Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it... John 12: 14
I don't know about you, but I find this image of Jesus slightly embarrassing. Jesus, our Lord and God, on a donkey.
In finding this a little unpalatable I am missing the point as much as anyone who expected Jesus to be some kind of war-lord, leading the people of Israel in a revolution against the Romans. I am missing the point because I fail, again, to see that God uses the weakest people in society as much or more than the strong, and that it is in our weakness that we are most able to be used by God.
In theory, weakness, or acceptance of weakness, should be what we celebrate as much as anything.
But do we not all swarm to strong characters and able people, like moths to a lamp?
Do we not all feel slightly uncomfortable around those who our society deems 'failures' or most 'troublesome' and 'unloveable'?
Have we still not realised just how much Jesus subverted and subverts everything that we laud and praise and celebrate in talent and strength and power by spending his time with those who were weakest and by refusing to fight aggressive power with aggressive power even as far as death?
I still don't think I have got it.
This Jesus, who we love and name 'Lord', was strong, but strong through weakness. This 'Lord' of ours processed into Jerusalem at the climax of his ministry on a laughable animal, and refused worldly power and fame on every level.
This Jesus shows us a way of being so radical that we with our hierarchical churches and power-hungry social structures, even after 2000 years of tradition and study, have barely even begun to scratch the surface of.
There is always so much more.
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