Shouting In The Streets

For some reason, I have been particularly captured by the story of Holy Week this year. Yesterday we celebrated Palm Sunday, a day remembered for the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Across the nation, kids rushed to the front of the church, like in my church, waving palm branches as we sang some version of a Hosanna song.

Hosanna, meaning “save us,” was the word heard in Jerusalem on that day that we remember. Matthew 21:9 (ESV) says, “And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’”

As I looked over the scriptures in each gospel that recounted the triumphant entry, I started catching a chilling image. Instead of singing and dancing—instead of celebrating—I began to see an eerie image of this day. It seems like the day turned to rejoicing and celebration eventually, but each account describes the moment by telling us people were shouting and crying, “God save us!”

You might start to catch what I'm saying if you can mentally block out for a moment the jubilant Sunday Morning celebrations with neat outfits, happy songs, and smiling kids with palm branches. John 12:13 (ESV) says, “So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’”

I’m not a biblical scholar, so perhaps there was some singing going on, but I can’t imagine it was anything like a cinematic musical number we might depict in our minds. I imagine it more like a series of ever-increasing shouts of desperate and gut-wrenchingly hopeful pleas. I think of it as a crowd of paparazzi or the war cry heard at the inauguration of a revolutionary political leader.

For every kid that danced and ran around singing, “Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna!” there was a mom, dad, or grandparent, aware of the oppressive darkness of their world, who brazenly shouted their faith in the significance of the moment. For them, shouting Hosanna was a rebel cry and the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to shut down the party.

Jesus comes into the city on a donkey with his disciples around him. People are watching. Amid the bustle of the dirty city, people start whispering to each other, perhaps pointing at Jesus. Understanding the significance of this moment, someone takes their coat off and lays it on the ground. The hoofs of the donkey stamp it with a dusty imprint. Another follows with their cloak. Someone rips off a branch to make room for the procession, and before long, a red carpet of palm branches and coats mark Jesus’s path forward.

Who knows how it exactly began, but somewhere out of the silence, someone shouted, “Hosanna!”

Maybe someone a few streets down heard the cry, and palm branch in hand looked to the heavens and cried out, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

An elderly man bent over with age lifts his voice to yell, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

A mother carrying her child covers her baby’s ears and calls into the crowd, “Hosanna!” Her 10-year-old daughter gets the story and adds, “Hosanna in the highest!”

Across the street, a carpenter is moved by the child’s worship and repeats the phrase everyone is yelling. His voice bellows, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

I know I can let my imagination run wild in this scene, but I want to reframe this moment so we can catch the intensity of this moment. The people were responding to the very presence of God. So much so that Jesus declared at that moment in Luke 19:40 ESV, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

I don’t have a takeaway today—just a story about a man who entered Jerusalem and a city that erupted in passionate shouting. I want you to hear the shouts of praise through the cries for help. What would it have been like to enter the city with Jesus as shouting and celebration erupted on every side? What would it have been like for Jesus, knowing what was about to unfold? Pause and meditate on this story of Jesus’s life.