Good Donkey

Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the ass or donkey, just before the feast of Passover. It even had been prophesied "Tell the daughter of Zion, 'Look, your king is coming to you! He is humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt of a donkey.'" Mat 21:5 

Jesus rode on a donkey because the ass in the Bible, is a symbol of the work of God or His Spirit in our lives.   Most of us are familiar with the horse representing man’s ability, or the work of the flesh. (Man without God).  Psalm 20 tells us “Some trust in chariots some in horses but we will remember the name of the Lord God”.  The horse is an impressive beast that man can trust in as a source of strength, in the time of battle.   God’s commentary on this is “A horse is a vain thing for safety; neither shall he deliver by his great strength (Psalm 33:17).    So where the horse is symbolic of works of the flesh, the donkey is symbolic of work of God, the work of Christ or the work of the Spirit.

In Numbers 22, the prophet Balaam got on his donkey to go on a disobedient mission. On his way, the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord who had come to kill Balaam and turned off the path. Balaam smote the donkey to get it back on track.  In the end, the donkey had to collapse under Balaam, to save the disobedient man from being killed. Balaam was angry at the donkey who protested his innocence.  Finally, the Angel of the Lord asked why he had been beating his donkey since the ass had been trying to save his life and assured Balaam that “if she had not gone to one side, I would certainly have put you to death and kept her safe.” Balaam represents all of mankind; we have made mistakes and disobeyed God. The donkey is a picture of Jesus and all that he did for us.   Jesus saw the judgement coming and acted to save mankind from the judgement of the Lord. He never did mankind any harm but like the donkey, Christ was misunderstood and punished unjustly.  He was an innocent sufferer and the persons he was seeking to save wanted to kill him.   The Jesus like the donkey asked “If I have done no wrong why you strike me? “(John 18.23). Jesus was willing to be struck wrongly in order to save man from death.

Friend, thank God for his love for sinful men.  If His “Humble Donkey” Christ hadn’t saved us by taking the punishment that we deserved, we would have met with the judgment we deserved, instead.