Old Testament
Zechariah 9:9-10
9 Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow will be cut off; and he will speak peace to the nations. His dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
New Testament
Matthew 21:4-9
4 All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying,
5 “Tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus commanded them,
7 and brought the donkey and the colt and laid their clothes on them; and he sat on them.
8 A very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
9 The multitudes who went in front of him, and those who followed, kept shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Zechariah’s king comes without theatre. He is righteous and victorious, yet “humble and riding on a donkey”. The prophet imagines a rule that does not feed on conquest: chariots and war-horses are cut off; peace is spoken to the nations. Longing, here, is purified. It learns to want the right kind of kingdom.
So we bring our desires into the light. We ask God to make our longing less impatient, less tribal, less fevered. And we ask, quietly, to become the sort of people who can recognise the true King when he comes gently among us.
Matthew shows that longing in the streets: palms, cloaks, the cry of “Hosanna”. Yet Jesus does not arrive as a useful symbol for our causes. He arrives as King. He refuses to be recruited into violence. He enters Jerusalem by the low road. And the city must decide what to do with gentleness.
In public life we often confuse strength with threat: the ability to dominate, to humiliate, to “win”. Advent teaches us to look again. The Lord’s authority is not the art of forcing the world into shape, but the holy work of making space for life. The kingdom is not built by trampling, but by truth and mercy.