Untie Me! Use Me!

“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.”

Zechariah 9:9 NIV

No other donkey in the history of the world had been prophesied about centuries before. But he had been!

Now his day had come.

Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem and it can’t be just any entry. It must coincide with one of the myriad prophecies concerning his life and death … some of them going back to the book of Genesis.

The disciples were given instructions to find just this very donkey. After being brought to Jesus and mounted, the procession begins. In one of the most misunderstood rides in history, this ride to redemption … this trail that eventually ends at a cross, is treated like a party.

The people Jesus has come to save see him only as a living Savior, not one riding to his last days among them. And they may not have been the only ones to misinterpret what was happening. The donkey probably thought the cheering was for him!

It’s difficult to draw any kind of spiritual parallel between this donkey and we followers of this Jesus some two thousand years later, but let me try. We, too, have been chosen to carry Jesus and if you can get past the strange comparison, stay with me.

Just as the Master knew of this particular donkey, (Matthew 21:1-11) had him untied and brought to him – so we too have been summoned. We’re needed to carry Jesus into the midst of our world.

We were untied from whatever it was that held us previously … and made ready for the ride of our lives! We carry God’s only Son as he moves through the crowds of our lives. Some cheer for him while others ignore him or mock him. But it’s a journey He must make and He rides our lives to accomplish it.

We must never assume that the journey is only about us … or to assume that any adulation that comes as we carry the King is directed at us. For a donkey to steal praise from royalty is ghastly inappropriate.

And now the parallel for illustrative purposes must end. The comparisons now cease. For we are not just animals used by Jesus for his purposes. Oh no! We are the very ones that He was riding to redeem. We’ll not be a simple footnote in the history of God’s Son and his journey. We’ll be joining him for all eternity as his sons and daughters!

This is not just another animal story … it’s the ongoing stories of our lives and the grand purpose behind them.

Enjoy this journey!