Hosanna! Save!

“Hosanna!” is the cry of Palm Sunday.

It’s a cry of adoration and at the same time desperation.

It’s a cry our hearts knows in certain seasons.

It’s this weird combination of praise while simultaneously begging, “save us!”

There is blessing declared by the crowd the lined the roads waving palms and laying down cloaks. And that blessing and honor and praise seems to come from a place of wondering, Maybe He’s finally here. Maybe the Messiah has come and will take care of all this. Maybe, just maybe, the One who can save has arrived.

Until a couple years I go, I had never considered the desperation of those crowds and the risk it took to hope that day of the triumphal entry. For generations and generations, they found themselves longing for relief, for salvation, for God to make it all right. And somehow in that moment, they caught a glimpse that maybe, just maybe this Jesus guy was the one who would do just that.

So often we talk about their misconceptions about the kind of Savior He would be. They thought perhaps He’d be this military leader to conquer those who oppressed them. They missed the true marks of a Messiah even to the point that days later, their cries of “Hosanna” would turn into shouts to “Crucify”.

But I can’t help this year to consider that despite all those things they got wrong, overall the crowd’s exclamation seems genuine. Maybe these were genuine mingled cries of desperation and adoration. There was still something that drew them to this Savior King.

Save, we pray! We need you! We see you! Do something!

Whether that was the motive behind these crowds that gathered thousands of years ago or not, it is the cry of my own heart and perhaps yours as well.

When I look around at the world—the violence, the division, the despair, the heartache—my own heart aches.
Anxiety and depression overwhelming countless souls.
Children and staff dying in their schools.
Hatred, division, and abuse running rampant in churches.
Illness raging in loved one’s bodies and minds.
Families falling apart.
People wondering where their next meal will come from or if they’ll have a home to live in tomorrow.

Death. Loss. Grief. Pain.
“Hosanna” feels like the perfect cry for each heartbreaking day.
Save, we pray!

Jesus, You’re the only one who can actually do anything. And, just like back when those palm branches first waved, my guess is that Your salvation from these dire situations we find ourselves in now, won’t play out the way we might think and hope. BUT looking back at that first Holy Week we can find peace in knowing that Your salvation is always good, always right on time, always right.

You will save. It’s who you are.
You will bring relief, even if it’s not in the ways might expect.
You will bring resurrection even though it involves some death first.

How long, O Lord, can this go on? When will you show up and make it all right?

You can.
You will.
Come soon!
Hosanna!