Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. ~I Timothy 4:12~

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Jesus the Ultimate Horseman

Today is Palm Sunday. Many of us are familiar with the story of Jesus' triumphal entry. He rode in on a donkey and people laid down palm branches in front of Him. However, there has always been one part that has stuck out to me. That was how this passage proves Jesus' innate master horsemanship.


Luke 19:30
“Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, 
you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. 
Untie it and bring it here."

Some versions read "which no one had ever sat on." Not only had the colt had no training, Jesus had never ridden anything before (which is why Him riding in for the triumphal entry was important). The fact that Jesus was able to just get on a young, unbroke colt and ride it without worry was reason enough to be impressed by Jesus' horsemanship. BUT that's not the only impressive quality of this display of horsemanship.

John 12:13
They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting 

Matthew 21:8-9
A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted 

This is DEFINITELY not the kind of environment you want for a colt's first ride. Or even one of their first few rides. Honestly, I don't know a lot of trained horses who could face all of these scary circumstances. For the John passage, this makes me think of people running up to see Jesus while holding giant palm branches. Big moving odd shaped things = SCARY!! Not only that, but once they are there they form sort of a walk-through tunnel of scariness--another thing that makes even some of the better trained horses nervous. 

Next, there are cloaks and branches on the road. Now the colt has to look at the stuff on the ground too. It's taken me hours before to get a trained horse just to put one hoof on a tarp! And probably one of the biggest things is the shouting. Every version of the triumphal entry story tells of all the shouting that took place. Not only that, but the Matthew passage says that both in front and behind of the colt was shouting. Colts are very noise sensitive, and especially when things are behind them in their blind spot!

Overall, this is an almost impossible situation for a rider. A young horse on its first ride being faced with an overload of different scary stimuli. I wouldn't even subject a horse that wasn't bullet-proof to all of this. But Jesus, being awesome, proved that amazing horsemanship is among the list of His awesome traits. It's another reason why I'm amazed by Him, and another area of my life for me to strive to be more like Him.

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