John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.


It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.


The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.


Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.


The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.


And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.


Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Donkeys and Royalty in the Scriptures

The royal associations of the donkey are behind Zech 9:9, a prophecy of Jerusalem’s king riding on an ass. Matthew 21:5 and John 12:15 cite this prophecy as having been fulfilled in Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. That Jesus rides not a war horse but the donkey of Zech 9:9 makes Him (like Moses, who also rode and ass [Exodus 4:20]) “meek”. His chosen beast does not show him to be a poor or common man but a king, albeit one who does not conquer. Clearly He is innocent of the charge of rebelling against Caesar,
A man on a donkey is not looking for war.


Zech 9:9 is not the only OT text about donkey’s connected with Jesus’ triumphal entry. Not only does the prophecy that the disciples will find a colt (Mark 11:2 and parallels) remind one of 1 Samuel 10:1-9 (Samuel’s prophecy of the finding of the lost asses), but the seemingly superfluous mention that this colt will be “tied” probably alludes to Genesis 49:11 (“binding his foal to the vine and his ass’s colt to the choice vine” RSV). This line was given a messianic interpretation in Judaism (cf. Gen 49:10 LXX; rabbinic sources naturally associate Gen 49:11 and Zech 9:9).
 –Dictionary of Biblical Imagery

He Tore Them Apart

from Derek Thomas:
Chapter 11 is a new section in Mark’s gospel. It’s Holy Week. It’s Passion Week. This is Sunday, Palm Sunday. Jesus and His disciples have come at last to Jerusalem, and there’s a note here even on a cursory level that everything that happens has intentionality about it. There’s nothing that happens here that is meant to be interpreted as a chance occurrence, a whim. Jesus is in full control of what is transpiring in this week that lies before Him. He’s taking the initiative from the very start, sending disciples ahead to find this colt and bring it back for whatever purpose, as we shall see in a moment, but sending the signal that He’s in control of this. He’s thought about it, planned it...of course, from all eternity. John Murray says,
“He took His soul in one hand and His body in the other and tore them apart.”