Save now, I pray, O Lord; O Lord, I pray now. Psalm 118: 25

It is  Palm Sunday which always reminds me of my mother’s kitchen when I was a child. After we went to Mass  and  had our Sunday noon  dinner,  my mother  showed me how to  braid the  palm fronds  we’d gotten at church, shaping  them  into a  still fresh yellow- green cross. Every year she replaced last year’s dry and brittle palm cross with the new one, tucking it underneath the ceramic plate on the wall.  I knew about Palm Sunday, Holy Week  and Easter from the Gospel  read at church, but I don’t recall us ever discussing  Palm Sunday  – or Easter for that matter- in any depth. My parents were devout, but they didn’t pursue religious matters beyond the catechisms the church taught. Nevertheless, the Spirit of God must have touched my mother’s heart in a way I didn’t understand because the memory  of the braided cross lingers like a distant  lullaby.

Today I read through all four Gospel  accounts of  Palm Sunday, of Jesus’ entry  into Jerusalem, gleaning the Word of God for  hidden treasure. There are some  minor differences in the  text: Mark and Luke add that Jesus asked the two disciples to find a colt, “on which no one has sat.” In Luke  19:41, as Jesus  drew near to Jerusalem,  He wept over it because of their  rejection of him. John includes that the Pharisees also sought to kill Lazarus “because on account of him, many of the Jews believed in Jesus.” (12:10).  There is nothing contradictory in the narratives; rather,  taken together they complement and flesh out Jesus’ last Sunday on earth.   One detail is undeniably present in all accounts. As Jesus enters Jerusalem on the colt, the crowd  crushes in from all sides, waving palms, shouting   “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.”  Surely it was pandemonium bordering on civil chaos as the people recognized the  messianic prophecies of  Zechariah 9:9 unfolding in Jesus.   They  shouted and cried “Hosanna!”  and blessing  Jesus in the words of Psalm 118:  “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the LORD.”

Hosanna  is a key word here. It  includes exultation or praise which is how it’s usually interpreted  but it’s different from and more than  hallelujah. It is not a word to be casually spoken.  The  English equivalent is the imperative form of  “save, ” but that is an incomplete picture.   The Greek word is directly related to the Hebrew  Yaw sham and na which taken together is a heartbroken plea for God, an “I beg you and entreat you, I’m on my knees before you   to avenge, deliver, help, rescue and bring salvation to your people. It is not a quiet, meditative prayer, but a cry born of hopelessness and desperation. When we consider the violence against and the oppression of the Jews under the Romans, the general poverty, misery, sickness, spiritual  darkness of those living  around  Jesus,  the cries  of Hosanna  are the pleas for God’s mercy and salvation taken directly from Psalm 118.  Interestingly, verse 25,  ho-wo-shianna, “Save now, I pray, O LORD”  occurs right after verse 22:  “the stone which the builders’ rejected has become the chief cornerstone”, a messianic prophecy about Jesus and leads into  the blessing of Psalm 118:26. The multitude  knew the  words of the prophet  Zechariah and the Psalm,  were seeking Messiah to save them – and missed the mark because He was riding  to  the  cross, not to a palace.  Their hosannas never made it to Golgotha  with him.

And what of us? The world is just as sickly,  miserable, violent and oppressed by Satan as it was when Jesus lived.  In the 21^st century we’ve  become ever so  efficient at killing and destruction, more than  the Romans could ever achieve. It is a world in a psychosis of fear and  anxieties , worsening every day. Where is our Psalm 118 “Hosanna?”   Save us, O Lord! If the poor and oppressed in Jerusalem entreated the LORD to save them, aren’t we more morally impoverished and spiritually sick?   The Romans are long gone, but there has  always been another oppressor waiting to enter with the sword.  Alone or in the crowds, we must plead with God. Hosanna, Lord, save us. Save  the children and the family. Cry Hosanna for the persecuted church and this violated, violent  world.  Entreat the only one who can save because  at the end of His journey, on the cross Jesus uttered, “It is finished.”

Jesus, you are our only hope. Messiah, Save us according to your Word and Your Holy Spirit’s empowerment. May the word in our mouths reach the throne of God and may He have mercy on us.