04.01.12; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Mark 11:1-11
So I’ve got a little sign here, with one word scrawled on the back of a poster for the Easter Sunrise service that I hope some of you will be able to attend.
Can you see the word? Cool. Can you say the word? Maybe a little louder?
We hear it used aplenty around this time of year, as we gather for Palm Sunday to celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Fronds are distributed, and we sing hymns, and we wave ‘em around in the air like we just don’t care. Afterwards, if my recollection of being a boy on Palm Sunday is correct, the fronds become something that you can use to whack your little brother.
Not that I’m suggesting that. No siree. Didn’t hear that from me. Nothing to see. Move along.
Hosanna shows up a whole bunch today.
As Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, the gathered throngs cast down palm branches, and cry out “Hosanna!” Hosanna just isn’t one of those words we regularly use in conversation, and it’s one of those words in the Bible that shows up almost totally unchanged.
We don’t translate it. We don’t transliterate it. It’s just a word in Hebrew, and we say it, but we don’t have a clue what it means.
We think we know, of course. When you encounter a new word for the first time, you can gather all sorts of clues from context. Like, let's say, the word "daplinka." If I say, in my best Jabba the Hutt voice, “Meh ganna go dwampa manna ma daplinka,” you’d have no idea what I’m talking about, and you might have concern for my sanity.
But if I say “I’m going to go for a drive in my daplinka,” you’d have some idea what I mean, although you might suggest that I drive my daplinka to the library and please please please get some books that aren’t Star Wars fan fiction. It’s good to branch out. It really is.
From the context of the songs we’ve sung this morning and the stories of Jesus coming into Jerusalem, we think we know what that word means. Hosanna seems to mean something like “Woo Hoo,” or “Yay” or “Booyah.” It feels celebratory, sort of happy and excited, a thing you shout out in a crowd as a parade passes by.
If we’ve been exposed to the hippie Jesus-fest that is the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, we might also add “hey-zanna-zanna-zanna-ho,” but this doesn’t really help us get to the meaning of the word, though, because , like, “zanna-zanna-ho” isn’t in any of the ancient Hebrew texts, man, which is, like, a serious drag, man.
If asked to match Hosanna up with another word that comes to us untranslated from the Hebrew, we might say, well, it’s like “Hallelujah,” which in Hebrew literally means “Praise God!”
So what does this word actually mean? For that, we’re going to watch the first three minutes and five seconds of a movie that’s one of my favorite retellings of a Bible story. The movie is Prince of Egypt, an animated retelling by DreamWorks of the story of Moses. It’s an excellent film, one that’s creative, entertaining and totally respectful of the Biblical narrative. If you haven’t seen it, see it.
The word hosanna recurs repeatedly in a song in the opening sequence of the film. In fact, the name of the song in Hebrew is hoshia-na, which is exactly the same word, syllable for syllable, sound for sound, that would have been shouted at Jesus as he passed that day in Jerusalem.
To get a sense of what that word means, we’re going to watch the version of the movie that was translated into Hebrew for distribution in Israel. What we’re looking for is context, because context helps us get at meaning. What is happening as the word is sung? What is occurring? I’ll hold up my little Hosanna sign, just so y’all don’t miss it. So...here we go:
(Watching this at home? It’s at 1:26, 1:29, 2:28, 2:41; and at the conclusion at 6:57)
That wasn’t exactly a celebration, now, was it? The opening sequence to this film recounts the story of slavery in Egypt, and the story of the killing of the male children of the Israelites. When the word hoshia-na was sung, what did we see? Slaves terrified by oppression and brutality. Soldiers killing the innocent. A family fleeing in fear, desperate to save the life of a newborn child.
There was no zanna-zanna-ho in evidence there, which is, like, a total downer, man.
“Hoshia-na” is what you cry out in those moments when you are in need of help. In Hebrew, hosanna means “Save us.” In Hebrew, it means “Deliver us,” which is the name of the song you’ve just heard when you sing it in English.
That word in Hebrew occurs in two of the scripture readings today. It’s hard to miss as it’s repeated in Mark’s Gospel, but we probably missed it in the Psalm. Now that we know what it means, it’s harder to miss. In Psalm 118, it’s in verse 25, where it says “Save Us!” That Psalm was part of a festival liturgy, one that would have been sung as part of a celebration, most likely some sort of procession up to either the temple or the altar. Though it is a cry to God to save, it is entirely possible that at the time of Jesus, the word would have been used so often in times of common worship that the original meaning of the word had been almost forgotten. It may have become that thing you say just because you know it’s what you say, a rote prayer that you repeat with your voice while your mind is 1,000 miles away.
And yet, still, “save us” is the cry as Jesus enters Jerusalem, even if the voices crying it out didn’t realize what they were saying, any more than they really understood what Jesus represented. That undercurrent of meaning meshes with the undercurrent of his purpose, which is to liberate us from the oppression of human brokenness, and to place in us the transforming grace of God’s own Spirit. It is also the cry that remains unspoken if we view this day only as a day of festival and celebration. It is the cry that remains unspoken if we don't acknowledge that the deliverance we receive does not come from today, but through the course of this long and holy week. We shouldn't forget the meaning of that word, because our need now is no less.
We live in a world where hatred towards the stranger and the different comes easily, and from that place, we cry hoshia-na. We live in a world where the blood of innocents still stains the ground, and from that place, we still cry hoshia-na. We struggle through life unable to understand, unable to find the self we were created to be, unable to find meaning, and from that place, we still cry hoshia-na.
But as we move towards Easter, what we remember this year and every year is that he does. All we have to do is let him.
Let it be so, for you and for me, AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment