Shout Your Hosannas to Jesus!

Palm Sunday, 4/1/12
Mark 11:1-10


Shout Your Hosannas to Jesus!
I. Because of who he is
II. Because of what he does


For years an extended family had gathered at grandma’s house for the traditional Easter dinner. Grandma always made her special ham and the other family members each brought a different dish of food to share. But this year things were going to be a little different. You see, some months ago grandma had suffered a stroke and now was no longer able either to host the dinner or make the ham.

So her adult granddaughters decided that the time had come for them to continue to the Easter tradition. One of the granddaughters offered to host the dinner and make the traditional ham.

Easter arrived and, even though it was the first time they had taken care of all the arrangements, things were going smoothly. But then one of the granddaughters happened to take a look at the ham. To her dismay, it had been cut incorrectly. Grandma’s traditional ham was always cut just a certain way and placed just so into her Dutch oven. This wasn’t right. She mentioned it to the other granddaughters and soon a huge argument arose. The centerpiece of the family’s traditional Eater dinner wasn’t right! What would grandma think?

They soon found out as grandma shuffled around the corner and into the kitchen. She asked what the problem was. One of the granddaughters explained. And grandma quickly replied, “Sure, I always cut one end of the ham off, but it doesn’t matter which end. In fact, the only reason I cut it off in the first place is because the whole ham didn’t fit into my Dutch oven.”

Here the granddaughters had thought there was something special about cutting the ham just so. They were under the impression that it was a time-honored family ritual full of meaning, when in fact, it was only something practical that grandma wouldn’t have done if the size of the ham hadn’t required it.

Today it is the Christian tradition or ritual to sing and shout our hosannas to our Savior, Jesus Christ. In fact, that’s our encouragement from God’s word this morning. Shout your hosannas to Jesus! But let’s not fall victim to empty rituals. Instead, let’s understand why. The Lord gives us the reasons for it in Mark’s account of Jesus’ Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem.

Part I.

Occasionally you have the opportunity to find out just who someone is and that might be for the good or for the bad. For instance, you may be working with a group of your fellow employees on a major project and, over the course of time, you find out just how dependable another person is. On the other hand, we’ve all known situations, some of them very public, in which a person was caught in a rather heinous or disgusting crime. We were surprised, but it revealed who they really were.

Palm Sunday offered Jesus the opportunity to reveal exactly who he was. Our text states that there were crowds in front of him and crowds behind him. Some had followed him to Jerusalem; some had come out from Jerusalem to meet him. You might think that it would have been the perfect time for Jesus to perform a few astounding miracles in order to prove to the crowds who he really was.

But he didn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. That would have played right into their misconceptions about him.

But he still revealed who he really was. He did so before his disciples. He told two of them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’” Jesus wasn’t taking an educated guess. He knew exactly what would happen. This was one of those situations in which Jesus displayed his omniscience—his knowledge of all things past, present and future. He revealed himself as true God.

In fact, riding on a donkey was all about revealing who he was. We read the prophecy from Zechariah earlier. There weren’t several ways Jesus could have made his way into Jerusalem on that Sunday. It had to be this way—on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Right up to and through the coming Friday Jesus would make sure every Old Testament messianic prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. In that way he pointed one and all to himself as the promised Savior from sin.

In order to accomplish that work, Jesus would ride into Jerusalem in humility and he would leave it on Friday in the greatest act of humility ever. As the Son of God he could have had legions of angels usher him into Jerusalem. Instead, he rode a common beast of burden. He could have had those same angels defend him the coming Thursday evening and Friday morning. Instead he showed himself to be your Savior and mine as he allowed himself to be unjustly accused, condemned, beaten, tortured and crucified.

And there you have it. On Palm Sunday, that entire week, his entire life here on earth, he revealed exactly who he was and still is—your Savior from sin. So shout your praises to him. Shout your hosannas to Jesus because of who he is.

It’s likely that, for Christians, this is the most praise-filled week of the year. Sure we hit the quiet, meditative low of Good Friday, but the bookends on this week are today and Easter, two praise-filled festivals. There’s no question we’ll praise Jesus this week.

But will our lives, and not just this week, but all the time? We easily proclaim him to be our Savior-God today, but our willful sins that occur all too often refuse to let Jesus reign over our lives. We praise him for his work of being our Savior and we trust in him to bring us forgiveness and eternal life, but we fail to trust him in the smaller details of our lives. Our daily worries and fretting are proof of it.

That’s no surprise to Jesus. I’m sure he knew the same would occur with the people shouting his praises on that first Palm Sunday. But that’s why he continued on his way to Calvary’s cross. He knew that was the only way he could win forgiveness for us, for a whole world full of sinners. And that’s why he deserves our hosannas. Shout your hosannas to Jesus because of who he is.

Part II.

You’ve likely heard the statement, “It’s not what you know; it’s what have you done for me lately.” People appreciate potential only for so long. Sooner or later they demand to see results. If they don’t find what they’re looking for, they move on. It’s a reality that we’re measured by what we do.

And when we measure up, then comes the praise.

It’s no different with Jesus. The people praised him on Palm Sunday for the same reason that we do—for what he had come to do. They shouted, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” “In the name of the Lord”—that’s not a statement of authority as we might commonly use it. It’s a statement of revelation. The name of the Lord is the revelation of who he is. He is the God of our salvation. He is the God who promises to do everything necessary to save us from the punishment of hell.

And that’s exactly what Jesus had come to do on that Palm Sunday. He rode into Jerusalem in order to die. If you had to choose one week of his life here on this earth in which he was most focused on the work he had come to do as the Savior of the world, this would be the week. He had come to reveal himself to the world as the only Savior from sin.

Another way of looking at that work was that he had come to rescue us from Satan’s kingdom and bring us into his kingdom. We’re not sure how well the crowd understood the words they were shouting, but they were true nonetheless. They shouted, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.” Jesus had come to Jerusalem to establish his kingdom of grace.

That’s what got him killed. He was crucified for claiming to be a King. He was no threat to Pilate or the Roman emperor. He plainly told Pilate that he was not king over an earthly kingdom, but of a heavenly one. Pilate realized he was no threat, and yet he ordered the charges to be written and nailed to the cross above his head.

But what a King he was! By offering his life for the sins of the world, Jesus completed his work of redemption. He paid the ransom. He offered his holy blood as the payment for the sins of the world. In doing so, he brought us into his kingdom. By faith in him we are members of his holy kingdom. We’re members of it now and we shall be so forever.

There’s no greater reason to praise Jesus. So shout your hosannas to Jesus because of what he does.

I spoke a few minutes ago about receiving praise for measuring up. It’s wonderful when it happens. But no one measures up all the time. That’s never been truer than when it’s said about us spiritually. The sad and damning truth is that we don’t measure up to our God’s standard of holiness. The days of our lives are an unbroken string of sinfulness. We even let our loved ones down.

But that’s why we shout our hosannas to Jesus. He came to do what we couldn’t do ourselves. He offered his holy, sinless life on Calvary’s cross for us, in order to win our forgiveness and make us his people.

It’s my prayer that you won’t find it difficult to shout your praises to Jesus. You won’t, when you understand and embrace who he is and what he came to do. It’s all for you. Shouts your hosannas to Jesus! Amen.