One of the things I have wondered about for years is what to make of a few details of the Holy Week story.
First, on Palm Sunday, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Jesus sends two disciples to get the donkey, and here’s how this donkey is described by Jesus:
“Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it” (Mark 11:2).
This is a new donkey. A fresh donkey. A donkey that has never been used before.
Later, when Jesus is buried on Good Friday, here is how His tomb is described: “Then [Joseph of Arimathea] took [Jesus’ body] down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid” (Luke 23:53).
This is a new tomb. A fresh tomb. A tomb no one has ever used before.
It may sound weird…but I connect both of these to the virgin birth. Mary was a virgin, her womb had never before carried another child.
In all three cases, these examples lead me to wonder at this hypothesis: When God does something truly new, it requires new things.
I think it is somehow connected to what Jesus says here: “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins” (Mark 2:22).
New wine is for fresh wine skins. A new king rides on a new donkey. A new God-Incarnate arrives in a new womb. A new creation begins in a new tomb.
All that ties into a line from Colossians, “And [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (Colossians 1:17-18).
In all things Jesus is preeminent. He is first. He is before. He makes all things new. So this Holy Week, keep your eye out for other things that might just be new.
Stay curious. Ask questions.
Andy
Never thought of it this way before!