Quotes about Donkey

Finding a young donkey, Jesus sat on it, as it is written:

“Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion. See, your King is coming, seated on the colt of a donkey.”

But he was rebuked for his transgression by a donkey, otherwise without speech, that spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the donkey understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem. And it is the same today.

A man was coming down the road driving a donkey piled high with firewood. In the distance the churchbells had begun. The man smiled at him a sly smile. As if they knew a secret between them, these two. Something of age and youth and their claims and the justice of those claims. And of the claims upon them. The world past, the world to come. Their common transiencies. Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one.

So our hotheaded rabbi sought authorization to arrest followers of Jesus in Damascus and return them to Jerusalem. He was on his journey when God intervened and knocked him off his donkey.

Fear not, daughter Zion," Stephen whispered. "See, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt…" He spun to me, eyes flashing. "This is written of the Anointed One, in the book of Zechariah. You see, it is him! He orchestrates this with intention!

Perhaps it is easiest to define "meek" by saying Jesus was meek: "for I am gentle [same word as our beatitude] and humble31 in heart" (11:29). Moreover, in entering Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus fulfilled an Old Testament expectation of the meek king (21:5).