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!