<p>12:14 <i>And Jesus, having found a young donkey, sat upon it- as it is written</i>- The Lord sat upon the donkey, to fulfil the prophecy of Zech. 9:9 that Israel&rsquo;s King would come to them &ldquo;humble, and riding upon a donkey&rdquo;- not a warhorse. And, moreover, Zechariah says that He would come commanding peace and not bloodlust <i>to the Gentiles</i>, with a world-wide dominion from sea to sea, not merely in Palestine. Those who perceived the Lord&rsquo;s allusion to Zechariah 9 would have realized this was what His acted parable was trying to tell them- the Lord Jesus was not out to destroy Rome but to bring peace to them as well as all the Gentile world. A humble, lowly king was a paradox which they could not comprehend. A king, especially the Messianic King of Israel, had to be proud and war-like. The crowd must have been so terribly disappointed. He purposefully abased Himself and sat upon a donkey. This Jesus whom they had liked and loved and hoped in, turned out to totally and fundamentally <i>not </i>be the person they thought He was- despite Him so patiently seeking to show them who He really was for so long. He had become an image in their own minds, of their own creation, convenient to their own agendas- and when the truth dawned on them, that He was <i>not</i> that person, their anger against Him knew no bounds. The Russian atheist Maxim Gorky commented, in terrible language but with much truth in it, that man has created God in his own image and after his own likeness. And for so many, this is indeed the case. The image of Jesus which the crowds had was only partially based on who He really was. Some things they understood right, but very much they didn&rsquo;t. And they turned away in disgust and anger when they realized how deeply and basically they had misunderstood Him. They angrily commented: &ldquo;Who is this son of man?&rdquo; (Jn. 12:34). In that context, Jesus had not said a word about being &ldquo;son of man&rdquo;. But they were effectively saying: &lsquo;What sort of Messiah / son of man figure is this? We thought you were the son-of-man Messiah, who would deliver us right now. Clearly you&rsquo;re not the type of Messiah / Christ we thought you were&rsquo;. All this would explain perfectly why the awful torture and mocking of Jesus in His time of dying was based around His claims to be a King. The crown of thorns, the mock-royal robe, the &lsquo;sceptre&rsquo; put in His hand, then taken away and used to beat Him with, the mocking title over His body &ldquo;This is the King of the Jews&rdquo;, the anger of the Jewish leaders about this even being written as it was, the jeers of the crowd about this &ldquo;King&rdquo;- all this reflects the extent of anger there was with the nature of His &lsquo;Kingship&rsquo;. All the parables and teaching about the true nature of His Kingship / Kingdom had been totally ignored. The Lord had told them plainly enough. But it hadn&rsquo;t penetrated at all&hellip;&nbsp; The Lord was not only misunderstood by the crowds, but His very being amongst men had provoked in them a crisis of conscience; and their response was to repress that conscience. As many others have done and do to this day, they had shifted their discontent onto an innocent victim, artificially creating a culprit and stirring up hatred against him. Their angry turning against Him was therefore a direct outcome of the way He had touched their consciences. Such tragic misunderstanding of persons occurs all the time, to varying intensities. One frequently finds married couples with such anger against each other that it seems hard for an outsider to appreciate how two such nice people could be so angry with each other. The source of that anger is often traceable to a misunderstanding of each other during courtship. Each party built up an idealized or simply incorrect image of the other; and once they really got to know the other, in the humdrum of daily life, there was a great release of anger- that the spouse was not the person the other partner had imaged. The goodness of who they really goes unperceived and is readily discounted- simply because they don&rsquo;t live up to the mistaken image which the spouse had of them in other areas.&nbsp;</p>