"LO YOUR KING COMES TO YOU. TRIUMPHANT AND VICTORIOUS IS HE, HUMBLE AND RIDING ON AN ASS, ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF AN ASS."
Surely one sign of the lack of perceptiveness of us humans is sometimes we don’t know when we are being ridiculed, laughed at, satirized, made fun of. I remember when we arrived in Japan for the occupation years ago, the missionary’s son who was our regimental interpreter, told me to watch how the Japanese people greeted me. If they would bow and say "Koneechiwa Gozaimas" they were indicating that I was a very honorable person. If they bowed twice, they were indicating that I was a very, very honorable person, but if they bowed three times, they were making fun of me. They were indicating that I thought that I was more honorable than I really was. This is one of the great thrusts of Holy Scripture that we fail to recognize. We don’t see when Almighty God is making fun of us. We can’t seem to understand when God is laughing at us. The Word warns us: "He who sits in the Heavens shall laugh. He shall hold you in derision." But when it happens, we don’t catch it at all. We don’t get it. We don’t understand the satire.
Why do you think God allowed his only-begotten Son to be born in a livery stable? Why was he born in a one-horse town that was the least of Judah? Oh, yes, He was born the Son of a son of David, but that son was only a carpenter, and he certainly wasn’t on any social register. Why do you think that his disciples were all peasants? Why did Jesus pal around with the cheating tax gatherers and with the other outcasts of the society? Why did he walk through hated Samaria and associate with people from that half-breed, heretical race? And now why, again, this Palm Sunday procession?
Oh, don’t you see? God is laughing at us. He is satirizing our own behavior. "Triumphal entry" you call it? Nothing could be further from the truth. Could anything be more stupid and clumsy looking than an unbroken ass’ colt? The sophisticated people of Jerusalem looked down their aristocratic noses from the cool shadows of their balconies to see what all the shouting was about, and all they saw was a motley mob of hicks from the sticks waving palm branches and the very clothes off their own backs. Quite a show! Just about as exciting as a couple of dozen hippies engaged in a march on Washington, and I’m sure that it caused just about the same amount of stir in the City of Jerusalem.
Never did a story build up to a bigger letdown. The palm wavers obviously thought that Christ was riding in to take over the government of the Jews. The Kingdom had come at last! And here they were right in the front pew! They watched him as he stopped the procession and went into the Temple, and when he was inside, they waited breathlessly for some cataclysmic sign from Heaven. And what happened? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! In fact, even the Gospel writers couldn’t quite get the flat taste of it out of their mouths. Mark ends his account by saying: "He went into the Temple, and when He'd looked around at everything, the hour already being late, He went out again." Period! That’s it!
Don’t you see, beloved, God is making fun of us? He’s satirizing all of our triumphal entries. He’s paradying all of our parades. He’s laughing at all of our strutting, preening, prideful pomp and circumstance. He’s saying: "This is the kind of thing you enjoy, my children." And what does it all come to? Nothing! You have forgotten one important word in your ancient prophecy of Zechariah that you now see being fulfilled. You have forgotten the one important word, "Behold, your King comes to you humble," - HUMBLE - "and sitting on an ass’s colt."