When hosannas lead to heartache - The Easter Week series
Elizabeth Moore
“Cold’s
empire has not yet been undone, but
the cardinals have begun to loudly declare
it’s undoing,
which is as good at the thing itself...”
The “hosannas” of Palm Sunday have always confused me.
They feel hypocritical and gilded. A little unreal. Because we all know how it ends: that in five days, the manic energy of the worshippers will turn hostile.
Of course, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. I didn’t struggle to see over the tops of heads in the Jerusalem mob. I didn’t breathe in the hot air and dust of other people. I didn’t feel the infectious energy of emotionally charged worship. I didn’t have a palm branch thrust into my hands or hear the flapping of cloaks over my head or see them settle and tangle together on the ground.
I wasn’t there. But if I was, I would likely be waving my palm branch and screaming “Hosanna” with the best of them.
Because to the branch-wavers, the triumphal entry was IT. This man riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy. THIS was the Messiah, come to take away the sins of the world, to bring justice to the oppressed, to right the wrong and smite the bad guys. This is our happy ending!
And then..
“Mud crusts and dries
on abandoned, trampled cloaks,
and the women carry some of them
down to the water for washing. He seemed
like a nice man, they would tell each other.
He came from the country.”
Just like that, life goes back to normal. The emotional orgy is over, and we’re left scratching our heads and wondering, “What even was that?”
What about the prophecy? What about the kingdom? What about all of our hosannas? What about justice and prisoners of hope being set free?
The streets of Jerusalem are littered with muddy cloaks and wilted palm branches--remnants of what we hoped would be the end, the victory, the triumph. Work is still hard. The sun is still hot. Babies are still crying. We are still here. And Jesus is off cursing fig trees and flipping tables in the Temple. This is not what we thought it’d be.
It all comes crashing down. Disappointment fills the gap between “what we thought” and “what is.” Yesterday's jubilee feels fake and unreal. We feel abandoned and deceived.
Confusion turns to disappointment turns to outrage turns to “Crucify him!”
Thank God that we know the end of the story—that the days between Palm Sunday and Good Friday were only a season. That, in the end, death is swallowed up in Victory and the Temple curtain is torn; that Jesus proclaims “tetelestai,” and we will all be changed.
But this journey from Palm Sunday to Good Friday is so like us—such an emotional roller coaster of hope and disappointment that we can’t seem to escape. Just when we have secured our happy ending, it slips from our grasp.
Life goes on or life falls apart. Either way, we're still walking, still suffering, still living. But all we want is the King.
“Haste to me, Lord, when this fool-heart of mine
begins to gnaw itself with selfish craving…
Haste, Lord, to help, when reason favors wrong”
As I think about these Jews, I can sympathize. After waiting for centuries for Zechariah’s prophecy to be fulfilled, we’re ready for closure, for peace, for victory, for anything.
We’re ready for the kind-faced Messiah on the donkey to take away all of our problems. Now.
We want the prophecy to play out exactly as we pictured it.
But we settle for the end far too soon. We wave our palm branches and gaze longingly toward the Temple, not realizing that the Lord intends to make us His Temple. We lay our coats in the dust, not realizing that the Lord wants to lift us out of the dust—once and for all.
When it comes to matters of eternity, happy endings don't exist because endings don't exist. Only abundant, everlasting, generous life.
“Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.”
If only we will wait a little longer. If only we will trust. If only we will follow Him out of the celebration into what’s next and beyond. Because the discipline, the darkness, and the death—all of it is necessary for resurrection.
“Silence, silence, O vile crowd;
Yea, I will now cry aloud:
He comes near, Who is to me
Light and life and liberty.
Silence seek ye? yes, I’ll be
Silent when He speaks to me,
He my Hope; ah, meek and still,
I shall ‘bide His holy will.
O crowd, ye it may surprise,
But His voice holdeth my eyes”