The Lord Has Need of It
Luke 19: 28-40
When Jesus reaches Mt. Olivet, he sends two disciples ahead
to a village, perhaps Bethpage. He tells them to look for a colt tied up and to
bring it back to him. He says if anyone asks why you are doing this, just say “The Lord has need of
it.” Luke says they were sent away
and that they found the colt just as Jesus had told them.
Now, what have we encountered here? Has Jesus been doing some advance
planning? Are he and his disciples so well known and respected that on facial
recognition alone, some owner will trust them with his animal? Is this the
fulfillment of some Scripture? Yes, yes and Yes. Yes, Jesus, or one of his
crew, may well have lined up the use of an animal ahead of time. That would not
have been terribly unusual. Yes, Bethpage, or any other village close to
Bethany, was small and the news of the healing of Lazarus would have made
Jesus, and perhaps his disciples as well, famous to the area. And yes, in the
book of Zechariah, the prophet rallies the people of God to persevere. The
exile is over, but the temple is far from being rebuilt and there are obstacles
at every turn. In the ninth chapter, Zechariah prophesies of the coming King of
Zion, saying,
Behold, your
king is coming to you;
righteous
and having salvation is he,
humble and
mounted on a donkey,
on a colt,
the foal of a donkey. Zech 9:9
The word colt was used to denote not only the foals of horses, but also
of donkeys. In the context of this passage, which is all about the entry of a
king of some sort, it is more likely that the colt to which Jesus refers is
that of a donkey. In the culture of the time, kings rode horses into battle,
but rode donkeys into town to denote the peace they had secured. So in this
case, the entry of a king would not be on a horse.
So Jesus the outlaw, Jesus the man
who has people looking to execute him, rides into town in the most public of
ways to a cheering crowd of followers. Luke says the whole multitude of his
disciples were there, implying that it wasn’t the crowd or the curiosity
seekers, but rather all of his many disciples who were present. They praised
his name. They applauded his mighty works. They were ready to crown him King.
There were Pharisees
in this crowd. Some said to Jesus to rebuke his disciples, to silence their cheering.
They may well have been sympathetic to Jesus. Perhaps they were just trying to
persuade him to stay low-key. Reading the story, one can’t be sure of their
persuasion. Jesus responds. He uses words about stones crying out, but his
message to the Pharisees is not intended to be veiled. He is saying that the
witness to this story cannot be silenced, cannot remain untold.
There is much here to mine as always. But when I read this
passage, three things keep commanding my attention.
All three have to do
directly or indirectly with what Jesus said in this passage. The first is those words of Jesus: “The Lord has need
of it.” The second is more
about the revelation of Jesus’ words: they “found
it just as he had told them.” The third comes from Jesus at the end of the
passage: “I tell
you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” In a way,
they are all you need to know about our Savior.
The Lord has need of it.
Change the pronoun. The Lord has need of him.
The Lord has need of her. The Lord
has need of you. The Lord has need of
me. If anyone asks you why you are
visiting the sick, your answer might be: the Lord has need of me. If anyone
asks you why you tithe your hard earned money, you might answer: the Lord has
need of it. If anyone asks you why you get up earlier on Sunday and take time
dressing your children in their Sunday best and rushing out the door when
instead, you could have enjoyed a cup of coffee on your day off, your answer
might be: the Lord has need of them…and me! What Jesus was instructing his disciples that Sunday
long ago was that he had a plan. In his
wisdom and his grace, he involved two disciples, two followers, to make that
plan come to pass. He didn’t need
them…he chose them. He still does
that today. He doesn’t need us; he chooses in his grace and love toward us to
involve us, to enlist us, to create a need for us. The Lord has need of you and me and us.
Secondly, when we respond to Jesus, when we go out and do what he calls
us to do, we will find things to be just as Jesus has promised us. In this passage, Jesus predicted the outcome
of the disciples’ encounter in the village. They found things just as he had told them. Jesus called
upon them to do a small chore, but gave them nothing with which to present
themselves other than a sentence identifying him as the sponsor. They had no
need for more. They only had to obey his bidding and things turned out just as
he had said. Has this happened to you? It certainly has if you have acted at
the direction of God. Have you stopped to pray with a friend in the grocery
store? Have you felt the guiding of the Holy Spirit to do something out of the
ordinary for you? To say something not in your comfort zone? When we obey our
Lord, things turn out just as he tells us
they will. We have only to act.
So first, the Lord, in his grace and love, has included us.
The Lord has chosen to have need of us.
Second, when we let the Lord include us, when we answer his call, things will
turn out just the way the Lord has told
us. Third, don’t even think about trying to silence the witness of
something as powerful as the good news of Jesus Christ. It can’t be done. Jesus
answers the Pharisees in words that can be found in Habakkuk: “For the stones will cry out from the wall,
and the beam from the woodwork respond.”
[2: 11]. There, the prophet speaks to plunder and ill-gotten gains and
warns that houses and structures built with such will find the very building
materials crying out for justice. In this passage, Jesus looks at the Pharisees
as he might look at religious skeptics of our day. His answer to them is not
unlike Habakkuk. Don’t try to silence the message that cannot be silenced. To
silence the tongues of the human witnesses is to invoke those of nature itself.
The gospel cannot be silenced. The story must be told.
The question for us on this Palm Sunday is not whether the
story is true or whether it bears being told. Those answers are already in. The
question for us is whether we will listen and what we will do with the
information. Will we answer the call to be needed
by our Lord? Will he have need of
you? Will we go where he calls, do what he asks? Will you witness to that
which you believe? Let the stones stay silent, though they and all creation
await our commitment to be relieved of their groaning. If we do, if you do, as
did those two unnamed disciples, that we
will find it just as he has told us.
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