Palm Sunday/ Sunday of the
Passion (C)
April 13, 2025
Text: John 12:12-19; Luke
22:1-23:56
Hosanna is a Hebrew word that means “Save us!” We use it as an exclamation of praise, and it
certainly is that, and was used that way in the Scriptures. But it is first of all a prayer,
and it is a prayer for our most basic need.
Salvation. The word is directly
related to the name “Joshua,” our Lord’s Hebrew Name, Yehoshua, Yeshua,
“YHWH saves.” Hosanna, we
pray. And when any Christian prays that
prayer, God in heaven hears and answers.
He answers with Jesus. He sends
His Son. God comes down. In the flesh.
He comes to save. “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” (John 12:13; ESV). So the people cried, praying Psalm 118, as
the Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem on a colt, fulfilling the Scripture. It was recorded by the Prophet Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous
and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal
of a donkey” (Zech. 9:9). “Hosanna,”
the people cry, “save us!” God responds
by sending His Son, whose Name means “The LORD saves.” Hosanna.
Yeshua. Prayer and
response. Jesus is always God’s answer
to our prayer.
Hosanna. Save
us. This is what King Solomon prayed for
at the dedication of the Temple.[1] Solomon prayed that God would always hear the
prayers of those who pray toward the place of which God promises, “My name shall be there” (1 Kings
8:29). In the Old Testament this was the
Temple in Jerusalem, the dwelling place of the Ark of the Covenant with its
mercy seat (the throne of God!), and the place of Sacrifice. These things pointed forward to Jesus, the
One who “comes in the name of the Lord,”
who is Himself the mercy seat and the sacrifice. Solomon prayed that God would hear all who
pray toward the Temple in their many and various afflictions, and that for the
sake of His Name He would rescue, release, forgive, save. That is, after all, the pattern of our
God. He heard the cries of His people in
Egyptian bondage. He sent Moses to speak
in His Name, and He Himself led the people out of their slavery, through the
Red Sea and the wilderness, into the Promised Land. He led them with His own presence in the
pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.
He dwelt with His people. His
glory descended on the Tabernacle. He
met with Moses face to face. Make no
mistake. This is Jesus. The LORD heard the prayers of His people, Hosanna,
save us. His answer is Jesus.
You wouldn’t know this from the English translation, but
again and again in the Psalms and throughout the Hebrew Scriptures God’s people
pray some form of the word from which we get “Hosanna.” It is translated “save.” Save me.
Save us. Save the king. Simply: Save.
In other words, again and again
the people of God, even in the Old Testament, pray the Name “Jesus.” Isn’t that amazing? And God answers, finally, and decisively, by
sending Jesus. Hosanna. Save us.
Jesus. The LORD
saves. It reminds me of the hymn we sang
in the midweek service a couple of weeks ago, “Jesus, in Your Dying Woes” (LSB
447), every verse ending, “Hear us, holy Jesus.” Or the very moving closing hymn last Sunday,
“Lamb of God, Pure and Holy” (LSB 434), as we cry at the end of each verse, “O
Jesus! O Jesus!” It was the cry of the 21 Coptic martyrs on
the beach in Libya in 2015, as their throats were slit by Islamic
terrorists. Jesus! The Lord saves! Lord, save us. Hosanna.
So it is no accident that the people cry “Hosanna,” as
our Lord rides into Jerusalem to accomplish His saving work. In addressing that word, that prayer, to Him, they are confessing Him
to be the Messiah! They are confessing
Him to be God’s answer to their prayers.
Now, to be sure, they may not understand just what it entails that Jesus
is the answer to their Hosannas.
We know that many were expecting Messiah to claim the Kingship of Israel
in such a way as to deliver the nation from Roman tyranny. Others wanted healing miracles and bread in
abundance. And lest we forget, this
crowd has assembled because Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead. We all want a King who can do that. But Jesus is not a politician. And even though He can actually deliver on His promises, and does that very thing, His Kingdom is not of this world. The great mystery of it all is this: God’s answer to our Palm Sunday prayer is
the Passion of our Lord. God’s
answer to our Hosanna is God dead
on the cross. That is the
relationship between what we did at the beginning of the service with
our palms and procession of joyful singing, and what we did shortly after,
as we solemnly heard the account of our Lord’s suffering and death for us in
its entirety from the Gospel according to St. Luke. Hosanna, we pray. Save us.
The Lord does it, by suffering and bleeding and dying. This is not what anyone expected. But it is how the Lord accomplishes our
salvation. Jesus reigns from the
cross. Jesus saves us on the
cross. Our prayer is answered on
the cross. This is what Holy Week is
all about.
And what of us now?
The cross was nearly 2000 years ago, and still we have reason to cry,
“Hosanna! Save us!” There are the sins that beset us, the
relationships we have broken, the loneliness, the shame, the despair that can
set in deep down in our souls. There is
cancer. There is war. There are the promises of politicians, mostly
broken, and nearly all of them impotent… every one of them, without exception
unable to save us. There is deep anxiety
because we know that things are not right. We need saving. And if the cross is God’s answer, we need
help if we are to see how. A distant God
who died for you two millennia ago, but has no contact with you now, is not a
real Savior. But that is not our
God. Remember that God answers our
Hosanna by coming. He comes
down. Jesus comes. That is how He
delivers the salvation of the cross. He
comes to you, in the flesh, just as surely as He came into the womb of the
Virgin Mary, just as surely as His hands and feet were nailed to the tree and
His sacred, kingly head crowned with thorns.
He comes to you in water and words and bread and wine, delivering
the gifts of His salvation. It is His
voice you hear, forgiving your sins. It
is His blood with which you are washed in the font. It is His body you eat and His blood
you drink, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This is the medicine that heals you, body
and soul. His flesh is the bread of
life in abundance. He is the King who
redeems you from the tyranny of sin, of death, and of the devil. He is risen from the dead, and He will call you
out of the grave on the Last Day, just as He called Lazarus. And you will never die again. He promises.
And He delivers. Hosanna
is a prayer for all occasions. We always
need His saving. And He always saves. “Hosanna,” we pray. “Jesus,” God answers.
It is right, then, that the prayer, “Hosanna, save us,”
has also become an exclamation of praise.
For His saving us is an accomplished fact in Christ crucified and risen
from the dead. You will see it when He
comes again in glory. Oh, how we long
for that Day. Come, Lord Jesus. Hosanna. Come, and save us. He will.
He is coming soon. In the
meantime, He does not leave us on our own.
We sing the song of the Palm Sunday crowd every time we come to the
altar. We sing the Sanctus: “Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest… blessed is He
that cometh in the name of the Lord” (LSB 195).
We pray “Hosanna,” and what does He do?
He comes down and feeds us with His body and blood. He forgives our sins. He saves us.
“Hosanna,” we pray. God’s answer
is Jesus. In the Name of the Father, and
of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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