A SHORT time after healing the two blind beggars, Jesus comes to a small village near Jerusalem. He tells two of his disciples: ‘Go into the village and you will find a young donkey. Untie it and bring it to me.’

When the donkey is brought to him, Jesus sits on it. Then he rides to Jerusalem a short distance away. When he gets near the city, a large crowd of people comes out to meet him. Most of them take off their coats and put them on the road. Others cut off branches from palm trees. They put these on the road too, and they shout: ‘God bless the king who comes in Jehovah’s name!’

Long ago in Israel new kings would ride into Jerusalem on a young donkey to show themselves to the people. This is what Jesus is doing. And these people are showing that they want Jesus to be their king. But not all the people want him. We can see this by what happens when Jesus goes to the temple.

At the temple Jesus heals persons who are blind and crippled. When the young children see this, they shout praises to Jesus. But this makes the priests angry, and they tell Jesus: ‘Do you hear what the children are saying?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Jesus answers. ‘Did you never read in the Bible where it says: “Out of the mouths of little children God will bring forth praise?”’ So the children keep on praising God’s king.

We want to be like those children, don’t we? Some people may try to stop us from talking about God’s kingdom. But we will keep right on telling others about the wonderful things Jesus will do for people.

It was not time for Jesus to begin ruling as king when he was on earth. When will this time come? Jesus’ disciples want to know. We will read about this next.