If – with full knowledge that you would be betrayed and denied by your friends; stripped of everything you own; beaten and taunted; and, finally, put to death in a brutal and humiliating way – you’d have straddled the back of that donkey and ridden into Jerusalem?  

Imagine what it must have been like for Jesus. Riding on the back of that donkey looking out into the smiling faces. Deafened by the crowds and accepting the adoration, all the while knowing that in a matter of days the people would be spitting at you and calling for your death. Enduring this contradiction must have been as painful for him as the physical pain he would endure on his way to the cross.

For me, it would have been unbearable. “Don’t feign this false love for me when I know your hearts are primed for betrayal,” I might have thought. “Take your palms and leave me to my Father’s business,” I would have shouted with disgust at the magnitude of the hypocrisy. “I am being sacrificed for this?”

But Jesus? He loved the people and trusted his Father. 

Amazing.