Matthew 21:1-9
We read in today’s text from St. Matthew:
“Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, “The Lord has need of them,” and immediately he will send them.’”
Have you ever thought about what it means for God Almighty to need something from us?
We, with a misplaced sense of self-sufficiency, do often refuse to acknowledge our needs. When you require help from someone, do you always admit it?
Or, in your pride, do you tell people that you are okay, even when you are not? Do you assure people that you don’t need any help, even when you do?
On other occasions, we may speak of something as a “need,” even when it is not really a need but simply a desire – often a sinful desire. Fornicators often excuse their indulgence in sexual sin by speaking of their “needs.”
How often have you justified a craving for something that was morally questionable, or defended your acquisition of an unnecessary luxury, by telling yourself or others that you needed it?
But here we have a situation where God actually does need something, and he is willing to say so. Specifically, he needs a female donkey – accompanied by her colt – so that Jesus can ride on her.
We might think that God would not need anything from human beings. People may pretend to be self-sufficient, but isn’t that what God actually is? Isn’t that a part of what it means for him to be God?
Well, in regard to God’s own existence as God, he does not need anything from you or me. But God does not simply exist. God also acts, in this world, and among men.
In order to save humanity from sin, death, and Satan, God became a human being. He personally entered into his creation and became a part of it. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity – the eternal Word – became flesh, and lived among us.
And in order to save humanity from within humanity, there are a lot of things that God needed to appropriate from humanity – and from the created world in which humanity lives – so that those things could be used by him for the fulfillment of his good and gracious will toward us.
For the accomplishment of humanity’s salvation, the first thing God needed from humanity was a genuine human nature, so that Jesus – the Son of God – would be true God and true man. And God – who is without sin – needed a human nature that was likewise not corrupted by sin.
God could not create for Jesus a new human nature from scratch, which would be genetically disconnected from Adam and his descendants. That would not be human nature at all, but only a copy of human nature. And it would leave Adam and his actual descendants without a Savior.
God needed a human mother for humanity’s Savior, so that he could enter into her womb and take a human nature to himself from her. In this way he would become a real and actual part of the human race to which she – and we – belong.
But he needed to do this in an extraordinary way, so that the human nature that he thereby took to himself would be a pure and perfect human nature. Hence, God needed the mother of Jesus to be a virgin.
His conception needed to be a miraculous conception, without the transmission of original sin, which otherwise always takes place through the ordinary reproductive process.
The Epistle to the Hebrews explains why God needed these things, so that Jesus would come into the world in the way he did; and also why we, as the fallen children of man, also needed these things:
“Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, [Jesus] Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. …in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
Again, we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews that we therefore “do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
In today’s text from St. Matthew, we are told that on a certain unique occasion, God also needed a donkey. God would not say that he needed something, if he did not really need it.
The Lord did not simply want a donkey, so that he could have improvised with a horse – or with some other creature – if he had to. No. The almighty creator and Lord of the universe – in the humble form of a man; and according to his eternal plan for our salvation – needed a donkey.
Centuries before the events that are described in today’s text, Zechariah had prophesied:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
God needed a donkey so that this prophecy would be fulfilled. Only a donkey would do.
The donkey was emblematic of Jesus’ humility. He was not entering Jerusalem as a fearsome, worldly conqueror – on a noble steed. He was entering the city as one who had come into the world not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
The donkey – as a beast of burden, and as a working animal – was also emblematic of the fact that Jesus was entering into the Lord’s Holy City to do the hard work of redeeming humanity, and of bearing the heavy burden of all human sin – as he would carry that sin to the cross in our place.
As the donkey labored to carry Jesus down the road and through the gate, so too would Jesus labor to carry to Calvary your sinful pride, and your sinful self-justifications; and to suffer and die there: for the forgiveness of those sins, and for the forgiveness of all human sin.
Jesus told his two disciples that if anyone questioned them when they were untying the donkey and her colt, they should say, “The Lord has need of them.”
Can you imagine a situation where you look outside your window and see two guys opening the door of your car, getting into it, and preparing to drive it away? You then go outside to ask them what they are doing with your car, and they respond, “The Lord has need of it.” What would you think?
Well, Jesus is not going to send two disciples to your driveway to borrow your car in exactly this way today. Since the time of his ascension, that’s not the way he operates. But there are other things that God does need from you today, for the fulfillment of what he is doing today.
God became a part of the human race in the person of Christ, and in his earthly, human body, he suffered for our sins and atoned for them. The incarnation was a once-and-for-all-time miracle. It will not happen again.
But God does still use things that he needs to get from us, and from the world in which we live, in delivering to people the salvation that Jesus won at the cross.
In Holy Baptism, Jesus’ regenerating and forgiving gospel is applied personally and in a very tangible way to a real human being, who has been conceived in sin, but who also has been redeemed by Christ.
According to the Lord’s institution, God needs water in order to do this – the same kind of earthly water in which Jesus himself had been baptized. According to the Lord’s institution, God also needs the human hand and human voice of an administrant in order to do this.
In the sacrament of Holy Communion, we are given our Savior’s body and blood, for the forgiveness of sins and for the strengthening of faith. According to the Lord’s institution, God needs bread and wine for this to happen.
No other earthly elements will do. He needs, here and now, the same elements that Jesus used when he first administered this sacrament to his disciples, on the night in which he was betrayed.
God brings the message of human salvation to human beings through the ministry of human preachers. As this mission is continually carried out in the Lord’s name in each generation, and in all nations, the Lord needs called servants to do this.
Regarding himself and those who assisted him in his apostolic ministry, St. Paul tells the Corinthians: “We are God’s fellow-workers.”
And for the maintenance of these ministers, the Lord needs the material support that comes from the rest of God’s people, so that pastors, teachers, and missionaries can in fact be set apart on a full-time basis to do what God has called them to do. And so Paul also tells the Corinthians that, according to the Lord’s command, “those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.”
God, in Christ, needs all these natural things from you, so that he can give to you – and to your friends and relatives, and to all men – the supernatural things that you need from him.
What you need from him – a new heart, a new life, and a new hope for eternity – you would not be able to receive, if God had not taken your humanity to himself in the conception and birth of Jesus. What you need from him, you would not have, if Jesus had not borrowed that donkey, and if he had not ridden that donkey to his death – and to your salvation from death.
But God did take and use what he needed, so that he can now bestow upon you what you need. As a man among men, Jesus forgives and heals you. As your brother according to the flesh, Jesus is your true friend, your constant companion, your ever-vigilant protector, and your ever-faithful guide.
He uses what he needs to use – ministers and laymen; water, bread and wine – so that the comforting promises of his gospel can be brought to you, and so that the power of his love can remain with you, and work through you.
As the humble servant of God and man, Jesus calls and equips you to be his servant, and the servant of your neighbor. He uses you, and the things that you own and share, as his instruments in meeting your neighbors’ needs – for this world, and for the world to come – even as he meets your needs through your neighbors, and through the things that they own and share.
“Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” Amen.