Some of you might know that I am deep appreciator of children’s literature. If you come into my office some day, you’ll see some children’s books on my shelves, in their rightful place of importance next to textbooks and manuals. A new to me book is The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein, and the book tells a story of a little boy startled awake by his cat in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning. As many of you cat-people (or even non-cat people) might find unsurprisingly, the cat persists in its desire for being taken outside (meow, meow, meout!), and the boy and cat stumble outside in the dark. As the boy begins to listen to the noise around him, he notices that animals are whispering excitedly, “It’s almost here! It’s coming! It’s on its way! Here it comes!” The boy is puzzled, I’m guessing in his bleary state, because nothing is making a lot of sense – what would be coming in these dark hours?

I love the image of the boy in that story because he doesn’t understand exactly what is happening, but he cannot help but be excited by the excitement he can feel surrounding him. My daughter has picked up a similar habit – after trying to use exaggerated speech to engage her in questions and wondering before she began speaking, now, anytime you ask her a “guess what” question, with full enthusiasm, she responds *sharp intake of breath*

Today’s Scripture tells a story full of that same kind of frenetic energy. The disciples and Jesus traveled to the city of Jerusalem as part of a pilgrimage to celebrate the Passover festival. This was an annual event for Jewish people (you might remember Jesus traveling to the temple with his parents as a boy – one of the first moments of foreshadowing of Jesus’ ministry) and scholars estimate that the number of people in Jerusalem swelled from 50,000 to 200,000.[1] Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan argue that not only was the number of people coming into Jerusalem massive – the entry Jesus made into the city was not even the only triumphal entry in town:

“The Roman governor of Judea would ride up to Jerusalem from his coastal residence in the west. He would come in all of his imperial majesty to remind the Jewish pilgrims that Rome demanded their complete loyalty, obedience, and submission. The Jewish people could commemorate their ancient victory against Egypt and slavery if they wanted to.  But if they tried any real time resistance, they would be obliterated.”[2]

They could celebrate their triumph over slavery and their oppressors and mourn the generational losses to the wickedness of Egypt – another empire – but the Roman emperor made sure that they knew that they were once again ruled by another oppressor, another empire. Freedom seems like it only comes for God’s people for mere moments, only to be seized by another evil, another empire, another oppressor. Picturing this stark militant procession, I can’t help but think of the same images, two thousand years later, of Black Lives Matter organizers peacefully gathering in protest of state violence being met with droves of police in riot gear.

But nonetheless, the Jewish people made their own triumphant entry into Jerusalem to recognize God’s faithfulness surrounded by God’s faithful. And with them was no Roman governor, no emperor, no king riding on a war steed. Instead came their own king, a king of the Davidic line, riding on only a colt – Genesis 49 notes the colt’s role in the coronation of a king of Israel.[3] The author of Mark paraphrases prophet Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion. Sing aloud, Daughter Jerusalem. Look, your king will come to you. He is righteous and victorious. He is humble and riding…on a colt, the offspring of a donkey.”[4] The writer of the gospel of Matthew quotes these verses directly in his re-telling of this triumphant entry. The writers of Matthew, Mark and Luke all agree that the people all around Jesus removed their cloaks and placed them on the ground, a tradition first enacted in