Advent 1 – Hosanna!

Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church

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9d ago

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Advent 1 2025
Rev. Doug Floyd
Psalm 118, Matthew 20:1-15

Today we begin the Advent watch. We are looking for the coming of the Lord. Our season begins with a focus on the second coming of Jesus Christ. We watch for the return of Christ. Gradually, it transitions to the first coming of Jesus. We enter into the hopes and prayers of the ancient Hebrews for the coming Messiah. We are watching. We are waiting.

As we looking for the second coming of Christ today, we read the Gospel story for Palm Sunday. Jesus comes to Jerusalem as the humble King. His entrance begins the movement toward the Passion, Holy Week. By Friday of that week, Jesus will be crucified. This seems like an odd juxtaposition: Advent focuses on the future coming of Christ and we meditate upon the Triumphal Entry that leads directly to Calvary.

Today’s Gospel reading is actually from the 1928 Prayer Book Lectionary. Fr. Les requested this reading as he hoped to preach on the Triumphal Entry. He was unable to be here today, so together we will pause over this story and ultimately seek to consider it in light of the Advent watch.

This story is filled with unresolved tensions that I want to explore. It will be hard to develop all the streams here and it will be hard for all of us to remember what I even say this morning, including me. A helpful Advent practice this week might be to sit with our readings this morning. You might also add Psalm 118 to your meditations. Then ask, “How am I to wait for the coming of the Lord?”

When Fr. Les asked me to preach, he sent me a page of notes he had made. The first note caught my attention, and I’ve tried to sit with this all week. He writes, “Hosanna is a prayer. It means: Help us, Lord. Save us. Intervene and rescue us.”

What a prayer! We could pray this for ourselves in our own struggles. We could pray this for friends and family who are struggling in the swirl of life challenges, health challenges, and job challenges. Everywhere I turn, I meet people who are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, who feel stuck in the valley of the shadow of death, or bear the scars and memories of this valley. Life is hard. Problems are real. Yet Christ is faithful.

In today’s Gospel story, Jesus enters Jerusalem. The rest of Matthew is set in Jerusalem as all the action is pointing toward the Passion, that is the crucifixion of Jesus. We read and act out this story every year on Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis explains it this way, “the present text begins to shift the emphasis of the narrative from Jesus’ teaching and miracles to events, actions, and gestures laden with profound and mysterious symbolism. The text of the Gospel, we might say, becomes less didactic and more sacramental, less bent on conveying a message and more eager to show the substance of God’s love for the world as it became visible in Jesus’ flesh and blood during the drama of the Passion.”^[1] We are beholding a mystery. The revealing of the Lamb of God.

Jesus comes as the king clothed in humility. He enters into Zecheriah’s picture of the coming king,

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9, ESV)

As we talked about last week, Jesus models a power that upsets the earthly picture of power. He humbles himself and enters into our weakness, but He comes with healing in his wings.

As Jesus enters Jerusalem, the crowds line the streets and spread their clothes across his path. They wave palm branches are and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”” (Matthew 21:9, ESV)

This should be familiar. Part of our response during the Eucharist is “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” This is adapted from Psalm 118, which is part of the Hallel or praise psalms sung during the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles is a fall festival. It was celebrated earlier this year from the sundown of October 6 to the sundown of October 13.

During the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jews look back to their journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land. They build temporary booths throughout Jerusalem and cover them with foliage. It is a fun festival with special foods and rituals and time spent with family and friends. If possible, the people sleep in the booths. They eat, welcome guests, study, and remember God’s provision during their journey across the wilderness.

Music fills the air in day and night. At night, oil-filled bowls are lit and the city glows in the soft light. People play instruments and sing songs of rejoicing. They are not only rejoicing in the journey through the wilderness, but they are also giving thanks for God’s provision in the last year. They seek the Lord’s blessing on the land and the people for the coming year. Over time, this festival takes on an eschatological significance as well. They are looking for the coming of the King, the Messiah. Who will bring justice to the land and people, who will vindicate them before their enemies, who will purify the Temple and the land.

I want to focus on one specific ritual. Each morning, the priests process from the Temple to the Pool of Siloam. This pool was constructed during the reign of King Hezekiah as a reservoir to provide the people with water during the siege of the Assyrians. The pool itself carries the memory of provision during difficult times.

The priests fill golden bowls with water and process back to the Temple. After the sacrifices are offered on the altar, the priests pour water and wine at the same time over the altar. The crowds sing psalms of praise and prayers for salvation during the ceremony. At the end of the seven days, the people march around the altar seven times praying the “Hoshana Rabbah,” which is from Psalm 118:25-26:

“Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.” (Psalm 118:25–26, ESV)

In the New Testament, this prayer becomes, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”” (Matthew 21:9, ESV)

The original meaning of Hosanna is “Save us, we pray.” There are two kinds of salvation in ancient Israel. One is a rescue like the story of rescue from Egypt. The Lord comes and takes His people out of Egypt and ends up drowning Pharoah and the army as they pursue the people through the Red Sea.

Hosanna refers to a different kind of salvation. The Lord comes to His people in the midst of their struggle, their threat, their pain. He comes and brings grace so that they might walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Over time, Hosanna also comes to mean “Praise.” It is a praise to our faithful Lord.

When we pray and sing this song in the Eucharist, we are both crying out for salvation and rejoicing in the salvation God has given us in Jesus Christ. Now one more aspect of this image, and we’ll return to Advent.

This celebration and proclamation normally associated with the Feast of Tabernacles is being sung and shouted as the Gospel moves toward Passover. As Jesus enters the city, the people are crying out to the coming Messiah, the King of Israel. What they cannot see is that Jesus is riding to His death.

The cross is at the heart of His coming. His rule and reign cannot be understand outside of the cross. When the eschatological moment or the coming salvation arrives, it looks nothing like what they expected. God’s redeeming grace looks like a bloody and brutal death. How can this be?

God truly comes in the midst. He doesn’t take His people out of this world like the ancient Hebrews being rescued from Egypt. He comes in the midst of our broken lives and broken world. He enters into every bit of brokenness in our world, for He is redeeming the world and reconciling the world to Himself.

Now at the beginning of Advent and during the Eucharist, we cry out, “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.”

We are bringing all our brokenness, the brokenness of friends and family, the brokenness of our world and all our joy, all our thanks, and all our longing for the coming of the Lord in this prayer. This is a cry and a praise that brings together joy and grief. Here we see the cross: both a grief and the unspeakable joy of a people who will not be abandoned by of our God.

As we watch and wait for the coming of the Lord, we don’t seek an artificial joy and a superficial spirituality. We come as we are. Broken yet hopeful. Joyful yet aware of the pain in our world.

We are looking for Jesus to come into our sorrow, our pain, the valleys of our friends, our family, our world. We follow Jesus in the way of laying down our lives for one another. And we long for the coming of our Savior to dwell with us and we with him.

^[1] Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word: Meditations on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, Chapters 1–25, vol. 3 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996–2012), 323.

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Advent 1 – Hosanna!

Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church

published 9d ago