Here we are.
        One week before Easter Sunday.
                Five days away from the Friday that was so black
we can only call it Good because of Easter.
  Here we are.
          Just days before the time, long ago,
                  of Jesus’ arrest and trial.
                          It’s Palm Sunday.

It was a great day when Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem for the Passover.
The Passover was a thanksgiving holiday for the Jewish people …
a time of pilgrimage for many to the holy city of their faith …
a time of remembering and giving thanks to God
for delivering them from bondage to freedom …
a time to remember with gratitude that God, through Moses,
had led their ancestors from slavery in Egypt to the promised land.

The day we call Palm Sunday became for Jesus
        a day of triumphal celebration as He entered the holy city.
                It was a “Hosanna” day.

There was celebration because of the Passover, to be sure.
But there was celebration over the fact that Jesus had arrived.
So why all this fuss over this One described as the poor man’s king
who rode into the city on the back of a donkey?
Why this procession and the waving of palm branches and the shouts for joy?
Why all of the “Hosannas?”
What was it about Him that had captured their hearts?
Why the fuss?

As He had said at the beginning of His ministry,
 “The time has come.  The kingdom of God is near,”
the people experienced through Him God’s kingdom come to life:
a kingdom of love and justice and mercy …
a kingdom that included and welcomed them.

And now they were shouting as he entered the city,
“Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!”

The religious leaders of the day couldn’t explain it
and couldn’t understand it.
As they stood at the edge of the crowd,
the only thing they could say among themselves was
“Look how the whole world has gone after him.”

Well, the whole world hadn’t gone after him of course,
        because they hadn’t,
                but the people whose worlds he had transformed had.

Why all the fuss?
I suppose there were as many reasons as there were people.
But let me offer this perspective as a way of understanding.

In his book, The Plague, Albert Camus makes this telling comment …
“a loveless world is a dead world,
and there always comes an hour
when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work, and of devotion to duty,
and all one craves for is a loved face,
the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.”

With all that they had or didn’t have …
        with all that may have been going for them or against them …
                with all of those things that made their days or broke their hearts …
                        there always comes an hour when one more thing is needed:
                                a loved face, and the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.
The one thing that can transform everything.

The people of Jesus’ day were wishing, hoping, praying,
        that in their loveless world there was someone just like Jesus.

When Jesus came to them  ~
when they found Him, and found in Him the One to pull them through,
to deliver them from what ever they needed deliverance from  ~
they discovered in His face and in His loving heart
the warmth and wonder of the loving heart of God.

For those who were shouting “Hosanna …”
        for the many who had lived in a dead world because, for them,
it was a loveless world …
for those who had been weary of the prisons that had made them captive
and work that was a drudgery
and duty that was burdensome …
their King, the King of Love, rode into Jerusalem on a donkey that day.
        Hosanna had to be their word.

And you know, the world hasn’t changed much.
O, we have lots going for us,
and in many ways our lives are lived to the full.
But we are not all at that place …
and if we are, we are not there all the time.

In all of the centuries that have passed,
with all of the advancements that have been made,
despite all of the sophistication of our age,
we still long for such an hour
when a loved face and the warmth and wonder of a loving heart
will appear to us.

I don’t know where many of your hearts are today.
        Maybe you’re struggling with some great sin in your life.
                Maybe you’re aching because someone you love
                        is ill or in trouble and you can’t fix it.
                        Maybe you’re worried about your job or your relationships
                and the future looks bleak.
Maybe you’re just feeling the weight of things on your shoulders.
Maybe you look out at this world of ours and wonder where its going.

As a people long ago cried, “Deliver me, O God”:
deliver me out of my sadness …
let Your presence guide me …
let Your strength inside me
lift me into a life worth living,
the same cry is ours today.

As a people long ago cried, “Deliver me, O God”:
deliver me from the sickness of sin  ~  to forgiveness …
deliver me from the brokenness of body and spirit  ~  to wholeness …
deliver me from the selfishness of my life  ~ 
to a selfless life lived for others …
deliver me from the sorrow of a loveless and dead world  ~
into Your love,
the same cry is ours today.

Let me tell you a story.
A woman was dying of AIDS.
A priest was summoned.
He attempted to comfort her, but to no avail.

“I am lost,” she said.
“I have ruined my life and every life around me.
Now I am going painfully to hell.
There is no hope for me.”

The priest saw a framed picture of a pretty little girl on the dresser.
        “Who is this?” he asked.
                The woman brightened.
                        “She’s my daughter, the one beautiful thing in my life.”

“And would you help her if she was in trouble, or made a mistake?
Would you forgive her?
Would you still love her?”

 “Of course I would!” cried the woman.
“I would do anything for her!
Why do you ask such a question?”

“Because I want you to know,” said the priest,
“that God has a picture of you on His dresser.” 
                                     
Her cry, too, was “Deliver me, O God”  ~
deliver me from this place of nothingness.
For that woman, in that moment, it was a Hosanna day.

Into that moment, with that reminder from her priest
that God had a picture of her on His dresser,
the warmth and wonder of God’s loving heart was given to her.

O, times have changed since Jesus walked this earth,
but the deepest longings of the human heart haven’t changed.

And the miracle, then and now, if hearts are open to Him,
is that Jesus did and does deliver us.
And because of it, on this day, as on that first Palm Sunday,
“Hosanna” can be our word.
“Hosanna” can be our affirmation of faith.
“Hosanna” can be the full expression of a grateful heart.

Well, Hosanna people, such an hour has come.
In the breaking of bread and in the sharing of the cup  ~
as your life is surely ready for it …
and as your heart is open to it …
you can see the face and know the loving heart of God.
             For your Saviour has come.
                     He has come for you.

 

SOLI  DEO  GLORIA

 

SOLO

KIDS ENTER