A story from Intermission, a book written by James C. Schaap, a professor of English at Dordt College. Barthius searched frantically for his father, but the streets were jammed with the festival crowd. Somewhere among them was his father, but where? Barthius pushed and struggled through the mob and the dust and the noise. He had to find his father soon — before he saw their own colt in the strange parade moving up the road. He had to find him, tell him how he tried to stop the men who took the colt, but couldn’t … The skies seemed almost white in the heat. Sweat curled down the boy’s temples and ran down the back of his head as he kept searching. All around him people were chanting about the king of the Jews. Barthius found his father at a turn in the road, his arms loaded with palm branches. “Father,” he said, panting. “Father, our colt — it is gone. I tried to stop them — “ The noise around them was deafening.
“So what is bothering you?” his father said. “You can see what a great holiday this is for Israel.” Barthius stared, trying to catch his breath. The energy in his father’s eyes burned like nothing he had ever seen before.
“Here now, my son — help me here.” Together they laid the branches over the road. For just a minute Barthius looked down past the stream of people on either side and saw, far down the way, a clump of people around a man on his father’s best colt. “Father, it is our colt he is riding — the man they call Jesus.” He tried to explain again, but his father seemed possessed. “I’m trying to tell you — ,” he said, but his father paid no attention. He was yelling with the crowd and tossing branches wildly. “It is a great day, my son,” his father said, sweeping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “It is the day of the beginning. We will no longer be slaves to the Romans! You hear me? No longer Jewish slaves. The day of deliverance!”
Barthius stopped at the side of the road and stared down at the men coming towards them. His eyes rested on the still-blurry face of the man riding their colt. “You think this Jesus is the king?” Barthius asked. “Everyone says so. They say he can raise people from the dead,” his father said. “Surely he can free us from the Romans — “
“Father, he is riding our colt. It is our colt there beneath him — “ His father stared. “Wonderful,” he said. “Our own colt, you say? The new king of the Jews riding our colt. How proud we should be, Barthius. Never forget this, my son!” Barthius stood in silence while the crazed people around him chanted wildly about this man they called the king of the Jews.