How did things shift so much and so quickly?

The gospels of this week are replete with symbols of humility – the feet washing that is to come and the donkey on which Jesus enters Jerusalem today. One interpretation of the crown of thorns foisted on Jesus’s head, is a reference to meekness rather than merely mockery.

But consider this.

The “city is stirred.” The same Jerusalem that welcomes Jesus as king, with cries of Hosanna and by spreading coats and branches on the ground, in just days will become the city that calls for his crucifixion.

There is hope this Palm Sunday, the same hope that greets Jesus with zeal as he enters the Holy City. A hope fuelled no doubt that this “prophet from Nazareth” may indeed offer respite for those living under Roman occupation.

Jesus is given a king’s welcome, but he has not come to rule and conquer in the way that is hoped for by those who greet him with coats, branches and acclaim. He has indeed come to “set the prisoners free,” but it is a freedom that they, and perhaps we, cannot yet fully understand.

So, what is this promise of hope for us?

It is ten years since Australian author and National Living Treasure, Tim Winton, gave a speech on Palm Sunday that became an instant provocation and challenge to us in the lucky country. He linked the mode of Jesus’ donkey to refugee boats and challenged us to catch the eye of those in these crowds, the oppressed and the needy in our world.

I’ve been pondering the wrong question this week as I’ve let the ideas for this reflection germinate before putting pen to paper. I’ve been asking myself if things have really changed much since Winton’s seismic speech. The right question is to consider if things have really changed much since Jesus’s awkwardly triumphant entry that day into not just the Holy City but his messianic destiny.

We join today with our kindred, those early followers of Jesus who placed down their branches and cloaks.

Like them, it’s important that as we collect them up again, we harden not our hearts. Instead, as we cast our gaze not just forwards to the salvific promise of the Easter Tridium, let us look sideways to those in the margins whose humility and need Jesus’s donkey is a reminder of.