Palm Sunday Donkey

I shared a poem each week of Lent at our church. Although we started with me just reading the poem, the last few weeks, I wrote an introduction for the poem. I meant to post them here as well, but forgot until a week after Easter. So I am scheduling the post back in time! 

In The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis, Aslan, a picture of God, turns an ill-behaving enemy into a donkey. As the man loses his ability to speak, the donkey cries, "Not a donkey, even a horse..." He knew the crude jokes and the lack of dignity, but he became the donkey he was acting.

Donkeys are known not only for their stubbornness, but also their ignoble proportions - more suited to bearing burdens rather than riding on parade. But as a lowly beast of burden, they are sturdy, and steady-footed. I think it is interesting that Jesus, who bore our sins, chose a beast of burden to ride into Jerusalem; that he who was considered stricken by God, afflicted, chose an undignified donkey. Even in this, his humility lifted up the lowly.

Our poem today considers the indignity and humiliation of a donkey, a simple beast of burden, awkward and ill-shapen. It's oddity and belligerence is magnified by the splendor and elegance of a horse. Yet consider that the only animal after the fall to truly speak was a Balaam's donkey. And consider what Jesus rode into Jerusalem, not a horse, even a donkey.

The Donkey By G. K. Chesterton
When fishes flew and forests walked
   And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
   Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
   And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
   On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
   Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
   I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
   One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
   And palms before my feet.