Daily Devotional for Friday 21st June
The Lord needs it
Jesus needs something? Well surely that’s going to be something really important – something valuable, rare, hard to get hold of. But if He wants anything, then anything He will have – no expense spared! What could Jesus have need of?
Oh yes – there it is – that young donkey over there...
Dare I mention it again? Humility? Jesus didn’t, after all, want the best of everything. He didn’t come to be served by willing (or unwilling) slaves. Maybe James and John were a bit disappointed. Maybe they thought: “Jesus needs something and we could get massive kudos (one up on Peter, eh?) if we could get it for Him”. But a young donkey?? Just too easy, too bargain-basement. I wonder who the two disciples (verse 1) who fetched it, actually were? None of the Gospels says.
Maybe they had learned a bit of humility by now, and didn’t want their names mentioned! Or maybe just afraid of legal action by the donkey’s owners….
Seriously though – this is the build-up to the big event. And, of course, Jesus is fulfilling a prophecy in Zechariah (9 v.9). He knew what He was doing, and where He was going, and how it would end. Paul writes (Philippians 2 v.8)
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself,
by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!
“One thing you lack” – could it be humility, after all? The humility that cries out for undeserved mercy? The humility that accepts we can’t “inherit” eternal life (as a legal right)? The humility to recognise we can’t save ourselves?
Our response to God’s amazing grace must surely be something like the final verse of “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds”:
Till then I would Thy love proclaim
With every fleeting breath;
And may the music of Thy name
Refresh my soul in death.
