Connecting With God: Untie Your Colt

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Steve Lindsley
(Mark 11: 1-11)

Our scripture today – and this very day itself – is all about a parade.  A big huge parade, complete with a guest of honor, a dozen grand marshals, and an adoring crowd waving greenery and shouting acclamation and praise.  They line the streets with their cloaks and cause such a ruckus that the powers-that-be take notice.  Which very well may have been the whole point.  This is Palm Sunday for us.

Or it would be in more normal times – and we are most certainly not in that.  If you’re finding it a little hard to connect with Palm Sunday this year, you are not the only one.  I mean, the videos you sent of everyone waving greenery were great, thanks for that.  But there’s no denying that this Palm Sunday is not a normal Palm Sunday. Just the very idea of a large public gathering feels distant to us, detached from us.  Maybe even a little unfair.  It goes without saying that this gathering at the gates of Jerusalem would’ve totally violated any stay-at-home order.  There is zero chance that the crowd that day was observing good social distancing or washing their hands or wearing face coverings.

Over the past three weeks, we have witnessed large public gathering after large public gathering canceled or postponed with surgical precision.  The NBA and NHL and MLS seasons – canceled. Conference basketball tournaments – canceled. The Olympics – postponed.  Concerts and weddings and funerals and birthday parties and of course church.  A month ago it would’ve seemed unthinkable that we would be living in a world where such staples of human society would not exist.  And yet, here we are.

So in a sense, it might seem pointless to do a deep-dive into Palm Sunday, given that it is so removed from our current circumstances.  How can we hope to do justice to a holy gathering if we are not able to even gather ourselves?

But this is where Mark’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem throws us a little bit of an assist.  All four gospels cover this story but in their own unique way, as the gospels do.  And the way that Mark tells things is notable, and perhaps even providential; because as strange as it may sound, the focus is not really on the parade itself.  Check it out for yourself.  There are eleven verses in Mark’s account of Palm Sunday, but only three of those verses – the last three – have anything to do with the actual procession.  Here they are again:

Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!’  Then Jesus entered Jerusalem.

And that’s it.  Three verses.  Whereas, the remaining eight verses – the bulk of this passage – talks about something entirely different.  Those eight verses tell the story of how the disciples get the colt for Jesus to ride in on.  In great detail, I might add.  Eight verses.  And that is saying something for Mark, because if there is one thing Mark is known for, it is cutting to the chase, not wasting words, getting right to the point.  Mark does not even have a birth narrative, for crying out loud!  Mark could’ve easily condensed these eight verses into a single one:

Jesus told his disciples to get a colt, and they did. 

But he doesn’t do that, does he?  He drags it out for eight verses.  Why?  Why all the detail, over a seemingly insignificant side story?   What is so important about this colt acquisition that Mark would allow it to overshadow the main event itself?

Now, on a normal Palm Sunday I would probably be less interested in these questions.  On a normal Palm Sunday I would be drawn to the parade and less to the colt.  But this, as we have already acknowledged, is not a normal Palm Sunday.  We are not gathered in our sanctuary this morning.  We are in our homes, huddled around our computers or watching on our TVs or listening over our phones. 

So I want to invite us to lay down our palms for the moment and lean into this unusual, abnormal time.  Let’s keep the procession in the back of our minds.  But let’s take a deeper dive into what Mark obviously wants us to pay more attention to.

The way that he tells it, Jesus and his disciples are getting close to Jerusalem.  It is Passover, so they are most certainly not the only ones doing this. The place would’ve been packed with people from all over, coming to the holy city for this holy season.  The disciples probably had no clue what all lay ahead of them.  But Jesus – Jesus knows, and he has everything planned out. 

He sends two disciples ahead of the rest – we don’t know which two – and he sends them with instructions to find a colt at the front of the village and untie it.  Not just any colt, but a particular colt.  As in, the colt that is supposed to be there.  And before the two disciples can ask the obvious questions – who does it belong to and what if they don’t want us taking it – Jesus says to tell anyone who asks that “the Lord needs it.”  The Greek here can also mean “Its master needs it.”  So they go.

And the rest of the story could’ve easily been told without the detail, but Mark chooses to tell it anyway.  The two disciples find the colt as advertised and untie it.  And sure enough, people ask them what they’re doing.  So they say: “The Lord needs it; its master needs it.”  Which seems to satisfy, so they take the colt back to Jesus.

Eight verses on this seemingly insignificant side story.  But if there’s one thing we know about the gospels, especially Mark, if someone spends time telling something, it is not insignificant.  It surely is not insignificant for us – we who have been forced to observe Palm Sunday from afar.  The parade is not happening for us this year, and Mark has something different for us to see.  The question is: what?

Is it just the colt?  There doesn’t appear to be anything particularly special about this colt, other than Jesus asks for it.  Is that what Mark wants us to see?

Or is it that the disciples do what Jesus tells them to do?  Certainly, that’s a good practice to be in the habit of; doing what Jesus tells us to do.  But is that really what Mark wants us to see here?

Or is it that Jesus tells the disciples to tell whoever asks that “the Lord needs it, its master needs it” – and it works, like some kind of Jedi mind trick, it works?  Is that what Mark wants us to see?

Hold those musings in your mind for the moment as we shift to the Psalm that Rebekah read earlier.  This psalm is a psalm of praise, and if it sounds familiar that’s because Mark references it in his brief procession retelling: Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest!  Indeed, it is a psalm of praise; but as with all psalms of praise, there is more going on here.  Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. We beseech you Lord – give us success!  I prefer the way The Message translates that last part.  It’s not “give us success,” it’s Salvation now, for a free and full life!

The Palm Sunday procession is certainly about praising God.  But before the praises come, before the loud hosannas are sung, before we enthusiastically wave our palm branches, God needs something else of us.  One scholar observes that in the Palm Sunday story, “some show that they have fallen in love with Jesus.”  And “to fall in love,” he explains, “is to project the most noble part of one’s being onto another human being.”  Which means those people that day were more or less infatuated with Jesus.  They were treating him like a rock star.  They saw only what they wanted to see, not what Jesus needed them to see.  And they were woefully unprepared for what would come next.[1]

And we see it play out in the days that follow, do we not?  Praise and hallelujahs turn to humiliation and mockery.  Adoration becomes accusation.  And those who sing Jesus songs of praise on Sunday are the same ones shouting “Crucify him” five days later.  Praising God when everything is going great is the easy part, my friends.  The harder part is what we do when the celebration is over.

I once heard someone say that following Jesus is the practice of living more than the projection of love.  Living more than the projection of love.  There will come a time for these disciples – and for us – when no one will know what’s happening.  When everything gets turned on its head.  When life as we know it will be categorically altered and changed.  And when that happens, when things get real, it is not the praise or adoration or lovefest that Jesus will need from us.  What Jesus will need is our discipleship.  Our faithfulness.  Our authenticity.  Our vulnerability.  And yes, our love.  But not just for him.  Love for everyone else.

You know what else intrigues me about the first eight verses of our passage?  It’s not just that Mark spends it all talking about a colt, but that it is a colt Jesus asks for in the first place.  Most kings came in on a full-grown horse, because that was a sign of those coming in with power and might, those who ruled with an iron fist, those with authority and force.  Colts, on the other hand, were the choice animals of princes; because princes came not to project power and might – that was the king’s job.  Princes came to signify more peaceful intentions.  The Prince of Peace. 

Untie the colt and bring it to me, Jesus tells the two disciples.  Untie it and bring it to me, because my way is not the world’s way; it is not the way of fame or glory or power or might or conquest, it is the way of peace and grace and mercy and love.  And not a “falling in love” love, where people see what they want to see in me, where they project what they want to project on me; but the way of love itself, a love where people see me as they need to see me.  As the Prince of Peace.  It is a harder way, a more excellent way, a way that cuts through the pomp and circumstance of the parade to what lies on the other side – a holy meal, a terrible night, a devastating day, and an empty tomb. Untie the colt and bring it to me.

Maybe – maybe the reason Mark spends so much time talking about the disciples untying the colt is because Jesus wants us to untie our own.  Not a literal colt, of course – although that’s pretty cool if you have one, I’d like to see it sometime.  No, I’m talking about untying the promises and possibilities of God for each of us.   Letting loose God’s peace on this conflict-ravaged world, unfastening God’s love in a culture so bound up in fear, unbinding a deep, deep sense of care and compassion for others when so many seemed to be only concerned with themselves.

And when others see our unbinding and most assuredly asks us, “what are you doing,” we respond by saying that God needs this.  Our Lord needs this.  Jesus needs his followers to live boldly and faithfully in our churches, in our neighborhoods, in our communities, in our world.  Not to fall in love with him, but to follow in the way of love alongside him.  A harder way for sure, but a more excellent way; a way that balances praise and songs of adoration with the pursuit of justice and actionable compassion.  A way where, yes, we are participants in the parade; but also where our love and devotion extends beyond the guest of honor riding on a colt to our fellow parade-goers, and what it is they need from us, and that which might need to be untied in their lives.

It is this approach to Palm Sunday that will prepare you and me for the difficult days ahead, just as it prepared those disciples for the week that followed them.  So untie your colt, beloved.  Prepare the way of the Lord.  Prepare the way of the people of God.  The Lord needs it.  The Lord needs you and me.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, thanks be to God – and may all of God’s people say, AMEN!

* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.

[1] Feasting On The Word, Year B, Vol. 2, 152.

Featured image from https://www.ihopkc.org/resources/blog/untie-the-donkey/

The post Connecting With God: Untie Your Colt appeared first on Trinity Presbyterian Church - Charlotte, NC.