All of life hinges on hope, but hopelessness is everywhere in our world, and no wonder. People who don’t know God through His Son Jesus have no reason to hope. All they have is despair and depression. That is normal and that is expected. Sure, they have seasons of alleviated despair but it doesn’t last for very long. This lifting of despair comes with a new toy or outfit or relationship or raise, but once the luster has worn off it’s back to despair. The reason for this is that none of those things can conquer death.

For believers hope is always there because of the resurrection. “…The authentic story of hope hinges on the resurrection of Jesus. It is God’s answer to a hopeless world” (Ed Welch). Something shiny comes along and it may capture our attention, but it doesn’t hold it because we hope in something everlasting that never tarnishes. We are caught up in the story line of the Bible. His story has become our story; His life has become our life; His end is our end; and His future is ours as well.

Think about it this way. I just sold our 1998 Expedition. We’ve had it for 11 years and ran it up to 236,000 miles. When we finally made the decision to sell it I spent a Friday morning washing the outside and detailing the inside. I made sure it looked and smelled wonderful. And then I parked it in the garage and chased the cat off of it. I did all of this in the hope that I would get the most money out of it. We ended up trading it in and all the dealer wanted to do was take the tires off and give it to charity! I didn’t get a dime more for all the time I put in, it was sort of depressing. My hope was misplaced.

That is how someone feels who’s not part of God’s story, why bother, I’m just going to end up in the ground anyway and then nothing. They have no hope to cling to, they have no future that they know of. They have ignored God’s story of redemption and resurrection. They are simply looking for the next shining thing that will come along and distract them from the depressing state of affairs.

In Paul’s beautifully written chapter where he unpacks the meaning of the resurrection he stated that our victory comes from God through the resurrection of Jesus (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:57). We don’t need to get muddled down in the world because God has a brighter future for us. However, we do have purpose in the world today; God has given us a reason through the resurrection to get up and do good:

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

Jesus Is Alive!

What word in the Bible is most associated with Palm Sunday? Got it yet? Come on, rack your brain…no, it’s not “palm.” The word most associated with Palm Sunday in the Bible is “hosanna” (John 12:13; Matthew 21:9, 15; Mark 11:9-10). It is a unique word, a word that we sing, but is it a word we really understand? As we approach Psalm Sunday allow me some time this week to shed some light on this beautiful word…

“Hosanna” is not an English word, it’s not even a Greek word. Both borrowed the word from other languages. Our English Bibles borrowed it from the Greek and simply used equivalent English letters instead of Greek letters: h-o-s-a-n-n-a. And the writers of the New Testament did the same thing, they used the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew phrase: hosi a na.

Hosi a na is found only once in the Old Testament in Psalm 118:25,

Save us (hosi a na), we pray, O Lord!

The cry of Hosanna in the Old Testament was a cry for help. The cry was in anticipation that God would rescue them. It’s interesting that the answer to their cry came in the very next verse:

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

The Messiah was the answer. So they were pleading for the Messiah to come and rescue them. They could not see their Savior, but they knew He would come; they knew God would send a deliverer; they had great confidence in God.

The cry of Hosanna in the New Testament was a cry of confidence. No longer was the Deliverer anticipated, He was a reality. The rescuer had come! I don’t buy into the fact that the crowd in Jerusalem knew what they were shouting; crowds shout all sorts of things. But, some of them did. They recognized that the Messiah they long anticipated was finally here in Jesus.

The cry in the Old Testament, “Save us!” became the shout in the New Testament, “The Savior is here!” This is what we celebrate on Palm Sunday (and every other day of the year). God has sent His Son to save us.

Imagine you are a child, alone in a canoe, thirty feet from shore, on a blustery day. All of a sudden a giant gust of wind capsizes your canoe, and you are violently thrown into the water. Immediately you would cry out, “Help, save me!” As you come up gasping for air you see your dad running down the hill, plunging in the lake, and swimming furiously toward you. Your cry for help is now different because your rescuer had come. Now your shouts of “save me” are joyful because you know someone has come to save you.

That is how we shout “Hosanna!” today. “Salvation has come! I am saved! I rejoice that I now have hope! I am no longer under the heavy burden of my sin and guilt.”

Hosanna!

Are we living life to the fullest? You know, are we doing everything we can to squeeze every drop out of every day for the glory of God and the benefit of others? Are we fully loving God and compassionately loving others (aka, the great commandment)? Jesus did…

Now there were also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

When I talk about living a full life I’m not talking about being busy for the sake of being busy, I’m talking about living life with God’s purpose in mind. Busyness doesn’t mean we are doing God’s will, it just means we can’t say “no.”

Jesus didn’t just fill His schedule with things other people wanted Him to do, and I think it’s a given that people wanted Him to do things for them. They wanted His attention; they wanted Him to solve their petty problems; they wanted Him to listen to their complaints; they wanted just five minutes of His time, that’s all. But He focused on doing what God sent Him to do and the result was that John said that if the world were one big library it still wouldn’t be big enough to hold all the books written about what He accomplished.

John was probably using exaggeration, but what I come away from this with is an understanding that Jesus lived a full life in a short time. What hinders us from writing a good book with our lives? I believe two extremes need to be avoided to following in Jesus’ footsteps:

First we need to avoid the danger of laziness. God has all gifted and called us in a unique way. This uniqueness is for the purpose of honoring Him and serving others. Lazy people “hyper-delegate” to others what God has called them to do, or they procrastinate until someone else does what God has called them to do. Either way, God is not glorified and the body suffers.

The second dangerous sin we need to avoid is busyness. Busy people have a tendency to try to do everything. Busy people don’t want to disappoint people and therefore cannot say “no.” They take away from others what God has called them to do. Busy people also suffer from pride: we think we are indispensible.

If we have been gifted and called by God (and we have), then we must pour our lives into that calling. Jesus did and His life wrote volumes. Oh that we would live our lives in such a way!

Grace & Peace,