Donkeys and Crosses

Easter week is too often filled with a delirious mix of confusing imagery. These days we see Easter bunnies, Easter egg trees, and green plastic “basket” grass as the symbols of the season more frequently than we reflect on the cross and the open tomb.

It is hard for Sunday School teachers to crack open eggs and attempt to relate a connection to the empty tomb. Everyone wants something to be in their egg. Especially some form of something sweet. The trouble we have with Holy Week is the abandonment of the story of Christ’s passion in the first place. Easter Sunday gets all the hype to the neglect of the events that led up to it.

For some reason, I think it would do us well to get back to some of the other images of that week to remind ourselves where we probably fit in the most. When Jesus rode into town on that little donkey, it wasn’t the kind of entry many were supposing would come. Why isn’t Jesus mounted on a white horse?…that would seem to be far more appropriate in our minds. We want the symbol of battle, or power, or authority. Yet Jesus came on a donkey. I have a friend with one of those humble beasts. That donkey has two front legs that look knobby kneed and planted firmly side by side, with its rear legs planted slightly apart as if just waiting for the load it would so ably carry. I think of Jesus riding that donkey…Jesus, who would have his arms stretched wide to receive the nails in his hands and then his knees bent and turned to nail his feet together on a cross….there bearing such a load – the sins of the world. Donkeys may understand more about bearing such a load than we would ever begin to consider.

Crosses are not the subject of pleasantries…but the cross is the symbol of discipleship for those who will follow Jesus. It is a symbol of sacrifice and of hope and of forgiveness and of promise. And like many of those early disciples, when the cross came into view it was more a reason to run than to remain. Perhaps running away from the cross is still the pattern. Perhaps the idea of sacrifice is just a little too uncomfortable. But getting to the Resurrection we would do well not to bypass the humble reminders of service and humiliation, of sacrifice and dying. For in dying for us, Jesus made known the love of God in ways more powerful than any king or ruler’s army. Jesus died to save us. He laid down his life for us. And in the power of God’s glory, he took up that life again…to proclaim good news for all who will receive it and follow Him.