Our Story Told and Changed Forever
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Palm Sunday is a complex moment in the life of the church. It asks us to take the part of the crowds, whose role is filled with joy and disappointment, worship and rage, praise and disbelief, idealism and tragic disillusionment. The people in Jerusalem who meet Jesus as he enters for what they hope will be the last time. And their hope is met, he never leaves until after his death. But the scenario plays out differently then they would have imagined on Palm Sunday, at his triumphal entry. Jesus’s life, teaching, and miracles have made a compelling case for his being the messiah, and the crowds rise up to greet him as a messiah would be greeted. Finally, the Son of David has come to the city of David to fulfill the promises of the new and better David. The land of promise will belong to the people of God. Roman oppression will be overcome and thrown off. The prince of peace will bring safety and prosperity, ruling with justice and righteousness, as the beloved servant of God. If any election was literally the most important election in history, it was that one, long before democrats and republicans were a twinkle in Hamilton’s and Jefferson’s respective eyes. The crowds greeted Jesus with a word that seems to blend in with a number of religious words that have carried over into the life of the church, used almost interchangeably: Maranatha, Hallelujah, Hosanna. But these words all have specific meanings with specific histories and Hosanna is an Aramaic word that when translated straightforwardly means “O, Save!” O save us! The one this word is addressed to is able to save you and you’re asking him to do it. It’s not just a respectful greeting, but a cry for salvation. And wouldn’t it be wonderful, fellow crowd members, if our moment encountering Jesus faded to credits there? Isn’t that enough for one Sunday? I mean, it’s perfect, the people of God, gathered in Jerusalem, meet Jesus, giving him a messiah’s greeting, rightfully honoring him with a bright future of final fulfillment of religious hope and political hope and personal hope on the verge of being realized. Look how good we look, fellow crowd members! Look how faithful! Good for us! But we as the crowd are not there to get it right, to look good, to be faithful, not primarily. We’re there to serve the purpose God has, to step into a role that God has ordained to play out as his mission in the world was nearing it’s key moment of ultimate fulfillment on the Cross. We are there on Palm Sunday, the crowd is there, because God’s plan for salvation will be accomplished.
And so the plot moves forward, Jesus is welcomed with exclamations of Hosanna, “O save us!” And the events of Holy Week continue to unfold in all their beauty and mystery. Preparations for the Passover continue and then the Last Supper takes place. Then things turn. The plans of Judas and the Jewish religious leaders play out. Jesus is betrayed, he’s interrogated by the religious leaders, with false witnesses brought forward. And when Jesus reveals something of his identity as Son of God, he’s brought to Pilate, and Pilate listens to...us. He listens to the crowd. The ones who shouted “Hosanna!” today, will shout “Crucify him!” on Good Friday. The “O save us!” of Hosanna gets more specific with “Crucify him!” … “O save us, and here’s how: crucify him.” They wouldn’t have seen the connection in these two very different moments. But in both cases, they were the same crowd calling for the same outcome, playing out the same purpose, to represent humanity, universally shouting “Crucify Him,” at the one who created and sustains each one of us, a betrayal made even more poignant by the Hosannas we had shouted earlier.
The events of Holy Week are bigger than their historical value. They affected change in the way things are. Peace has been made with God through the death of Jesus. Humans have changed forever as beings who experience resurrection when Jesus rose again. We’re characterized not only by death, but by resurrection.
But the events of Holy Week are also a microcosm of our own souls, a mythic telling of each of our stories—from Hosanna to Crucify, our story is told. In the death of Christ and his resurrection, we die and we rise. I praise, I denounce, I die, and I rise in the events of Holy Week. And so do you, and so does Israel, and so does all of humanity. The events of Holy Week tell our big collective story. I want to encourage you to see yourself in this story. Look back on your life and remember the moments where your heart said Hosanna, please save me, O Jesus Christ, because you’re able to. Remember the times that your heart shouted Crucify him!, where you would rather have Jesus tortured, dead, and buried, than acknowledge him as your king. Remember the events relived in your baptism, Christ’s sacrificial death and your dying with him, his glorious resurrection and your rising to new life with him. Think through these things this week as the events of Holy Week unfold. Remember that they are your story and see them as the story of all of humanity. Feel their weight. Let their significance hit you and then feel their impact. And at Easter, let’s gather together again, a resurrection people, members of the risen Christ and continue to move forward the mission of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. It all begins with Hosanna: O save us!