GodSprings - 25, March, 2018

Does Jesus Need Me and My Things?

Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and he will send them right away.
Matthew 21:2-3

Charles Swindoll in one of his sermon shares a humorous incident that happened during the early years of his church formation. Many had started to come for worship and soon they required a proper place for worship. The call for donation was given and all the members unanimously decided that they are ready to sell off the most precious thing in their house for buying a piece of land and building a church. A Sunday was decided for the collection. On the day of collection Charles Swindoll preached a great sermon in Spirit about giving the best to the Lord. Though all agreed there were few who though had a lot when it came to giving, their hearts were not into it. There was a miser in that church. He had a beautiful boat. His wife had been telling him about selling off the boat and giving the money to Charles Swindoll to build a church. His wife had told Charles about it. After the service got over this miser came running to Charles and told, “The sermon has really touched me. I have been thinking about the boat since quite some time.” When the miser said this there was a glow on the face of Charles and he praised God for opening the heart of the miser. Charles asked, “So what have you decided?” The miser answered, “I have decided that I am ready to give the boat to be used for Sunday School classes till the church is built.” The miser had devised a wonderful plan to keep to himself the boat without selling it.

In the read portion we see that when the man is asked for a donkey without any questioning, without any hesitation he allows the disciples to take it. That’s quite surprising understanding the culture of that time. Some of the commentaries that I referred to puts forward some of the reason for the same.

1. This was typical Eastern hospitality. Especially at Passover, the locals knew that they needed to lend what they could to their visiting countryman. Therefore loaning the donkey was a common courtesy.
2. Some suggest this would have been an honour to let a distinguished rabbi ride your beast. In other words, they allowed them to take the donkey as a matter of pride.
3. Some others suggest that perhaps Jesus had arranged for the use of the donkey much earlier and he set up a password of ‘the master needs him’. In other words they gave him the donkey as part of a business deal.

But I am not satisfied with any of the above clarification because it bottles down the real surrender and giving. I think this man loaned his donkey to Jesus because He saw him as the Master. He saw what Jesus did. He heard him speak and he believed in Him. Everything he had was now at the Master’s disposal. For him, I believe that the loaning of the donkey was an act of worship and love.

Why I believe so is because in Luke 19:33-34 we see that the only question asked is “Why are you untying the donkeys?” Once it is stated “The master needs it” the discussion is over. I think that if they had given the donkey for one or the other reason stated above there would have been some additional questions like – how long do you need my donkey?, how far will you travel? , will you make sure he is cared for and so on.

We are not told how many donkeys this person had. Whether he had one or hundred doesn’t matter. What matters is when he was asked for something he was ready to give that. When we look through the Bible we see that it was when simple things or little things were given to God it became a great blessing – Moses asked to give his walking stick, Rahab giving the corner of her roof to hide the spies, the widow at Zarephath giving the last of her oil and flour to make a meal for Elijah, the widow who gave her two coins, the little boy who gave his five loaves and two fishes and so on.

Everything we have has been given to us as a gift from the Lord. You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the donkey, move Jesus and his story further down the road.

In one of the ads Airtel came out about friendship the tag line was Jo tera hai woh mera hai (what’s yours is mine). If God is singing then it holds true otherwise we need to sing Jo mera hai who sab kuch tera hai (everything that’s mine is Yours).

Max Lucado in his book And the Angels were Silent narrates this incident and tells that the original wording of the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples was “If anyone asks why you are taking the donkeys, you are to say, ‘Its Lord is in need’.”

As we are celebrating Hosanna today and as we enter the Passion week tomorrow i firmly believe that 2000 years back and even now Jesus is calling and asking I need you, Come and Follow Me. How far have we been able to travel? How far are we planning to travel? Will I play the part in moving Jesus' story further?