Picture Fifth Avenue in Manhattan the stretch of road where the Macy's parade is held each Thanksgiving Day. Imagine that one spring day a kind of makeshift parade is being staged along upper Fifth Avenue near Central Park. But this is not the Macy's parade, not by a long shot. This is a relatively small affair: no floats, no ticker tape, no giant balloon figures floating down the street. It's just a crowd of people waving some tree branches and throwing their coats into the road. At the center of it all is a modest, average looking fellow astride a donkey's colt which actually is too small for him to ride with any kind of dignity.

But the members of the parade entourage are nothing if not jubilantly excited. Especially the kids are making a lot of noise, singing and shouting. The enthusiasm of this little crowd is enough eventually to attract some attention. The people standing on the plushly carpeted steps leading into the Plaza complex swivel their heads. The horses hooked up to Central Park carriages turn a lazy eye toward the parade even as the people in the carriages peer out past the canopy to see what the commotion is all about. Shoppers coming out of Saks Fifth Avenue and the Time Warner Center also start to glance around to discover the source of all the hubbub. And inevitably people begin to ask, "Who is that?" In reply the branch-waving, coat-tossing folks excitedly answer, "Who is this, you ask! Why, it's Joshua Jones, a preacher from North Platte in Nebraska!"

"Oh. So it's not Donald Trump? Not Tom Cruise or Katie Couric, not Bill Clinton? Joshua Jones from Nebraska? Oh. That's nice." But then eyes roll, eyebrows rise, and smirks are repressed as the big city folks go back to their big city business.

Granted that Jerusalem circa 30 A.D. was not New York City. Granted that maybe Jesus' name on that Sunday long ago was a little bit better known than the Joshua Jones in my analogy. Granted, and yet . . . there is something about Matthew 21 which bears resemblance to this allegorical story. "Who is that?" the Jerusalemites ask in verse 10. In verse 11 comes the reply: "Jesus, the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee."