Your King Comes, Lowly and Riding on a Donkey

When I first came back from Amsterdam to take my first assignment teaching college, Vesta and I lived for a few weeks in her mother’s house in Pittsburgh. And I was able to revive a longtime friendship with my first employer, who was a shoemaker in town. And I used to shine shoes in his shoemaking shop, and we called him Uncle Ned.

And Ned loved to play golf, but he had to be in his shoe store every morning at nine o’clock. And so, he said, “R.C., you want to play some golf while you’re here?” And I said, “Sure.” He said: “Well, we’re going to have to go out to the public municipal course. We’re going to have to get up and leave about five and go out there and tee off so I can be back in time to open my store at nine o’clock.” And so, every morning at five o’clock, Ned would pull up in Vesta’s driveway, and I’d take my golf clubs, and we’d go in the car, and we’d drive a few miles to the municipal golf course and play golf.

And this one morning, I got up, and I have my eyes full of sleepers. I can hardly speak. And we get in the car, and we’re three quarters of the way to the golf course, and we pass this Roman Catholic church. And it’s all lit up, and their parking lot is filled with cars. And he said, “Oh, I forgot.” I said, “Forgot what?” “This is a holy day of obligation,” he says, “I have to go to church this morning.” So he pulled in the parking lot—left me in the car while he went for an hour to church. And I never got to play golf that day. And when he came out, I said, “What was that all about?” He says, “Well, it’s the feast day of the ascension.”

And I thought, “Wow, we almost never celebrate the ascension in our church.” But that was the day that Jesus left. And He didn’t just leave, but He was ascending to His coronation. He ascended to take His position at the right hand of God. He went for His investiture, where God the Father set the royal diadem, that crown, upon His Son’s head and anointed Him as King of the kings and Lord of the lords.

That’s what Jesus had in mind when He got on that donkey, that the Word of God might be fulfilled: “Rejoice, O, daughter of Zion! Rejoice, O Jerusalem! Shout with joy. For behold, your King comes, lowly, riding on a donkey. For He is just, and He brings salvation.”