“Hosanna!” This is the shout.  We heard a different version of it last week.  A personal version.  “Lord, save me!”  This is the shout - “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  The word “Hosanna” literally means “Please save us” or “Save we pray.”  It’s literally a cry for help.  

And so we consider the question.  Who is going to save us?  What is going to save us?  Are we beyond saving?

Assuming, of course, that we think we need saving at all.  Assuming we need help.  We may think we’re doing quite alright, thanks very much.  The status quo might be very appealing.  The question we continue to ask is “How well is the status quo going?”  Jesus came to turn the status quo upside down (rightside up).  To follow Jesus is to refuse to rest content with the status quo, including the status quo within.  Jesus comes to Jerusalem, and he’s engaged in prophetic action.  Prophetic action is an unusual attention-getting act which demonstrates truth from God.  It’s Jeremiah breaking a pot to signify that Jerusalem would fall because the people had forsaken God.  Prophets tell it like it is.  Remember John the Baptist – “Bear fruits worthy of repentance!” and sometimes they show it like it is.  Prophets tend not to be popular.  They tend to get killed, even. 

Our prophet and priest and king is riding into Jerusalem.

As we do each year, we’re marking Palm Sunday.  Why do we do this?  This whole scene that we read this morning is filled with prophetic action on Jesus’ part.   You know what a big believer I am in symbolic action, whether it’s lighting a candle or gathering around the table to which Jesus invites us.  In our story, this morning, Jesus engages in prophetic action.  We’re going to look at two scenes, one involving a couple of donkeys and the other involving some tables. Let’s ask for God’s help as we begin.

“Who is this?” the people ask.  What sort of man is this Jesus? What sort of King is this?  We find that he is the one who enters the City of David on a donkey along with her colt.  Not even two full-sized donkeys but a donkey and her colt.  There is little regal about riding a donkey.  Jordan 2010.  Nicole and I were in Jordan, visiting Petra with a McMaster Divinity College study tour of Israel and Jordan.  Life changing.  At the end of the day, we engaged a Bedouin donkey-taxi service to take us back to the hotel.  I was worried that the donkey wouldn’t be able to hold me, at which point the leader of the group called out, “Get this man a mule!”  The donkey did his job, and I actually love donkeys.

This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, Look your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  Now, our NRSV Bible has used the word humble here to match up with the Hebrew version of Zephaniah, but the word that Matthew actually uses here is from the Greek version of the OT (the Septuagint).  The word is gentle. 

Which must make us think back to those words we heard two weeks ago.  That lovely invitation – “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.”  This is the one who holds onto us when our faith wanes and says, “You have little faith, why did you doubt?” as he is holding onto us.

 This is the man who is on a donkey walking down the road, as the song we sang earlier put it.  Freedom was very much on people’s minds.  It was Passover time – the biggest festival of them all.  A remembrance of God setting a people free.  The city was thronged with people.  Anywhere from 250,000 to 2.5 million people, according to estimates.  Jesus has once again come down from the mountain, from Mount Olivet just east of the city where many would have stayed throughout Passover.  At the end of Matthew 20, we read of Jesus healing two blind men.  This is what Jesus does.  They regained their sight and followed him.  There was no longer any need to tell them to keep quiet about it or not call him things like Son of David for fear of the clash with authorities to which this kind of talk might lead.  The time for the clash is here as Jesus takes his mission public in a whole new way.   The time for talk is over, you might say.  Of course, there will still be talk.

Jesus tells his followers to go into Bethpage, where they will find a mother donkey and her colt.  Jesus is in control of the situation. The symbolism is rich.  A never-been-ridden colt because rookie animals like that were used for sacred purposes.  Branches and cloaks on the ground because this is how you greeted a king.  The king riding in on a warhorse, having vanquished his people’s enemies and at long last given them freedom…

We like that image.  It’s conventional wisdom.  Which makes me want to pose another question.  Where is freedom to be found?  Where in our world do we consider freedom to be found?  Clarity?  Financial security?  National security?  Is it to be found in the ability of the individual to pursue whatever he or she feels led to pursue?  Are my individual rights and freedoms the thing that takes precedence over all else?

Is it to be found in the security of our religious rituals? Hang on to that one.

Jesus comes into Jerusalem at the time of year when religious and nationalist fervour is at an all-time high and dreams of freedom are at an all-time high.  Many of us are familiar of 1st-century Jewish expectations of the Messiah.  One who would free them from Roman rule by force of arms.  When you’re living under oppressive occupation, it’s understandable, of course, it is.  At the same time, you have people in this crowd who are with Jesus, going ahead of him and following behind him, and they’re shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  The question that was posed by John the Baptist is being answered by these followers of Jesus, and no, they didn’t fully understand it all (and it’s not like we do either), but they were calling out, “Save now!”  Son of David.  King.  Mounted on a donkey.  The Prince of Peace coming into the city whose name literally is City of Peace. named after peace, who is going to show that the way to freedom is going to look like something different than what we were expecting.    

The question of the day is, “What will save you?”  It’s “In what or whom do you find your peace?”

The response that Matthew is inviting us into, the answer for so many, the answer for me, is this man who is riding into town on a donkey with her colt.  This man whose symbolic action pointed beyond the symbol, just as it had with prophets before him.  “Who is this?” the people asked as the whole city was in turmoil.  Something seismic is happening here. “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee,” came the answer.  This is the prophet par excellence.  This is the King par excellence.  Why do we do this year after year?  To come before the humble/gentle king and to say “Save now!” because I don’t know about you, but I find myself consistently and constantly in need of saving. 

What sort of man is this?  The man who is going to take the biggest symbolic action in the history of the world.  The one who is going to show what the love of God looks like on the cross, which we’ll remember in a special way on Friday.  We remember all the time of course.  He’s the man who is going to bring us back to God.  The man who will show that freedom is not to be found fundamentally in getting our own way.  The man who will provide the way for us to live in communion with and in worship of the living God – the compassionate one, the merciful one, the just one, the gracious one, the loving one.

So let’s spread our branches and cloaks out on the road, metaphorically at least.  Let us take our palm branches home and hang them on our doors or wherever we keep them to remind us of our King, who is gentle and humble in heart.

Jesus’ prophetic action does not stop with his entrance into the city on a donkey along with her colt.  “Then Jesus entered the temple…”  We’ve talked about Jesus' role as king and Jesus' role as prophet.  Jesus, our Prophet par excellence.  Jesus our King par excellence.  Here we have Jesus as priest par excellence – or our Great High Priest, as he is called.  The one who not simply mediates the presence of God but is the presence of God.  The one who purifies our worship.  We don’t worship God through any goodness of our own.  The one through whom we may approach God. This purification is again seen symbolically in Jesus’ actions.  The temple was a huge place.  It took up a lot of land.  The Court of the Gentiles was a large place and would have been thronged with people.  There’s no reason to believe that the actions of one man would have disrupted things any more than my tipping over an apple display in the produce section of the supermarket would disrupt the activities of the supermarket (though the people around me would be disrupted).  Jesus’ coming causes seismic change, and he is acting prophetically, and a disruption is occurring in the temple.  This is not to say that religious practices are bad – there are religious practices which I carry out religiously.  This is not to say that Jesus is signifying here that the temple or the sacrificial system was bad.  He came to fulfill, not to destroy.  He came to be the person to whom the temple pointed – the one who would mediate between humanity and God, the sacrifice which would bring all things back to God, the presence of God, and the one in whom his followers would be called temples. 

“Then Jesus entered the temple, and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and those who sold doves.” There are a couple of ways to interpret what Jesus is doing.  The first thing is the possibility that people making the journey to sacrifice at the Temple are being ripped off.  It’s not explicit in the text, but it happened.  Jesus may be protesting unfair business practices on the part of currency traders or those charging a premium for doves sold inside the Temple (kind of like how a hot-dog is much more expensive in the stadium than at a street vendor outside the stadium and no outside food is allowed).  There’s merit to this, and the Bible is clear on speaking out against economic exploitation. 

We may be saying at this point, though, what does all this talk about the Temple and sacrifices and religious practices have to do with us today?  There’s no more Temple and no more need to sacrifice after all.  What do Jesus’ prophetic table-flipping actions and words have to say to us today?  The key is to look to the prophet whom Jesus quotes.  Jeremiah.   There’s something else going on here, though, and the key to it is looking at what Jesus says. “It is written,” says Jesus, “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers.”  The original line is from Jeremiah 7:11 – “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?  You know, I too am watching, says the Lord.”  Hear what comes before this.  Let’s brace ourselves a little bit:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

5 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, 7 then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors for ever and ever.

8 Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?

There was a disconnect, you see, between what the people of God were professing with their mouths and in their outward worship of God and what they were doing. 

I know I said let’s brace ourselves, but let us also remember the good news we have heard today.  Your king is coming.  Your King has come, and he’s gentle and humble of heart, and in him, we find forgiveness and transformation.  So this Holy Week, friends, if we haven’t been doing it already (and if we have, let us continue), let us examine ourselves and mourn how the things that Christ announced and lived out are not lived out by us.  Let us ask the question, in what ways does my life not conform to my religious profession?  Do I use my faith as a way to become entrenched in my own views and ways rather than being remade by it?  This is not to beat ourselves up. Remember, the one we worship invites us to come to him to find rest for our souls.  Remember, the one we worship said that the poor in spirit (those who realize their poverty of spirit and need for Christ) are blessed, in a good position, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  We come to Jesus with the cry of Peter, “Lord, save me!”  Lor,d make me whole.   Lor,d make me new. 

We do all these things remembering this wonderful postscript to the story.  This grace-filled post-script.  The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.  People who were once deemed unworthy to be in the temple at all.  People who were excluded are being included, and they’re being healed.  I once was blind, but now I see; now I am being given new eyes to see.  As a follower of Christ, I’m learning how to walk.  When I stumble, Christ is holding me up.  We needed help, and the man who rode into town on a donkey is here to give it.  The children know it because children know their need for help. The little children are crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  Praise to the Son of David.  Save us, please, Son of David – our prophet, our great high priest, our king.   Let us cry out with them this day and every day.  Amen.