A Triumph of Palms

I mean, really there's a number of options when it comes to entering a city as a king.

You can drive in in glory, with everybody awed by your magnificence and worshipping the ground you walk on. This seems to have been the story that Vladimir Putin and the Russian army swallowed with regards to Ukraine.

Or, if that doesn't work, you can maybe go to option 2 - marching into a cowed and wrecked city with people fearing your presence.

Jesus chooses neither. He takes a donkey - not a war horse. You may remember how Princess Fiona in Shrek thinks that Donkey is a mighty steed - until she notices that Shrek is an ogre. Donkeys are beasts of burden, hard to deal with, and more your middle-class Judean transport, perhaps.

With a side-order of prophecy, from Zech 9:9 -  "Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

And here is that king. No armour. No arms. No captives being brought in for slaughter or sacrifice.  A strange and peaceful triumph - of palms, not armed might. A dusty army of dreamers. And their King of Peace. Being welcomed as if he's the one to free Jerusalem.

Which he is, of course. Just not the way anyone is expecting.

I was discussing this week the ever-pressing question of Safeguarding. And reflecting that one thing that put and puts men in power in the position to abuse is a system that encourages deference. That pumps up the bloke up the front. And puts him on a box that says, isn't he great. That says Father - or else the bloke wearing the poshest suit - is always right. That puts people beyond challenge.

Well, here's the model for leadership. Vulnerable - anyone can take him out anytime they like. When he sat round a table he was surrounded by his friends. Not up one end for fear of Judas.

Approachable - anyone can reach out and touch him. Nobody is too small, too poor, or two mired in misbehaviour for him.

He sat and ate with the leaders. Herod wanted to see him. But he turned all that round. Went to Jerusalem. Turned his face to the cross. And died with criminals.

Our God is still hope for the poor today. Even after nearly 2,000 years of the Church using power to reach them, not love.

But the love of God is shown in the face of a man on a donkey. Going into the city in expectation of battle. But a battle nobody expected, against the enemy nobody dreamed would be fought, and which would look a lot like a defeat before a victory was discovered.