Hosanna – Save Us!
Mark 11:1-11
March 29, 2015[1]
The word “Hosanna.” We think of it as a word of praise—an
equivalent, maybe even a synonym, to “Alleluia.” Since early Christian times, it has been used in that way. But the word’s origins go far deeper.
Let’s look back at Psalm 118
for a moment—the Psalm from which we read earlier in the service. Verse 25 of Psalm 118 says the
following: “Save us, we beseech you, O Lord.”
In ancient Jewish tradition, the Priest would process around the altar during
certain feast days while this verse was being repeated. Save us.
Save us. Save us. These two words in Aramaic sounded like
this: hoshi ‘ah na. Over time,
those words were conflated into hosha ‘na,
which was then transliterated into “hosanna.”[2] In the same way that people today no longer
remember that our phrase “good bye” was a conflation of the prayer “God be with
you,”[3]
so too the Jewish people had long forgotten that the word “Hosanna” was not
just an enthusiastic way of saying “Hello;” it also was a cry for help.
On that day when Jesus was
riding from Bethany to Jerusalem, the crowd may have thought it was shouting a
jubilant greeting; whether they realized it or not, they also were calling out,
“Save us!” “Save us!”
Depending on who you were and
the context you were coming from, you could listen to those words and hear it
differently. If you just happened to be
out and about that day, you would simply join in the shout as an exclamation of
praise.
But if you were politically
active, you would hear that cry as a cry to be saved from the oppressive rule
of Rome. If “Hosanna” was the cry you
uttered that day, you were taking a chance; Rome was pretty sensitive to any
hint of trouble. The roads throughout
Judea were littered with crosses showing the destiny that Rome promised to
those who would dare to take them on.
There may have been a hint of
crying out against social oppression.
After all, Jesus had announced that he had come “to bring good news to
the poor.” (Luke 4:18). That message
wasn’t received any better then than it is today. Think back to the days of the Civil Rights
marches in the United States—men, women and children marching down the streets
with arms linked together, singing “We shall overcome.”
If you were a Scribe or a
Pharisee, you would be on high alert.
Not only because of the religious implications; you didn’t want anything
to upset the uneasy peace that reigned in the country. Rome could be merciless; but its wrath was
generally kept in check, as long as you didn’t cause any trouble. Luke’s Gospel tells us about a Pharisee watching
the parade who was so concerned that he asked Jesus to tell the people to keep
quiet. Jesus replied, “if these were
silent, the stones would shout out.” (Luke
19:40).
I doubt that very many heard or
shouted “Hosanna” as spiritual cry. I
doubt that many, if any, raised their voices—pleading with God to bring
reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace to the hearts of humankind.
Hosanna. Save us.
Words that may have welled up from deep within them, just like the
groanings of the Spirit that cry out on our behalf when we cannot utter words
of our own. (Romans 8:26). Save us. Whether they meant, “save us from Rome,” or
“save us from ourselves,” or “save us from sin,” it is a cry that resonated
deeply within the hearts of minds of those who were marching and those who were
throwing their cloaks down on the road and those who were waving their palm
branches.
But our God is a God of
surprises. The Jewish idea of “save us”
seems to have been completely different from what God had in mind. After all, this notion of the Suffering One
who gives himself to safe the many was part of ancient Jewish prophecy. Long before, the prophet Isaiah had written:
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
Jesus would later tell them,
“my kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36). They shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, Mark’s Gospel records three
different occasions in which Jesus foretold his crucifixion and resurrection.[4] “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the
Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they
will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they
will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three
days he will rise again.” (Mark 10:33-34). You can’t be much clearer than that!
Save us. That was exactly what Jesus had in mind, but
the crowd didn’t understand. It seems so
ironic that just a few days later, a crowd—perhaps some of the same people,
although we don’t know that for sure—but a crowd will cry out again before
Jesus, but this time with the words “crucify him, crucify him … crucify
him!” (Mark 15:13-14). Little did
they know that their cry to “crucify him” was part of God’s plan to answer that
first plea that they had not understood; for God used the tragedy of
crucifixion as part of His plan to save us.
Our world today is very
different. We have progressed so far in
so many ways; and yet we still need saving.
If Jesus were to ride in a procession through the downtown mall in Charlottesville,
we may still cry out, “Hosanna.” Would
we realize, any more than did those people along that road from Bethany to
Jerusalem, what we were saying? Would we
understand what we were asking for?
Perhaps. But I fear that most of us, if not all of us,
would be oblivious to the way God, through Jesus Christ, had offered Himself to
save us. Even today, two thousand years
later, I can only stop and gaze in awe and wonder at the One who was “wounded
for my transgressions and bruised for my iniquities.
O sacred
Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighted down,
now
scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown:
how pale thou
art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that
visage languish which once was bright as morn!
What thou, my
Lord, hast suffered was all for sinners’ gain;
mine, mine was
the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I
fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve thy
place;
look on me
with thy favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace.
What language
shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend,
for this thy
dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
O make me
thine forever; and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me
never, never outlive my love to thee.[5]
On this Palm Sunday we, too,
cry “Hosanna.” Save us, O Lord. Help me to give up my own selfish notions of
how you will do this. Open me heart to
receive your precious gift.
Jesus Christ does save us;
but He also extends an invitation to us—asking us to walk with Him, to follow
Him, all the way up a hill called Calvary.
And He invites to take up our own crosses as we follow Him.
Are we … am I … willing to travel
along with Jesus, to follow him to a nearby hillside? Am I willing to take up my cross and follow
Him?
5 Let the same mind be in you that was in
Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with
God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled
himself
and became obedient to the
point of death—
even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and
under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the
Father. Philippians 2:5-11
[1]
Preached at Cunningham United Methodist Church in Palmyra, Virginia on Palm
Sunday.
[2]
Craig A. Evans, “Hosanna,” in Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, Gen. Ed., The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: D-H, Vol. 2 (Nashville: Abingdon Press,
2007), 894.
[3]
M. Eugene Boring and Fred B. Craddock, The
People’s New Testament Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 153
[4]
Mark 8:31; Mark 9:30-31; Mark 10:32-34.
[5]
Anon. Latin; trans. by Paul Gerhardt,
1656, and James W. Alexander, 1830.
Printed in The United Methodist
Hymnal (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), 286.
