1.
Good
Morning. Let’s pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2.
Opening
Comments: Today begins Holy Week. During this week we move from the somber 40
days of the Lenten Season to the emotionally rich 7 days of Holy Week where we
move at lightening speed through the days of our Lord’s suffering, death and
resurrection.
So over the next 7 days we will experience a wide range of
emotions.
On Thursday
we will remember our Lord’s Last Supper with his disciples. We’ll reenact his great act of love and
humility by washing of their feet. We’ll
ponder that that means for us.
On Friday
we’ll remember His cruel crucifixion and reflect upon the meaning of His death
and what it tells us.
On Saturday
we’ll begin the Easter Vigil in preparation for Resurrection Sunday. That vigil will begin at 10pm on Saturday
evening and conclude at 10am on Easter Sunday.
On Easter Sunday
I will enter the sanctuary and cry out “He is risen!” and you will respond with
equal enthusiasm “He is risen indeed!”
And together we will seek to grasp what it means to follow a God who
defeated death for us! What does that mean and how do we honor Him
by living in that reality day by day.
But today we’re going to explore that word “Hosanna!” for it’s
so central to the theme of this day.
Why is this word the central theme for today?
Think about it. We sang
“Hosanna” as we processed from the Fellowship Hall to the Sanctuary. I’m sure some of our neighbors were wondering,
“What in the heck is going on? What are
they singing?”
Then
during the reading of Scripture we heard the Gospel reading where the crowd
cries out, “Hosanna!”
Today we sang “Hosanna” and in our readings we heard the crowds
shouting:
Matt. 21:9
. . . “Hosanna to the Son of
David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
So what do this word
really mean?
Clearly
“Hosanna!” is being used as an acclamation, an ascription of praise but that’s
not exactly what it means.
The word,
“hosanna” or, as it’s pronounced, “hoshi’a na,” (a¡D…n h¶Doy„Ivwøh) literally means, “Save us, we pray!” “Save now, deliver
now, we pray you, we beseech you!” That’s what “hoshi’a na” actually is saying.
You see, originally
“Hosanna!” was a prayer for salvation, a plea for deliverance.
The crowd at
Jerusalem, then, uses that plea for deliverance as a shout of acclamation. The
prayer for salvation becomes an ascription of praise. They’re praising Jesus
precisely because they believe he’s coming to save them, deliver them. They’re
acclaiming him as the coming Messiah, sent by God to be the new and great king
from the line of David, to deliver Israel from all her foes.
Now they’re
right and they’re wrong at the same time. They’re right, in that Jesus is
indeed the great Messiah, the deliverer sent by God to save his people but it
will be a salvation much more different and much bigger than they realize. And
it will happen in a way much stranger than they expect.
Jesus
is much more than just a new national king who will restore Israel to her glory
days, peace and prosperity, and get the Romans out of town. Jesus was about to
accomplish something much bigger than anyone even began to imagine including
His closest friends.
It’s
easy, from our perspective 2,000 years later, to see how limited and wrong
their expectations were but are we that much better than them? Think about that.
Are our
expectations of Jesus today that much different? The phenomenal success of “name it and claim
it” cults masquerading as Christian reveal just how much we want a “Tooth
Fairy” God!
Are we really any
better? Many of us would be happy with a religion that would validate us as we
are, affirm us, make us comfortable, make us feel good about ourselves.
We would gladly
welcome a king who could rescue us from our debt crisis, restore our severely
depleted stock portfolio, reduce or better still forgive us for our mortgage,
and pay for our health care. That sort
of a king would get lots of “Hosannas!”
But Jesus came
with much more! He came to deal with the
real underlying problem that produces all the other problems and that big problem
is our sin.
Let me say that
again. Jesus came to deal with the real
problem – our sin. Not just the sins of other
people, the bad people, the immoral people, the people we look down upon, the
Romans and the Muslims. But our sins, the sins of us good and respectable
people, God’s people, whether we’re talking temple-going Israelites or
church-going Lutherans.
We must all
come to the place where we realize that we need a Savior to whom we will cry “Save
us, we pray, O Lord!” “Hoshi’a na!”
Jesus is made
to order for this impossible challenge. In fact, his very name means, “Savior.”
Remember what the angel said:
Matt. 1:21 Mary will give birth to a son, and you
are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
The name Jesus is related to the Hebrew verb "ys"
and it means to rescue or deliver and the Hebrew noun “Yehoshu’a,” comes from the
same root as our “word of the day,” “hoshi’a na.” Jesus is “Yehoshu’a,” literally,
“The Lord saves.” He’s the answer to our prayer, “Save us, we pray, O Lord!”
Jesus’ very name is telling
us what he has come to do. He has come
to save us by delivering us from ourselves – from our sins.
We
cry out with the Palm Sunday crowd:
“Hosanna to the Son of
David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Matt 21:9
And I fear many of us would
also join the Good Friday crowd with the cry:
“Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
(Luke 23:21)
Instead of an enthusiastic Palm
Sunday exclamation: “Hosanna
to the Son of David,” we hear the Good Friday mock “Hail, King of the Jews!”
The Palm branches on Palm
Sunday are replaced on Good Friday with the crown of thorns and the wooden
cross.
Instead of palm branches, a crown of thorns and a wooden
cross. No longer is the prayer and the praise, “Save us, we pray, O Lord!”
“Hosanna!” Now it is mockery and insult: “Save yourself, and come down from the
cross!” “He saved others; he cannot save himself.”
No, he cannot save himself. And here’s the irony – He
saves us and others by not saving himself.
Jesus saves us from our sins by dying for them in
our place.
Now here is where it gets tricky for us in this time
when the idea of “sin” has somehow lost its sting.
The idea of death still scares most of us but the idea
of “sin” seems to have lost its sting.
The idea that death is the consequence of sin has very little currency
in the modern mind.
You see our ancestors “felt” the connection between
death and sin when they heard Jonathan Edwards given his now famous sermon
entitled “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.”
It is reported that Edwards was interrupted again and
again my members of the enormous crowd as they shouted “What can we do to be
saved.” This sermon is credited with
launching the “Great Awakening” in the 1740’s!
Do you and I really believe that the consequence of our
sin is our death and after that eternal damnation and that we all desperately
need a savior to save us from the consequences of our sins?
Do we – you and I – really need what Jesus came to bring
us? I mean “really need it?”
Think about that
question for a moment will you?
What do you feel when you sin?
Hang on – that’s getting the horse before the
cart. Let me ask instead: “Do you ever
sin?”
Then the next question is this:
“Do you want not to sin anymore or are you perhaps
happy in your sins and the only thing that really bothers you is that there are
nasty consequences if you’re caught?
Yes, for many of us it’s the ‘being caught’ that
bothers us not the sinning!
Do you – do I - really need a savior? Do we need redemption? Do you and I really need to be saved from our
sin and their consequences?
Is being saved better than not being saved? What’s the actual difference?
Was Jesus just a little crazy in doing what he did?
Those first century Jews who cried out:
Matt. 21:9
. . . “Hosanna to the Son of
David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
They were crying out blessings upon Jesus, the Son of
David, who had come to save them from their conquerors the Romans. Little did they know that He’d actually come
to save them from themselves!
Do you and I really believe that we need saving from
ourselves?
·
We know we need saving from
bullies!
·
We know we need saving from
the greed and corruption of corrupt politicians!
·
We know that we need to be
saved from a tyrannical boss whose only interest is in what he or she can get
out of and from us in the form of labor.
·
We know that we need to be
saved from an out of control “health care” system that has gone “steroidal!” Health care costs have gone out of control!
·
Everyone knows that we need
to be saved from crazy Muslim extremists!
·
And surely everyone knows that
we need to be saved from those crazies out there who think that they should
have what we have.
But how many of us really know and believe that all of
that is a direct consequence of the human condition gone unrestrained?
How many of us really get the fact that evil exists
because good men and women let it! Bad
men and women bring it on but for evil to persist good men and women must needs
do nothing!
But Jesus!
Ah! But Jesus!
Yes, “But Jesus came to save us from ourselves. In that case these good men and women needed
to be saved from their moral cowardice!
And so on this day of remembrance we remember that
first Palm Sunday when a man named Jesus of Nazareth came to Jerusalem to save
the world then and the world of human being to be born thereafter in one simple
act of dying.
A good man – the best of all men - dying for every
lesser man. It doesn’t make sense
unless, of course, you’re God and then it makes all of the sense in the
universe.
It’s completely counterintuitive to the world yet we
all intuitively “get it.” Somehow we all
get it. Intuitively we know that what
Jesus did on the cross was magnificent and world changing!
BUT and here is the kicker for this modern generation
BUT . . . sin is fun and we really can get away with it you know and getting
away with it is much more fun than living a righteous life so,
“Sin on my friends and that talk of eternal hell is
simply ridiculous! Yes, Jesus was a nice
guy – a great man – like Gandhi but I don’t need redemption from myself! Heck I’m better than most don’t you know!”
We know yet we sin on!
Deep down we know! Deep down we
cry out for redemption but we can hide – most of the time – from the hauntings
of our “right knowing” and we can drown our soul in the intoxication of alcohol
and drugs or even by our unrestrained consumerism. Rampant debt is our modern sin but “Heck we
can even dodge that bullet but declaring bankruptcy!” And so the modern world continues to turn
it’s back on the truth that good is good and bad is bad. We can’t make right wrong and wrong right
without consequences.
St. Paul has something to say about that in his letter
to the Christians in Rome when He wrote:
Rom. 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is
the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew,
then for the Gentile.
Rom. 1:17
For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is
by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by
faith.”
Rom. 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from
heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth
by their wickedness,
Rom. 1:19
since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it
plain to them.
Rom. 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power
and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been
made, so that men are without excuse.
Rom. 1:21
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks
to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were
darkened.
Rom. 1:22
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
Rom. 1:23
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal
man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Rom. 1:24
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual
impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
Rom. 1:25
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created
things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Rom. 1:26 Because of this, God gave them over to
shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural
ones.
Rom. 1:27
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were
inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men,
and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Rom. 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it
worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved
mind, to do what ought not to be done.
Rom. 1:29
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and
depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are
gossips,
Rom. 1:30
slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of
doing evil; they disobey their parents;
Rom. 1:31
they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Rom. 1:32
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve
death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those
who practice them.
Now fast forward to chapter 2 verse 6:
Rom. 2:6 God “will give to each
person according to what he has done.”
Jesus Christ came that first Palm Sunday to save us
from that Judgment which is the getting of punishment according to what we, in
fact, did, do and will do.”
The question he brings to us today is this – do you
need me to save you?
“Do you want me to save you?”
“Do you need me?”
As soon as we say “Yes” with a ll of our hearts souls
and minds he says “Come then and follow me.
Do what I do and you will be free and eternal life will begin for you
right then and there and will extend into eternity world without end Amen!
Let us pray . . .
