Hosanna

At what moment does the joy turn into sorrow? In what instant does the certainty disintegrate into chaos? One minute the crowds are hailing Jesus as their Savior, and the next moment they are shouting, “Crucify him!” One minute we are parading into the church, waving our palms, singing “Ride on, ride on in majesty,” and the next minute we add, “Ride on to die” and hang our heads. One moment we are holding our loved one in our arms, and the next moment he or she is gone. One moment we are taking bread from Jesus’ hands, and the next moment we are betraying him for 30 pieces of silver. Palm Sunday, like no other time in our liturgical year, opens to us the infinitesimal space between joy and sorrow, jubilation and loss—the same strange space into which we are pulled by our own lives.

Why do we, who know that Jesus will once again be victorious on Easter Sunday, need to act out every year the ups and downs of Palm Sunday?  Because we cannot practice tragedy before it rips our lives in two. There is no dress rehearsal for disaster. We cannot practice our own deaths or the deaths of loved ones. But Jesus’ suffering and victory—his death as well as his resurrection—have been given to us. They are ours, just as, in Christ, our sufferings are now God’s. For those of us who are joyful, we are invited to practice giving God thanks in each moment for God’s blessings. For those of us who sorrow, we are invited to practice walking behind a Lord who will turn mourning into dancing, who will remove sackcloth and clothe us with joy. As we walk with Jesus into Jerusalem this day, let us remember that Hosanna is an Aramaic expression that once meant “Lord, save us!” yet also soon came to mean, “Lord, we praise you!” They are both part of the same song, our cry to the God who never leaves us. Hosanna, blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.