“How Can We Sing Hosannas?”


By David Setzer P


alm Sunday is a very important celebration for the church. It is a time when Jesus’ disciples hailed him as King. It is a chance for us as disciples of Christ today to acclaim Christ as King. But there is danger in the way we worship on Palm Sunday. It is the danger that we will forget why Jesus came to Jerusalem to begin with, and as a result, we will forget why we sing hosannas. Oftentimes, we sing hosannas on Palm Sunday, and then we sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” the very next Sunday. The events of Good Friday are not on our personal religious calendars. Jesus’ death is mentioned, it is not that we completely ignore it, we just move past that fact as quickly as we can to get to the resurrection. We do not want to admit the pain and the unpleasantness of life. We would rather close our eyes to it the way we do in a scary movie. We allow ourselves to think that people torture animals, but we do not allow our- selves to think that people torture humans. As a result, we often overlook those who are suffering and in pain. There is something to be said for accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative. But when it causes us to overlook those in need, the ones God is calling us to help: the lost, the hungry, and the sick it runs contrary to God’s purpose.


Because of this tendency to overlook the negative we sometimes overlook Jesus’ suffering and death. We get all caught up in the joy of singing praises to Jesus as he triumphantly enters Jerusalem. And we forget that Jesus came to Jerusalem to die. So when we get to holy week, we put our hands over our eyes, and say to the person next to us, “Tell me when it Is over.” It may be unpleasant to think about, but Jesus did die. People drove nails through his wrists and feet. They nailed him to a cross. Jesus experienced terror and pain. What is most important is that he experienced that pain as atonement for our sins and for the sins of the world. Jesus’ death is a face of our salvation that we must never overlook. The prophets had said the Messiah would come riding on a donkey. So when the people saw Jesus on that donkey, they thought he was coming to lead an uprising. They thought he would ride right up to Herod’s 26


The Associate Reformed Presbyterian


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