Holy Week: Sunday

Children Singing Loud Hosannas…

(Matthew 21:15)

Holy Week gets off to a triumphal start. Jesus enters Jerusalem, not on a powerful warhorse as kings and generals do; but rather on a donkey, just as Zechariah prophesied (Zech 9:9=Mt 21:5):

Behold, your king is coming to you,

        humble, and riding on a donkey.

The procession, with folks waving their palm branches and singing their loud hosannas along the way, proceeds to the temple where Jesus goes to work casting out the moneychangers, cleaning house and claiming it for himself. The rulers of the temple thought it was their house—that they could manage God’s presence—that they were in charge of God’s grace. Jesus becomes the new temple—the place where God has dealings with his people. Wherever Christ is present, there is the Holy Place, Immanuel, God with us. As the hymn goes, “For dear to God is the earth Christ trod, no place but is holy ground” (4^th verse of This is My Father’s World).

In Christ, the new temple, God’s grace flows unmanaged to all—even the children. No wonder the temple authorities “sought to destroy him” (vs 18). Jesus is always a threat to those who seek to manage God’s grace. In Christ, God is present and free. Free to even cleanse the temple.

From the cleansed temple mount, the children sing their loud hosannas. Amidst all the chaos and confusion, somehow, the children get it. Jesus is the One who saves. That’s the meaning of the word Hosanna. It comes from Psalm 118 meaning “Save us, ‘O Lord!’” followed by, “We bless you from the house of the Lord.” So, the children sing their hosannas from the cleansed house of the Lord.

That’s my favorite part of Palm Sunday—when the children form a processional through the aisles of the sanctuary waving their palm branches and singing: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” We do well to join the children this morning and sing our loud hosannas.