Weekly Devotional: March 4, 2026

GOD’S WORD
Luke 19:28-44; Zechariah 9:9-10; Zechariah 12:6; I John 4:18; Matthew 5:5

Beginning March 4th we will trace the final week of Jesus’ life, leading up to our celebration of the fact that Jesus is Risen! He is Risen, indeed! 

MARCH 4            RIDING A DONKEY
MARCH 11          CLEARING TEMPLES
MARCH 18          WASHING FEET
MARCH 25          BREAKING HIS HEART
APRIL 1               RESURRECTION AWAKENING

 The Lenten Series for this year will be excerpts from the late Commissioner Phil Needham’s book

“Lenten Awakening”
Daily Meditations From Ash Wednesday To Easter

Introduction to this week’s Devotional
“Walking The Last Week With Jesus”

We have arrived at the most significant week of Jesus’ life: his last on earth. I invite you to be present with Jesus on that final stage of his journey, to observe closely what he says and does. He still has so much to teach us about himself and our calling to live as his disciples. And there is so much to grasp—and to gain—as we move toward the week’s climax and try to take in the enormity of Jesus’ suffering and the universal benefit of his crucifixion.

I have mentioned before that as I write these pages, the world is suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. People around the world are getting sick and hundreds of thousands are dying. People are scared. We are fighting an enemy hidden from the naked eye. The best preventive for us all is isolation, but most of us are not used to such extended confinements. We become distracted and bored, fearful, even paranoid.

Considerating the last week of his life, what does Jesus offer us in the times of our uncertainty and even despair? He is facing his own enemies, and he knows this week will end with his own horrible death. Watching him this last week of his earthly life, we will see courage, humility, compassion, authenticity, and hope. He offers us, his disciples, these same gifts:

• Courage to act when fairness and judgment demand it
• Humility before God and each other
• Compassion for all who suffer and lose loved ones
• Authenticity as his followers, even if it calls us to suffer, and
• Sure hope in our future with Christ, come what may.

PERSONAL PRAYER
Dear Jesus of the human road, as we walk with you this final week of your earthly life, open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our minds to grasp, and our hearts to be grasped by your every act of compassion and by the saving scope of your suffering and death. We ask this in your name, our worthy Savior and Lord. Amen.

Devotional
RIDING A DONKEY

Today Jesus enters Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. We have traditionally called this event “the Triumphal Entry.” There are, indeed, shouts of joy, as if a conquering hero is entering the sacred city: “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” Clothes and palm branches are thrown on the road, as if welcoming royalty. Lest these words be mistaken for cheers for a conquering military or even political leader, they are followed by more tranquil words referring to a nonpolitical spiritual realm: “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.”

The words are reminiscent of Zechariah’s prophecy: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion./ Sing aloud, Daughter Jerusalem./ Look, your king will come to you./ He is righteous and victorious./ He is humble and riding on an ass,/ on a colt, the offspring of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). This humility, riding on a donkey, will “cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem.” The warring bow will be replaced by “peace to the nations,” and this triumph of peace “will stretch from sea to sea” (9:10). Jesus’ disciples don’t understand what the words of the vocal bystanders mean. The Gospel of John tells us that it won’t become clear to them till after Jesus is glorified (12:16).

I am intrigued by the choice of a donkey. There’s an old mountain road in Northeast Georgia we like to walk. One stretch of it passes through a beautiful valley with grassy pastureland. A couple of years ago the owners added a donkey to one section of the larger grazing area. For reasons we don’t understand, they named him Bunny. On occasion, before starting out on one of our hikes, we remember to bring a carrot for Bunny. This one time he seemed especially friendly and remained a few extra moments. When I stroked and patted his back for the first time, I was surprised at how solid and strong the body of this humble animal felt. And then I remembered that the early Catholic missionaries in the rough western mountains of North America, when they traveled far to visit mission stations, chose to ride a donkey over the unforgiving terrain instead of a larger but more fragile horse.

Jesus, however, doesn’t actually own a donkey, nor do His disciples. So, He sends them into town to borrow one, a colt that has never been ridden, as Zechariah said. They find the colt, and when they untie it, the owners ask them what they think they’re doing. The disciples explain: “Its master needs it.” Strangely, the owners accept the explanation. They are the owners, but Jesus is the beast’s master. He is a master who owns nothing and has to ask. Jesus, the humblest of human beings. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on this borrowed beast of burden, not a well-appointed white stallion. He represents the power of an enduring spiritual kingdom, not an earthly empire that will inevitably fall. Empires both secular and religious govern by fear, and when the fear is no longer there, or no longer works, the empire collapses. The power of Jesus is the power of self-giving love, and nothing could be more foreign, or dangerous, to a fear-based world (I John 4:18).

So how does Jesus portray such a kingdom? He shows up riding a beast that looks as unimpressive as possible, but whose quiet strength has been tested and proven on the roughest terrains of this world. Donkeys are typically seen as laughable creatures. Compared to majestic horses, they seem, well, insignificant. Hence the incongruity of a world Savior arriving in town on one. G.K. Chesterton plays with this theme, turning it upside down:

When fishes flew and forests walked,
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools, for I also had in my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

From The Wild Knight, from Robert Knille, ed.,
As I Was Saying: A Chesterton Reader
(Grand Rapids, Mich., Eerdmans, 1985)

The humble, as it were, have the last laugh. They will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). For Jesus, however, there is now only grief. As He earlier made His way to Jerusalem, seeing it then at a distance, His last words to it prophesy the doom which is to come. This is not vindication, but tearful grief filled with love: “If only you know on this of all days the things that lead to peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42).

Jerusalem does not want a Messiah of love, it wants a Messiah of power. It wants a Messiah that leaps from pinnacles of temples, rends the clouds of heaven, summons a vast army of angels and archangels, expels the Romans from power. Jesus offers none of that. He offers the gift of humility, so we humble ourselves before him and give him everything. He offers the gift of laughter, so we follow the Messiah who rides a donkey and invites us to “enter into the joy of the Lord”—today, and forever! And He offers us peace, by making our peace with Him and with all we haven’t yet forgiven.

What do you want from Him?

PERSONAL PRAYER
Dear humble Christ of the human road, You startle us with Your meekness. You overwhelm us with Your tears. You empower us with Your love. Over these next few days, as we walk with You toward the cross, open our hearts to this way, this truth, and this life being lived before our very eyes. Give us the grace to be more like You. We ask this in Your name. Amen.