Today is Palm Sunday and I have been meditating on the significance of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. I have read that in eastern traditions, a king who rode into a city on a horse was declaring an act of war, or triumphantly claiming a defeated city which he had won through blood and battle. The donkey, in that same tradition, was meant to be the opposite. A king who enters a city on his donkey is declaring peace, not war.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. He declared his intentions for peace. The people shouted Hosannas and psalms, waving palm leaves and celebrating Him. He did not ask his followers to wield weapons, and even when Peter raised a sword against a man at the betrayal a few days later, Christ healed the man before doing anything else.
