“Thomas Merton walked barefoot, Moses was told to take off his shoes. How else can one approach mystery and respect it?

Esther de Waal

“Sometimes, even though every year I ask for the courage and heart to see and feel what was truly happening, it’s like I’ve never really entered Holy Week.”

That’s what I told my friends today. That is how it feels. Each year, I notice something fresh and new and strange. I am beginning to understand the Trinity is spacious, full and ever-flowing. I usually need to simmer down, take my shoes off, and come as I am, a beginner all over again. But that is just right.

This year, I seem to be stuck lingering on Palm Sunday, and while I often say, please, go at your own pace, you can see my first inclination was to suggest a pause is paralysis. But lingering, pausing, and generously listening is often what God’s Kingdom calls for. It is so Otherworldly as to gobsmack us with beauty and wonder.

So, in case you wonder about Holy Week (the week from Palm Sunday through Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday), and aren’t sure where to begin or how much you can take in (honestly, this is tough when you realize where Jesus is headed), this post is for you.

Let’s begin just where we are.

For me, that is Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey (or two depending on which gospel you read or how you read it). But let’s not get sidetracked by any argument about how many donkeys. Let’s use our holy imaginations.

Here are three different art pieces depicting the scene of Jesus riding toward his death on a donkey.

Each of these holds something unique about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey that had never been ridden, bringing peace. The people cry, “Hosanna!”, which means “Save us, now!”.

I wonder what you notice?

Here are a few things I notice. In the one from the Armenian gospel, there are the curves of the branches, the donkey’s feet off the ground, and the donkey bending toward the children. In the last one, the crowd seems to be from across the ages and the whole ground is a bright patchwork quilt as if the Earth is praising too. (Jesus does say in this scene that if the people didn’t cry out, the rocks would.)

And while the last one seems so quiet in comparison, I see the light from Jesus face shining on the people who appear in various postures of worship (and the baby held high). This painting captures Jesus with both the jenny and her colt which expresses something kind and mothering from Jesus while at the same time, victorious as claimed centuries before by Zechariah the prophet,

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
    Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
    righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

A donkey. That is what is lingering for me.

And perhaps it is not as as strange as I first thought for writer Esau McCaulley points out the donkey is worth paying attention to because she was the symbol Jesus chose to begin his journey to the cross. Waving palm branches and laying down our coats was our response as humans to God incarnate coming as King. (And I am learning to read the Gospel stories with the Beloved Trinity at the center rather than us.)

So, the donkey.

It took my sister awhile to figure it out. She suddenly and drastically began losing sheep from her small flock. Her guess was a pack of coyotes. That’s when she got her first donkey named Tootsie. And then her second, Minnie, and third, Pearl. She hasn’t lost a single lamb since, except to stillbirth which is heartbreaking to witness and another story to tell.

Donkeys are misunderstood as dull and stubborn. But it turns out, jennies are good shepherds, lowly and unlikely, serving the flock, humble and fierce enough to stop a pack of coyotes.

I suppose what I am noticing this year are the layered meanings in Jesus coming into a city of power on a lowly donkey. Jesus was a new kind of King, not coming as expected in visible power and glory, he would carry our burden of sin and shame to the cross (Not his own, mind you, but ours. And bless me, I need Him to do so.), and The Good Shepherd riding on a good shepherd. Who knew?

But Jesus wasn’t only the Good Shepherd once upon a time. He still is, everyday and ongoing. He goes ahead of us to places we have no idea we might be going - into heartbreak, into love and friendship, or betrayal (he knows all about the betrayal of friends), into the wilderness, into joy, and journeys of all kinds down through our death up into our resurrection, scars and all. We cannot do it alone, and weren’t meant to.

At his last supper, Jesus said to his companions,

“After I am raised up, I, your Shepherd, will go ahead of you, leading the way to Galilee.” (Matthew 26:32)

And he never leaves one of us behind.

I leave you this Silent Wednesday with part of a prayer from Kate Bowler. Read it as many times as you need to hear it. Maybe say it around your dinner table, and not only on Easter, though that’s a good place to begin.

Holy Week - enter with care and trembling, but enter.

“Thomas Merton walked barefoot, Moses was told to take off his shoes. How else can one approach mystery and respect it?

Esther de Waal

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