Hosanna!
When you pray the daily office, you systematically make your way through all Scripture, little bits at a time. Every day, there’s a part from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms and Gospels. Given the length of each of these, it takes much longer to read through the Old Testament, than it does the Gospels. Because there are four Gospels that account Jesus’ life and death, parts of the story come up surprisingly frequently, in the daily jaunt through the Gospels. Like today’s reading, when I come across something very familiar, it’s easy blithely read it, as if I already know this. And while I’ve heard or read the story many times, I’ve never read it on a Saturday morning in August 2019, with my life circumstances as they are. That’s why we repeatedly read things; the words and lessons are as relevant to me when I was in high school with an entirely different life narrative, as they are today. My reflection today is steeped in today, informed by yesterday, and will frame my outlook moving forward. And so, I read about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on the colt. Again. For the first time.
Jesus is riding into Jerusalem, where he must have an idea of the trials he’ll endure. As he’s riding in on a borrowed colt, people throw leafy branches on his path. We use palms, in our annual commemoration of this event, hence Palm Sunday. The people ahead of him were shouting ‘Hosanna!’.
I’ve seen church banners with Hosanna written in big loopy cursive. There are joyous songs of great praise with Hosanna strewn about. In this setting, it would be appropriate to shout Hosanna from the rooftops when all was right with the world. When we understand Hosanna like that, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is a little confusing. He’s heading off to his trial, torture and death. And the people are cheering wildly! When I was little, Palm Sunday was a joyous celebration, shouts of Hosanna, and making dozens of palm crosses. Woo hoo! Probably not until adulthood did I realize something didn’t fit in my younger understanding.
But here’s the thing. Originally, Hosanna was likely a cry of desperation, a cry for God to deliver them. The people lining the streets at Jesus’ entry were not so much cheering, as they were imploring, desperate for God’s saving grace.
On the worst day when all was wrong with the world, that’s when you go to the roof top and cry Hosanna. Not because all is well, but because it’s not. Instead of the crowds at Jesus’ entry looking like something from Miracle on 34th street gleefully shouting Hosanna, I picture it like something more akin to a crowd scene in Les Miserables.
Reading this story in August in 2019, the gloomy cries of Hosanna resonate. God save us! Aren’t we all, always in need of saving from something? It’s from that place of desperation that we call to Jesus. Now, just like the people lining the streets, Jesus’ saving may not come in the form or at the time the Hosanna-criers imagined. But it comes.
This morning, I’m thinking about crafting a Hosanna banner that reflects what the word originally meant, because many days, that’s the banner I need to be waving. Not the chipper, sanitized version.
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