Palm Sunday. A big day on the Christian calendar.

The day of the triumphal entry. Or not so triumphal, because it was misunderstood.

You know the scene. The people laying down their cloaks and the branches they had cut as Jesus rides over them… on a donkey.

No one expects the king of kings to ride a donkey, and yet that’s what he did.

It’s very easy to misinterpret the signs, isn’t it? Those that came to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem turned and fled before too much time had passed. He wasn’t the type of king they were expecting, so they didn’t respond correctly.

Sometimes we don’t know how to respond to God. I know I don’t.

Sometimes we get mixed messages with his guidance. We think he’s saying one thing, but he’s actually saying another.

Do that, no don’t do that. Speak up, no don’t speak up. Go over there, no don’t go over there.

And so forth. Listening to God and trying to work out what he wants you to do is not easy.

You know that he’s got a kingdom that’s not of this world, but that I, and you, are still in this world. Does he want us to do something that’s so other worldly in its mindset or pull back a bit and do something that’s more easily interpreted and that people will engage with?

Hard to say. Wisdom will know the difference and what to apply and when to apply it.

But we wouldn’t be the first ones to get muddled.

Only days after the entry into Jerusalem, Jesus is at Gethsemane with his disciples when a crowd armed with weapons appear with Judas. Jesus is seized and arrested.

Then everyone deserted him and fled.

That is a weighty sentence. Just when Jesus needed help and support the most, no one is there.

He has just been praying, saying that his soul is overwhelmed. This is no small bout of anxiety. This is extreme mental anguish.

And what does everyone do? Disappear and leave him to fend for himself.

The earliest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel do not contain chapter 16:9-20, which actually states that Jesus rebukes his disciples for their lack of faith and refusal to believe he had risen.

However, in Luke’s gospel when Jesus appears to the disciples, it says rather that “he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures”.

So, what do I need today? Because I know that on my own strength and intellect I would completely misunderstand Jesus and what he was doing in the week leading up to Easter. I know this because I know that today I misunderstand what God is doing all the time. I’m a human being.

Do I need a rebuke from Jesus? Maybe. Do I need my mind opened up so I have a greater ability to understand the promptings of the Holy Spirit when he’s speaking to me?

Maybe that too.

What about you?

What is God saying to you that you might not quite have heard properly yet?

Let this week leading up to Easter be a time that you are carefully listening and having the courage to obey.

Yours looking out for donkeys,

Alison