“Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it”
Finding a young donkey, Jesus sat on it, as it is written: 'Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion. See, your King is coming, seated on the colt of a donkey.' (John 12:14–16 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A humble, even comic mount, the opposite of kingly.
The cultural key
Matthew quotes Zechariah 9:9, where the victorious king arrives on a donkey and then abolishes the war chariot and battle bow. A king rode a warhorse to conquer and a donkey to come in peace, and Solomon rode to his coronation on David's own mule (1 Kings 1:33). Spreading cloaks on the road reenacts Jehu's acclamation as king (2 Kings 9:13), and cut branches were national-victory symbols (palms waved at Maccabean triumphs and stamped on their coins). John compresses Zechariah's oracle and adds a confession the other Gospels leave implicit: 'His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered.' The sign was staged for a meaning even the stagehands only decoded later.
Recovered meaning
Every element is a staged royal claim the crowd read fluently: the Son of David arriving for coronation, but on the peace animal, not the war animal. The city got its king and misread only the kind of victory he was bringing.