Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Jesus sent two disciples to find Him a colt to ride. Jesus also gave these two disciples a sermon to preach along the way: “If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it,’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’”

Even though this story sounds like Palm Sunday and Holy Week, it has long been used for the beginning of Advent. This is our Savior who not only will come again at the end of the world, and not only is it a preparation for the celebration of Christmas in three weeks from now, but this is our Savior who continually comes among us today, and this is a clue into how our mighty Savior comes among us on a daily basis. This is our glorious King, yet it seems like He’s a poor and lowly beggar. Let’s zero in on the key words that Jesus would have the disciples preach to anyone who asked them about their strange-looking behavior.

These Words, ‘The Lord has need of it,’ show us a clear picture of the God who has come into our midst, in order to save us from our sins (Matthew 1:21) and to be with us forever (Matthew 1:23).

The Words, ‘The Lord has need of it’ also depict your God’s favorite way of dealing with each of us personally- you and me and all the baptized of Christ’s kingdom.

First, this is The God Who Has Come to Us.

Our Lord declares in His book of Job, ‘Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine’ (Job 41:11). He even says in the Psalm, “Every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills.” (Psalm 50:10) Yet this very same God- the penniless God bumming a cheap ride in today’s Gospel- needs to borrow a donkey. God thunders from the clouds of heaven, ‘If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are Mine’ (Psalm 50:12). God has no needs! Yet the God-Who-Has-No-Needs now tells people to say in today’s Gospel, ‘The Lord has need of it.’

This striking poverty of Jesus is the mark of an extraordinarily loving and exceedingly merciful God! NOTHING was so important to our Savior that He wasn’t willing to give it up for us. Thus it is written concerning Jesus:

Christ Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, being born in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:5-7). These Words mean that God the Son did not cling to anything for Himself. He fully opened His fingers and dropped everything that He once had, so that He may gain and grasp and take possession of us. I laid down my life, (that is to say, everything,) that I may take it up again, which means Jesus was no longer laden down in a state of humiliation after He rose from the dead.

‘[This is] the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich’ (2 Corinthians 8:9). Stated another way, the Lord and Creator of the Universe so abandoned everything that, in today’s Gospel, now He needs to bum a ride to head toward His own cross and death.

Secondly, The God Who Uses Stuff to Come to Us.

‘The Lord has need of it.’ These Words do much more than describe our Lord’s poverty for our sake. While that makes us ponder the wondrous mystery well enough, there is more to this simple detail of the Palm Sunday story that we may easily miss. ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head,’ says the Lord (Luke 9:58). Even so, the Lord has need of that donkey in today’s Gospel more for us than for Himself! What do I mean by that? He wants to use that donkey as a means, so to speak, a means of granting us the benefits of His precious death, burial, and resurrection. He had need of the cross, in an odd way to think about it, so that He could die on it for your salvation. He had need of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, so that He would be buried and on the third day walk out of it! The Lord has need of that donkey in very much the same way that He likewise has need of water for His gift of Baptism, or bread and wine for His gift of Holy Communion. The Lord has need of these things, not for Himself, but for us and for our salvation; for our assurance and certainty; for our consolation and our comfort. Simply stated, ‘The Lord has need of it’ because GOD WORKS THROUGH STUFF.

Today’s Gospel gives us a good picture of how and why God sees fit to work through stuff- through donkeys, crosses, tombs, and through water, through bread and wine. Think about the situation in today’s Gospel:

Yes, Jesus is as poor as a church mouse. Nevertheless, Jesus is still God! By a command from this man’s mouth, bodies get healed and dead people get raised. Despite His poverty, we must not forget that Jesus is still the man who effortlessly walks on the water (Mark 6:48-49). This is the man who strolled right through the angry lynch mob at Nazareth (Luke 4:29-30). In the book of Acts, Jesus made His servant Philip disappear from one place and then suddenly reappear in another place, ten or twenty miles away (Acts 8:39-40). Now in today’s Gospel, Jesus needs a ride.

Yes, Jesus needs a ride. ‘The Lord has need of it,’ not for Himself, and not merely because He has no money for the bus. Jesus needs a ride for our sake- for our certainty and for our salvation. In today’s Gospel, Jesus wants us to know beyond all doubt that He is the fulfillment of God’s ancient promise to us, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden’ (Zechariah 9:9). Jesus has need of a donkey because knows we need to see the donkey!

Jesus is our God. That means Jesus personally does not need the water of Baptism any more than He needs some smelly donkey. Yet Jesus knows how much we need the water. By riding a donkey in today’s Gospel, Jesus gave those crowds of people an historical record. He gave them a specific act for their salvation. In this Gospel, Jesus gave His dear people something to which they could cling; something to which they could return; something they could cherish for the rest of their lives:

And as He rode along [on that skittish, un-ridden-before colt], they spread their cloaks on the road. ‘ the whole multitude of His disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’

An historical record, a specific act they can see and understand, something to cherish for the rest of their lives- all accomplished by Jesus borrowing a donkey. Has not your God likewise accomplished the same thing for you in your Baptism? Jesus is God. He does not need any water. He could save you by the mere blink of His human eye- and yet He calls for water, just as He called for a donkey in today’s Gospel. The Lord has need of the water of Baptism in the same way that He has need of a donkey: He needs Baptismal water for us and for our salvation. Jesus needs to come to us through water for our certainty and assurance. Jesus needs the bread and wine of Holy Communion so that we have something to hold; something to remember; something that will cause us also to rejoice with those crowds and say as we do every week in the liturgy, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’

Jesus rode to His suffering and death by means of a donkey. Now Jesus rides away from His cross-victorious over sin and death- and He arrives among us, you may even say, riding on bread and wine. ‘We are talking about the presence of the living Christ, knowing that death no longer has dominion over Him’ (AP X.4).

‘The Lord has need of it.’ These Words describe the very essence of God’s tender mercy toward us. Impoverished for our forgiveness and salvation, the Lord Jesus needs to borrow a donkey, so that He may ride to His cross and our forgiveness-which He fully accomplished for us. ‘The Lord has need of it.’ Victorious over everything that would destroy us, our God in Christ still loves to ride stuff around. He uses stuff to do gracious things for us, strange and ineffective as these liturgical actions may look in the eyes of the world looking at us, yet He uses them nevertheless to give us His gifts of forgiveness, that we may never doubt His on-going Advent among us.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Jer. 33:14–16 a branch of righteousness … The LORD Our Righteousness
Ps. 25:1–10 To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
1 Thess. 3:9–13 that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father
Luke 19:28–40 entry into Jerusalem on a colt
Luke 21:25–36 look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near
Apology of the Augsburg Confession – Article X Paragraph 4