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Passion Week (Holy Week)

Hosanna in the Highest - Are you ready to be a donkey?

by Cheriyan Vengal, Toronto

First Hosanna started with Jesus sending his disciples to bring a donkey to ride on. The Biblical message or implications of Hosanna is not included in this analysis as it's known to everyone. But I am trying to analyze the Hosanna in the present day life. Even though there were objects like donkey, carpet, flowers involved in the first Hosanna, the selection of donkey is the major one. Son of God could have ride on a chariot or a horse. But He selected a donkey. Do this selection of donkey have any relevance in today's life ?

Donkey is considered to be an animal which carries whatever his master put on him. It never complaints. Anyone can ride it. It bows it's head to take whatever is expected it to do.

Are you ready to be a donkey so that the son of God can ride on you ? To become a donkey, you have to bow your head before others; you should reject your stubborn nature; you should be willing to accept others. When you do these, others will call you as a donkey. People will tell each other, this guy is a donkey. But you have the answer, which Jesus told his disciples, "my lord and god have need of me to ride on". By bringing the baby donkey, none had used before, Jesus is aiming at us brothers and sisters who have not yet have the mentality to accept others or bow before others. For becoming a donkey, we have the clear answer, "my lord and god have need of me to ride on".

Are you ready to be a donkey so that the son of God can ride on you ? What will you gain by becoming a donkey to ride the son of god? People around you will lay red carpets on the way you walk, to accept and welcome you, and they will shower the flowers of love and blessings on you; because son of god is riding on you. They will say Hosanna to you, because you lowered yourself as a donkey to become a peace maker.

Let's decide whether we are ready or not to lower our self as a donkey. Let's decide whether we allow the son of God to ride on us. Let's decide whether we walk on the red carpets of peace. Let's decide whether we need flowers of blessings to be showered on us. If the answer to these decisions are yes, then lower yourself as a donkey. Then the son of God will ride on you.

See Also:

Palm Sunday in Syriac Orthodox Church
Palm Sunday commemorates Christ's entrance to Jerusalem riding a colt (Mark 11). The service commences with a procession in the church with the clergy, dressed in their vestments, carrying olive and palm branches.

Palm Sunday - Passion Sunday
The Sunday before Easter is observed by virtually all Christians -- Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox -- as Palm Sunday. For all Church traditions the feast has a bittersweet taste.

Palm Sunday Meditation
The holy fathers have explained to us the mystery of these two animals. The ass represents the Jewish people, which had been long under the yoke of the Law; the colt, upon which, as the evangelist says, no man yet hath sat, is a figure of the Gentile world, which no one had ever yet brought into subjection.

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