What Leader Are We Following?

                         Photo courtesy of Ancient Faith Blog

This last week has been emotionally painful, if you have been following the news. As a quick recap, the Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad, allegedly launched a sarin gas attack against a rebel-held city in his own country. The province where the attack occurred, Idlib province, is where many of the people who evacuated from Raqqa went after that city was bombed mercilessly by the Russian-backed president. In response to the gassing of innocent civilians, images of which were shown on international news, US President Donald Trump launched Tomahawk cruise missiles which were targeted to destroy the airfield that supposedly served as the launch base for the gassing in Idlib province. Then, Christians around the world observed Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Some Coptic Christians in Egypt were attacked by the Islamic State while worshiping in their sanctuaries. 

In terms of conflict, politics, and faith, this is a lot of try and digest. As Christians, we are beginning what I like to call our High Holy Days. I, for one, will be participating in many services throughout the week in the lead-up to Easter, and I know I’m not alone in terms of having a busy schedule of worship experiences in the coming week. With Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday on this week’s calendar, there is a real need to connect the work of our faith with the events of our world. 

So, what kind of leader are we following?

Almost ten years ago I had the privilege of living and studying in London for a semester. It quickly became one of favorite international cities, if not outright favorite. Public transport makes the city easy to navigate, and there is so much to see and do that you can’t experience it all in one single trip. I loved everything about it; the food, music, theatre, and culture were dazzling to this small-town guy.

Before I left home, people were telling me of all the tourist stuff I needed to do. I had to go to Buckingham Palace, see a play in the West End, make sure to shop on Portobello Road, take a Jack the Ripper tour, and so many other things that I could write an entire travel post of the things you should do in London. But my mother was insistent that I go and see the changing of the Horse Guard. She said the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace was nice, but seeing the changing of the Horse Guard was spectacular. I found my way to the Whitehall area and found the place where they do the guard change after some failed attempts. That experience is one of the few that lived up to the hype. 

It’s difficult to describe what I felt, but just the horses were so beautiful that you should go if for no other reason. Those enormous thoroughbreds will leave you breathless. With their dark, shiny coats groomed to immaculate precision, you can tell that these animals are bred for power. Their muscles flexing as they walk causes them to shimmer in the light, and in that moment you realize that they are just as deadly of a weapon as the ones carried by their riders. It brings to mind the romanticized stories of cavalry riders on the open plains and deserts of the American West during the 19th century. Or it can conjure the images of Alexander the Great leading a cavalry charge during one of his campaigns of conquest. Regardless, those animals, and their riders, epitomize strength and power. 

As you walk to Whitehall, you see bronze statues of British military generals atop their steeds, captured in perpetual action. It’s similar to the statues you might see in the US of military leaders. There’s one of George Washington in DC that comes to mind, or maybe you think of the murals and statues surrounding Grant’s Tomb in New York City. Humanity has pictured its great leaders on the backs of powerful horses for millennia. That image of them controlling power and bending the will of the horse to their own direction is meant to be the perfect display of true control for a leader. Even Scripture uses the image of powerful horses and who controls them as motifs for powerful leaders. In the prophets, Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar are said to have horses that run like leopards. In the Revelation of John, there are four horseman that herald the coming apocalypse. It’s a mystique and image that is almost a part of the way humanity just sees leadership.

That is exact image, however, is what makes Palm Sunday so powerful. After a week where world leaders try to display their power in how much they can destroy, Christians walked into churches around the world to worship a savior that comes, not on some powerful charger like the Duke of Wellington or Alexander the Great, but not he back of a donkey. A lowly pack animal. Sitting atop, not a gilded saddle, but the robes of His disciples. He wasn’t leading an army in a grand parade, came into the Jerusalem to the shouts of the poor. They didn’t shout, “U-S-A!,” or sing a song of victory over vanquished foes. Instead, they said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

In a week where leaders around the world used sarin gas and Tomahawk missiles to show each other how powerful they were, we were called to celebrate our leader. The one who rode on the back of a donkey.

And it’s the same leader who will be executed, without resistance, for being an enemy of the powerful.

So, while political leaders in the US debate whether or not it was good for us to launch missiles at Syria, or whether there should have been more political deliberation, and bipartisan cooperation before it happened, we see our leader on a donkey.