Sorry I missed a day
Naturally as this Sunday approaches I’m personally focusing on the Palm Sunday stories (and on Revelation 7:9-17, which I’m preaching as ‘Palm Sunday in Heaven’). But as I read the accounts of the triumphal entry in all four Gospels, I was reminded of a Max Lucado essay in which he thought about ‘The Guy with the Donkey’.
Mark 11:1-6 (NIV)
Mk 11:1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.'” 4 They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5 some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.
Lucado says that he’d like to ask that guy with the donkey a few dozen questions: Why did you do it? How did you know that giving it to Jesus would be OK? Did you think you’d ever get your little donkey back? Did you ever think that Jesus would put your little animal to such a noble purpose that it would be remembered for centuries? How did you have the courage to give?
It’s that last question that impacts us. Throughout Scripture there are people like the guy with the donkey and the boy with the five loaves and two fish who give from their little, and then the Lord does a lot with it. Do we ever do the same? What we can give may not seem to make a lot of difference, but God can use even our smallest self sacrifices to glorify himself.
