Strange Road to Peace: From a Donkey and to the Cross

Palm Sunday thru Good Friday meditation based on Zechariah 9 and Luke 19-23.

The road into Jerusalem was crowded that day. Dust swirled around pilgrim feet, and the sun bounced off stone walls and bright cloaks. As Jesus entered Jerusalem, those lining the path joined the people with him, waving palm branches and shouting like they’d just witnessed a dream come to life. In a way, they had and here’s why…

They saw Jesus ride into the city -- not on a warhorse, but on a donkey.

The donkey mattered. It was a code which the Romans could not decipher, but the crowd knew it from the prophet Zechariah:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Look, your king comes to you... humble and riding on a donkey.”

In Zechariah’s vision, the king’s choice of the donkey meant the war was over. The king had won a great victory. The fast steeds of war were no longer needed. Now the king came slowly, deliberately declaring that peace had arrived.

Peace Declared

Jesus’s entry was a prophecy fulfilled, they thought. So, they cheered as if the revolution had begun. After years of Roman rule, they expected Jesus, the messianic king, would lead them to throw off their oppressors, and restore Israel’s freedom. The palm branches in their hands waved the nation’s hope. The donkey was Jesus’s sign to them -- now all that remained was the battle.

But Jesus wasn’t there to start a war. He was there to end one.

Not with swords or shouting, but with something deeper. Something slower. Something no empire would ever understand.

This was not the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome that came through conquest and control. Rome brought its own version of peace by silencing enemies. Crucifying rebels. Building empires on fear.

Jesus brought a different kind of peace – Shalom Adonai, the peace of the Lord.

It was peace that healed instead of harmed. Peace that began in the heart, then moved out toward the whole world. Peace that looked defenseless on the outside but carried the power of heaven within.

Still, the crowd didn’t see it. They cheered for a king of their own ambitions. They wanted the Lion of Judah. Instead, they got the Lamb of God.

But even knowing their mistake, Jesus kept riding, knowing where the road would end.

Peace Disrupted

The parade didn’t last.

By the end of the week, the sounds had changed. The palms were gone. The cheers had faded. Now came accusations in back rooms, betrayal in a garden, and a trial in the early morning darkness.

This is where peace was disrupted -- at least on the surface.

Jesus stood before Pilate, bruised and quiet. The Roman governor couldn’t find anything wrong with him, but politics is rarely about truth. Pilate saw the crowd swelling with anger and knew which side he needed to stand on.

Pacify this crowd with power.

And so, to keep the Roman peace, Pilate condemned Jesus to death and handed him over to be crucified by Roman soldiers just doing their duty.

This is the moment his followers – those who loved him -- realized Jesus wasn’t going to fight back. He mounted no earthly defense, summoned no heavenly angels, gathered no fierce armies.

Victory was lost, and peace with it, or so it seemed.

But not to Jesus.

Scourged, mocked, ridiculed, spat upon – he bore the humiliation in silence. And when they dropped the cross on his shoulders, he sagged under its rough heft.

Yet with halting steps He carried it purposefully, until he could not bear its weight. Even after another shouldered it, His every step toward Golgotha was a step deeper into the heart of the battle no one else could see.

Not Rome. Not Pilate. Not the disappointed crowds. Not even the priests.

Because the real enemy wasn’t out there. The enemy Jesus signaled he would defeat was more powerful than Rome, had existed long before the Empire, and held sway over all humanity. It was the source of all the fear, the hatred, the violence, and sin that wrecks hearts and ruins lives.

This was the battlefield, and Jesus walked straight into it.

On the cross, he didn’t fight. He forgave.
He didn’t shout. He surrendered.
He didn’t kill. He suffered.

As he died, and the sky turned dark, and the earth shook, and the crowd scattered in fear, something deeper happened.

Peace was not destroyed. It was planted like a seed into the soil of a broken world.

Peace Delivered

Before sunset, they took his body down from the cross. They wrapped it in cloth and laid it with tenderness in a borrowed tomb until the Sabbath passed.

And just like that, it was over.

Or so it seemed.

This was not how anyone thought the week would end. Not the disciples. Not the women who watched from a distance. Not even the ones who had mocked him. There was a strange silence now, an anticlimax to the cosmic turmoil witnessed at his death.

But those that day couldn’t see – either because of grief or gloating --  that the cross had not spelled his failure.

It had finished something.

Paul would later write that Jesus made “peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). That sounds confusing -- how can blood bring peace?

It depends on whose blood it is. This wasn’t the kind of blood Rome shed to conquer cities. This was the kind of blood a shepherd spills to protect his sheep. The kind of blood a mother gives to bring life into the world.

It was costly, yes, but it was given in love completely.

In Zechariah’s ancient vision, after the king comes riding on a donkey, God speaks again:

“Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit… Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.”

That’s who we are now -- prisoners of hope.

Not because we are stuck, but because we are held by something stronger than despair. We are bound to a promise: that even the darkest tomb can become a doorway to peace.

Between the Donkey and the Cross

The donkey wasn’t a mistake. It was a message.

Peace was declared that day. A peace the crowd didn’t fully understand. A peace that looked small next to Rome’s war machines. But it was real.

Then came the disruption. The silence. The suffering. And still, the peace held.

And on the cross, of all places, peace was delivered.

Not the kind of peace that shouts loudly from palace steps, but the kind that whispers gently to human hearts: 

“It is finished.”

Now, wait and see what comes next.

Closing Prayer

God of unexpected victories,
You ride into our lives not with swords, but with mercy.
You lead not from a throne, but from a cross.
And still, You bring peace -- deep, lasting, surprising peace.

Make us prisoners of hope today.
Let us believe in what we cannot yet see:
That love wins. That peace reigns.
That your kingdom comes not by force,
but through grace, dust, and resurrection.

Amen.