In Jesus, we have a
paradoxical king. We have a Lord who enters Jerusalem escorted by a procession
of poor people, riding not on a white stallion but on a donkey, adorned not in
gold-embroidered clothes but in the poor cloaks that some have placed on the donkey’s
back and on the ground. And this “king” needs to borrow a donkey. Jesus is a
king who does not even own a donkey!
Where does Jesus’ lordship over these events
become manifested? In his sending two of his disciples to fetch a
donkey! Everything is contained in this action. The paradox of Jesus’
kingship appears in the insignificance of the ordinary actions he enacts here:
God is revealed in a mere man, the Messiah in a pauper, the Savior in a
convict, the Just One of Adonai in a crucified man.
In this sending of the two disciples, the mission of
the Church is also manifested: Jesus sent ... saying, “Go forth...”
Those who were sent went off. This ecclesial mission requires of
Christians, on the one hand, their ability to give an account of
the deeds they perform to anyone who asks for it, and, on the other hand, it
also demands of them the capacity to motivate all their actions on the basis of
the Word of the Lord.
The gestures of the Church in her mission to the
world do not aim at satisfying or eliminating a need on her part, but are acts
of obedience to the Word of the Lord and manifest a need on
the Lord’s part. (The text says of the donkey, The Master has need
of it.) All the Church’s attitudes and gestures should tell of a
Lord who comes to us in poverty and humility, because only in the sharing of
poverty can the decisive encounter between God and human beings take place.
This means that the only riches that the Lord’s envoys bring with them are to
be found in the faithful repetition of the words that the Lord has given them.
These should be words that, while proclaiming the poverty of the Sender,
likewise establish the envoys themselves in that same poverty.
This narrative of Jesus’ messianic journey to
Jerusalem becomes the paradoxical proclamation of a needy and indigent Lord.
The Church is thus shown that the needs that afflict her can become a reason
for trust instead of anguish. The Church is
strengthened by her trust in the Lord and the power of communion with the poor
to whom she addresses the Gospel.
Jesus goes ahead of his followers on his way up
to Jerusalem, the “city of peace”, but also the city that kills those who are
sent to her. Jesus will soon weep over Jerusalem like a jilted Bridegroom because she has failed to recognize the way of his peace. The path to peace has
one basic requirement: not ever to engage in any kind of
violence. Christ’s kingship is not of this world precisely because,
unlike worldly kings and tyrants who legalize violence and love to wield it,
Jesus radically rejects its use: he refuses ever to create victims. Jesus is
the uncompromisingly non-violent King, to the point of assuming all the world’s
violence upon himself on the cross, which is the ultimate epiphany of his
paradoxical kingship.
Let us now go forth in peace, sisters and
brothers, driven into the Paschal Mystery by the Holy Spirit, following Jesus
our King and sharing his joy at having no power, riches or authority except
those that come from his Father’s unconditional love.
