The Rider
"Who is he?" Sara cried as she followed her father through the crowd.
Since she was barely seven years old, her father held tightly to her hand. Her older brother Caleb had moved ahead. Her question went unanswered.
"Is this to do with Passover?" she asked, confused by the apparent celebration.
She felt her responsibilities were back home, with her mother. The festival was near. There would be many pilgrims coming to the city and flocking to the temple. She knew all the stories about her people being led out of Egypt. She knew about the manna, the quail, the bitter water, and the golden calf. Her mother would recite, from memory, words she had heard read from the scrolls. She knew the blood of a lamb was important for the festival at hand, so was the wooden frame around their door.
Her father slowed. The crowd ahead was shouting, chanting words about kings and the anointed. Some were intoning phrases that likened someone in the crowd to a king, like David, the famous king of Israel from a time before the Romans and Greeks.
"Who is coming in the crowd?"
Sara threw a third question out to her father. This time he looked at her, as if he'd forgotten she was even there. Finally he said, "It's him. He's the one they spoke of. He's the one who made a cripple walk. They say he might be the anointed."
"The messiah... like king David?" Sara responded with another question.
"How do you know of such things?" her father asked.
"Mother and Caleb have shared stories of our ancestors. Mother recites psalms to me when she makes the bread. Is this who is coming, father?"
Before her father could answer, the crowd parted. She could see the man who was the recipient of the praise more clearly. They were waving palms before him, and lying branches along the dusty road like a carpet meant for a king to tread upon. A donkey appeared. The man on its back. Its rider seemed to smile at everyone he passed.
"Is he the one, father?"
Her question was lost in the shouts of adoration. The rider of the donkey brought joy to the people, a joy Sara had never seen before, not in their faces, not in their moods. There was goodness in the air. There was a love for each other, and for a moment the Romans, and all that came before, was forgotten.
The rider slowed as he neared Sara. He leaned toward her and gently set his hand on her head.
"Sara," the rider said.
Time seemed to slow. The only sound she heard was the voice of the rider. Her heart felt an emotion deeper than any she'd ever felt before. The rider on the donkey was love. He was the essence of love. She didn't know how she knew this, but she did. The rider would change the world with an unbelievable love.
"I have come, Sara," he continued, "that you might see the kingdom. I have come, Sara, that you might know the peace of my presence. I have come, Sara, for you, despite all your fears."
As quickly as the world around her had slowed, it sped up again. The rider had moved a distance along. The crowd was beginning to fill in behind him. Once again her father took her by the hand and began to follow, stepping on branches and discarded palms.
"He spoke to me," Sara said, once the noise had moved on ahead.
"With all the shouting, how could you hear anything?" her father asked.
"I don't know. But he did. He knew my name."
Her father laughed and shook his head. "I brought you so you might see what men will do to achieve fame. There have been stories about this one, but he is just like the others. He'll make a cloud of dust with his words, and then go away when he grows tired of being a celebrity. Trust my words, daughter. This celebration will fade as quickly as it began, and the miracles his followers speak of, will not be miracles at all."
They continued back toward home. Sara's father said nothing more. The rider and the throng of people were well out of sight. She held her father's hand tightly, but knew, someday soon she would reach for the hand of the rider and escape a world that knew no peace.
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