HOSANNAS FOR TODAY

Last week in Sunday School, our Christian Educator was giving our boys and girls a way to begin to understand Palm Sunday. “If the President were to come to Daytona Beach,” she said, “How would he arrive?” “By airplane!” one boy said. “I think so too!” she answered. “By donkey!” one girl said, anticipating where the lesson was going.” No,” Miss Mary Ann answered, “I don’t think the President would ride over to church on a donkey for many reasons,” she said with a smile. “A limo,” another girl suggested. “Yes,” said Miss Mary Ann,” probably the Presidential limousine would bring him and the people who protect him (called the Secret Service), and many others would follow his car like in a parade. Probably police from our city would escort him here with lights on their patrol cars and motorcycles. And if people knew about it, they would line the streets and shout or cheer or wave or maybe do all three! That’s how a famous and important person would be greeted today.” Of course, those of us who watch television know there are other ways that famous people are honored or cheered. It might be in the Rose Garden at the White House or on stage in the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. It might be in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown or with a Super Bowl Ring on a football player’s hand, or with the winning car from the Daytona 500 left here in town all year for thousands to see. It might be in Hollywood outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre with handprints, or in Buckingham Palace in London as a new knight’s shoulders are touched of a sword. Or it also was, without prior planning, with a photograph of the American flag being jammed into the sands of Iwo Jima. In Jesus’ day, the long time capital of the Southern Kingdom of Judah and the location of the Holy Temple was a city of much ceremony: Jerusalem; named “City of Peace” which it has almost never been but may someday be. Especially during the Passover, the city was jammed with people coming to pay their respects and give their offering to God in His Holy Temple. It would have been bristling with Roman guards in armor that to us might appear overdone, but in Jesus’ day they displayed the colors of Rome, body armor for protection, s sword for defense, and a horse for speed. Like police gathering at antiwar demonstrations in the 60s, or officers gathered in great numbers for crowd control at sporting events, many soldiers were gathered for Passover for crowd control. But the Caesar’s of that day considered the Jews of Judah and Galilee to be mongrels to be taxed and controlled; Herod Archelaus was the brutal Jewish King who presided over Judea; he was very much in the pocket of Rome. His brother, Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, is the one who asked for and got the head of John the Baptist on a plate and who examined Jesus in Jerusalem since Jesus was from his jurisdiction. There are lots of Herods in the New Testament, the paranoid father Herod the Great (alive when Jesus was born) and his three sons, (Herod Archaelaus who ruled Jerusalem, Herod, Antipas who ruled Galilee, and Herod Philip who ruled the region around Caesaria Phillipi. But the one you’ll hear about in Holy Week services is Herod Antipas. From the Christian point of view, he is a key person in this Passion Week drama; so is Caiaphas the High Priest, and Pilate,the Roman governor.

As with all heroes, saviors, idols, and stars, there can be a bit of drama in deciding who is truly worthy of the attention they are getting. In our day, starlets sometimes entice, and sometimes reject paparazzi that surround them and the fans who are enamored with them. This year political candidates will go to almost any length to endear themselves to constituents who may cast a vote for them. Yet the news media continues to take on adversarial roles in the lives of those in the spotlight. This month we have watched political figures, sports figures, American Idol contestants, and Hollywood stars with spotlights shining light on some of their own dark actions. For those who sit at home and watch 24 hour news channels, feelings of panic about finances or despair about the moral nature of humanity can bring on measurable emotional impairment. We see that many heroes of our today have feet of clay, and the heroes get jaded by the public that sometimes fights for autographs just to sell them on E-Bay. Would there be a chance that crowds would gather for Jesus today? Certainly there are crowds today in sanctuaries and worship centers across the globe, but aren’t we looking back on Jesus and that historic entry? Instead I am asking; today, could we actually greet the Savior if he came to town, or would we be too jaded by heroes and leaders who have fallen from pedestals one too many times?

Heroes may let us down, but if we are looking for a Savior, there is just one place to look: “Hosanna!” is Hebrew for “Save us!” We cannot address it to our president, or to a sports figure, or to a singer or a model, or even to a boyfriend or girlfriend. There is only one who has a history of saving and whose name means “salvation.” Jesus; Jeshua; Joshua; no matter the form of the name, it is the same person who is Savior. But it’s one thing to think of a Savior within the walls of stained glass with a cross and a big Bible. It’s another to carry that belief into the world. In our jaded world, can we shout Hosannas for today to Jesus? Can we shake off the shaking heads of doubters, or the rolling eyes of skeptics, to be among those who put their trust in him; in the one who stilled the waters, healed young girls from grave illnesses and raised a man from the dead? Even amidst tragedies, he is with us; we are not alone. For 2000 years there have been scoffers and yet, to paraphrase a famous saying: “All the armies that ever marched and all the Congresses that ever sat, put together, have not influenced the world and the life of human beings in this world, as much as that one solitary life.” Are you depressed? There is help. Are you hurt? There is healing. Are you confused? There is guidance. Are you angry? There are alternatives. But if you are looking for a Savior, look no further. There is only one; his name is Jesus, the one who, if he were here in the flesh, might enter on foot, sit in the back, give his seat to the person who needed one, be in modest clothes, and perhaps be beyond our recognition. Hmmm; the world, we have noted, has offered adoration to all the wrong people! Can a jaded world begin to trust Jesus to save them? Prisoners have; hospitalized persons have; broken people have; and forgotten people have.

One day on a Long Island Beach over a hundred years ago, a woman named Louisa Stead and her husband were relaxing with their four-year-old daughter when they heard cries for help. A young boy was drowning, and with no one else nearby, Louisa’s husband jumped in the surf to save the boy who was desperate not to drown. It didn’t work; the frantic boy was big enough and panicked enough to pull Mr. Stead under the water as his wife and daughter watched. He had needed a savior, but this valiant man could not fill the bill. His widow was left in utter poverty to raise a child on her own, done often now, but rarely then. She was a woman of great faith and prayed to Jesus constantly for help. On the day after her last money was spent and her last food eaten, she opened her front door to walk outside for a moment, and there on her doorstep was a basket of food and an envelope of money: no note, just help. She welled up with tears. After bringing the food and money in her house, she paused to write the hymn we sang this month in one of our evening prayer services: “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” The refrain she wrote is her testimony to you and to me, as one who leaned on her faith and trusted in Jesus as her Savior, even in her darkest hour. The words? “Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I’ve proved him o’er and o’er! Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to love him more!” May any sense of helplessness, be transferred into hopefulness, and we will then raise loud hosannas, and finally sing Hallelujah’s to a risen and triumphant Savior. Thanks be to God! Praise the Lord! Amen.

Jeffrey A. Sumner March 16, 2008