Text: John John
12:12-19
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!
Our Lord’s disciples “did not understand these things at first.” They made their way to Jerusalem with Jesus, and they saw this amazing royal welcome. Herod was the king of Judea, but the crowds are welcoming Jesus as king. They are strewing palm branches along His path. They are cheering His entry into King David’s royal city. In the course of His ministry, the disciples heard Jesus referred to as the “Son of David” – which means that they recognize His kingship. And now, Jesus rides a donkey, “the foal of a colt, a beast of burden” into the royal city, which is how King David’s first son, King Solomon, made his entrance to take over the kingdom from his deceased father.
But the Romans occupy the kingdom, and they hand-pick the rulers of Judea: King Herod, the collaborator, who was in fact a pretender to the throne, and Governor Pilate, an appointee of Caesar to lord over the Jews.
But now there is excitement as the crowds hail Jesus, whose name means “God saves,” whose name is the same as the Old Testament Joshua who succeeded Moses and took the people into the promised land. And they greet this Jesus with cries of Hosanna: a praise that is also a prayer: “Save us!” So think about this, dear friends: the people are welcoming their king, crying out “Save us!” And His name is literally “God saves.”
No wonder they don’t understand. But at the same time, at least three times, Jesus told them bluntly what was to happen: he was to be arrested, betrayed to the Romans, humiliated, tortured, killed, and raised from the dead on the third day. But here we find crowds of Jews hailing their King.
However, they were to figure it out “when Jesus was glorified.” We might think that this royal welcome is our Lord’s glorification. Not so. For His real glory is in carrying out His name: “God saves.” He is glorified when He answers the crowds’ prayers of Hosanna, “Save us!” For that glorification will be on the cross.
No wonder they are confused. Crucifixion is a humiliation. It is painful. It results in a slow, agonizing death. It is meted out to slaves and traitors. In our minds, this is not the stuff of glory. Being transported into the royal city as a conquering hero is our idea of glory.
So why is our Lord’s horrific ordeal of His passion, crucifixion, death, and burial considered “glory,” dear friends? For this is love. This is the sacrifice of self for others. This is the same kind of glory that the Congress of the United States honors with the Medal of Honor. This is the kind of glory that made the name “Leonidas” synonymous with heroism and honor. It is rare that a king leads the troops in battle and is willing to die for the people. Usually, it is the other way around.
It is at the cross, and then after the resurrection, and then after the Holy Spirit comes, that the disciples “get it.” It is then that they will understand the name of Jesus, the “name that is above every name,” the name of “God saves.” He rescues us from our sin. He dies for us, the righteous for the unrighteous, the Son come down from heaven to pull us out of hell. All of our greatest heroes in history are nothing compared to Jesus, the King of the Jews, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the all-atoning sacrifice, the Creator who dies for His beloved creation – even a creation that disobeyed Him, hated Him, tortured Him, crucified Him, mocked Him, killed Him, and buried Him. They thought they silenced Him, and they thought they silenced His disciples’ prayers of Hosanna.
But, dear friends, here we are singing our Hosannas – week in and week out, two thousand years later, in our worship all over the world and in every language.
But the word “Hosanna” is the same in every language. It is still a praise and a prayer. And for us, we welcome and recognize and confess our King – our true king, not our phony politicians and posers and pretenders – but King Jesus, our Lord, our God, our Savior. He was glorified on the cross, and His glory continued to manifest itself in His victorious resurrection. Like the disciples, we remember “that these things had been written about Him and done to Him.”
For the crowds who hailed Him “ had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead.” And they “continued to bear witness.” For they knew that this was a sign of things to come. They knew that there were to be more “Lazaruses” to come. For those Lazaruses are us, dear friends: we who confess Him, we who bear witness of Him, we who remember that these things had been written about Him.”
We are those same people, dear friends. Hence our palms and our cries for salvation! Hence our praise for our true Redeemer King! Hence the songs of children making sweet hosannas ring!
We know the glory of our Savior, and we know that this glory is shared with us: His life as a ransom for our death, His resurrection as a preview of our own resurrection. We reflect also on the sign of Lazarus, knowing that we are Lazarus and our loved ones are Lazarus.
And this is one of the times when the Pharisees got it right about Jesus, dear brothers and sisters. It is to the Lord’s glory, and it is to our glory, but it is to the shame of the devil, the world, our sinful nature, and the enemies of the cross. For the Pharisees observing this same royal welcome are filled with dismay and panic: “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him.”
And indeed it has and it does – and it will be until His return in glory: saving us and delivering us from the evil one, bringing us into the Promised Land of eternity, calling us by name out of our graves, and giving us a renewed body in the resurrection, fit to live in a world without sin, without suffering, and without death. The Pharisees and others who rely on their own self-righteousness are “gaining nothing.” But to us poor, miserable sinners, to those of us who confess our sins and our need for a Savior, to those of us who pray: “Hosanna, save us” to Jesus, our God who saves, we are gaining everything. We Christians all over the world sing Hosanna and wave palms on this day, knowing that our Lord’s moment of glory was His victory on the cross, and the victory lap of that glory is to come at His resurrection. And that too, we remember “ that these things had been written about Him.
“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment