group Bible study get stuck in the bogs of such issues. For some of us, our need-to-know is so hyper-developed that we can’t get beyond the questions and details. Yet in texts like these, we are given few answers.
What we are given is an image of Jesus who has a depth of spiritual attentiveness that others do not have. It is a part of who he is as the Son of Humanity (my language for the traditional “Son of Man” of the Bible), the human person of fully developed consciousness. Jesus is able to see what others cannot see because his filters for seeing are God’s filters. His own rational filters, emotional filters, and psychological filters have been so purified and are so translucent that he sees life, others, and the world as God sees.
One result of this spiritual attentiveness that resides in Jesus is that he knows things other people do not know. He knows beneath and around. His depth of knowing goes beyond those around him. It’s not that others could not know and see as he does if they wanted, but most of us aren’t willing to engage the difficult work of spiritual transformation that would allow us to see and know in different ways. What Jesus knows may be accessible to others, but they do not stretch their know-ers enough to engage them.
This spiritual intuition that resided in Jesus is also available to God’s people as a gift of the Holy Spirit. It may sound like some crazy religious practice, but in truth, God’s Spirit makes accessible to every one of us what is available in Jesus.
Contemplative guide Thomas Merton wrote: “In Christ, everything that is divine and supernatural becomes accessible on the human level to every person . . .” (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 150).
I believe Merton got it right.
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