Sing Hosanna! Even in the Dark of Night
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Our sermon this morning is entitled “Sing Hosanna Even in the Dark of Night.” It is a continuation of last week’s message where we explained that we all go through dark seasons in our lives. We may all come from different places, with different back grounds, maybe different cultures, and certainly different circumstances but there is one thing that is sadly universal to the human experience- (pause) that is pain. We may encounter it to different degrees of intensity but each and every one of us has experienced pain.
It is hard to put into words what it feels like to be in the middle of real hardship or suffering. A friend of ours went through it when his wife decided to leave him for another woman and took the kids with her. Another friend went through it when she discovered her father had been sexually abusing her daughter. Kristin and I, our whole family really, are also personally acquainted with it. We know how it feels to have the dark close in as you sit helplessly by and watch a loved one suffer through illness. When her grandmother lived with us, we were there caring for her as she slowly lost herself to Alzheimer’s Disease. We were there as a devastating car accident harmed our daughter causing debilitating disability. My wife is there for me and our daughter as we struggle through twenty five plus migraine days each month. And we were there when my mother fought a brain tumor and then when we lost her to a seizure.
(Pause) Can words really describe it? When dreams go up in smoke, when relationships disintegrate, when you lose everything, when your world just crumbles apart? Can you really describe the pressure, the weight, the feeling like you can’t take a breath, and the feeling like you don’t even want to keep on feeling- (make the sound you do when trying to find the right words- then pause) words just fail to explain.
As we said last week, we know that there are people in our church who are struggling through a dark season right now. So perhaps I don’t have to describe it for you because maybe you already know how it feels. Friends, I want you to know this morning that there is a way to navigate through the darkness.
That brings us to our first point this morning. Church when you are in a dark season of your life,
Sermon Notes
1. Don’t let your human expectations keep you from seeing what God has done for you.
At first glance, our opening Scripture passage may seem out of step with our sermon’s theme but hopefully as you listen you will see how it all connects together. So please bear with me.
Our passage comes to us this Palm Sunday from Matthew chapter 21 starting with verse 1 (ending with verse 11, NIV),
Matthew 21:1-11
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
When I think of Palm Sunday, I usually think of celebration and the honor showed my savior as He entered the holy city of Jerusalem with such fanfare. However, a closer look and we can see that this Gospel story tells a slightly different tale.
As Ben Witherington explains,
“It tells a tale of great expectations and Hosannas on Sunday, and the acclamation ‘crucify him’ on Friday and perhaps in some cases by the very same people!”
Consider, on that fateful Palm Sunday over two thousand years ago, the world itself was in darkness. As Jesus rode into the Holy city on a donkey, on a colt, He rode into a world that was falling apart.
The people of Israel were oppressed and their land under Roman occupation. As they saw it, God had remained silent for over four hundred years. The Jewish people felt as though they were in the midnight hour.
These “Hosanna” singing crowds had great expectations. They expected God to bless them. They were tired of Roman rule and Roman oppression. They were tired of hardship and suffering. As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds hailed Him as the long awaited Messiah. They sang “hosanna blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” They sang and they prayed and they worshiped because they expected Jesus to be another Moses. They expected Him to come and to raise up an army that would fight off the Romans and to make the Jewish people and the nation of Israel a powerful political force.
They wanted God to act the way they wanted Him to act. To do what they wanted Him to do. They had great expectations.
I can you relate. Can you? How many of us have great expectations of God.
This is especially true when facing hardship. Do you pray and worship God in the hopes that God will fulfill your desires- your personal expectations? As if you pray enough and go to church enough then God will heal you or your loved ones or maybe fix your finances. Perhaps you hope that if you are just good enough then God will bless you or if you care for and serve others then God will mend your broken relationships.
Friends these are the lies we love to believe- that God’s infinite plans or His divine intentions are somehow impacted by our finite human desires and expectations.
So what was God doing on that first Palm Sunday so many years ago? He was offering up His only Son to be our blameless offering. Jesus’s entrance into the holy city of Jerusalem was highly symbolic.
This triumphal entry occurred on the Sunday before Jesus was crucified. Not incidentally, on the Jewish calendar, it was the 10th day of Nisan. To the majority of Christians today, the date of Nisan 10th, seems insignificant. But, for a first century Jew, this was a highly important date on their calendar. God had given specific requirements for observing Passover. One of those requirements was in selecting an acceptable Passover lamb on that date which is why it was known as “lamb selection day.”
When selecting their Passover lamb, it had to meet all God’s required qualifications. The lamb needed to be totally “without defect” of any sort. So, the Passover lamb couldn’t have even a small blemish, or it would be dismissed as unacceptable.
Messiah’s role as redeemer is symbolized by the Passover lamb, in particular its purity and its sacrifice. As Isaiah prophesied (Is. 53:4-11),
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Thus, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem while the crowd praised His worthiness, it was on “lamb selection day.” God was working His plan for the salvation of man, even though the crowd was oblivious to what was right in front of them.
As Dr. Witherington explains,
“Estimates show that at Passover Jerusalem went from being a town of 50,000 to a town of 500,000. These pilgrims coming to town with Jesus were singing the so-called Hallel psalms, the ‘let’s go up to Zion’ songs… Now the Hallel psalms are full of Hosannas which means God saves, and Hallelujah’s which means praise Yahweh. They are ancient praise songs, and they would sing this whether Jesus was coming into town with them or not. The line ‘blessed is he who comes (to Jerusalem) in the name of the Lord’ was what the pilgrims sang about and to each other as they went up to Zion. But here it takes on a special poignancy because THIS TIME their king really has come to town. This time the ultimate son of David really had arrived and the vast majority of them didn’t even know it, or if they did, they had a very different vision of what sort of king he should be than Jesus had.”
Jesus did not come as God’s political power move- He came instead as the servant King on Lamb selection day. For, Jesus was, as John 1:29 declares, the true “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Jesus did not meet finite human expectations. He foiled the expectations of the crowds that sang Hosanna. He did not come to overthrow Roman oppression, instead He came to overthrow sin’s oppression of the human soul.
Jesus rode into the middle of the mess- He did not ride in to be a temporary fix for the political problems of the first century Jews. NO, the King of the universe rode into the middle of the mess of human sin with the intention of changing everything-
to be the solution to the desolation of the soul for ALL of humanity for ALL time.
No, Jesus did not meet finite human expectations. He had other plans. The same may be true for you today. You may look at your circumstances and want God to do or not do certain things. But I urge you this morning, don’t let your human expectations keep you from seeing what God has done for you on calvary.
At the start of His earthly ministry Jesus declared His intentions. He told us what He was here to do when He stood up in the temple and read the words of the prophet Isaiah (Is. 61:1-3),
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.
Who will?- the poor will, the brokenhearted will, the captive will, those in darkness will, those in mourning will, the ashes will- they will be called oaks of righteousness.
Jesus came to give you hope in the midst of your dark hour. Your life may be a broken mess but you need to know today that Jesus wants to ride into the middle of that and have His powerful sacrificial love surround you. He wants to be with you through all the long dark hours of your night.
That brings us to our final point this morning,
2. Sing hosanna even in the dark of night.
Earlier, I shared that my family is intimately acquainted with hardship. In 2012 we were living with my mother and father in law while I was completing my master’s degree when my mother-in-law Beth came down with acute leukemia. She was given three months to live without treatment. Only 20% of patients who underwent treatment survived the chemotherapy. I won’t lie, it was a difficult couple of months, watching her fight but thankfully, she won her battle and she spent 2 years in remission before the cancer returned with a vengeance. This time, the only treatment option available was a bone marrow transplant. The wait was excruciating. Miraculously, in what seemed like the last hour, a matching donor was found. We have had eight years with Mom. Eight years of birthdays and memories. Many of you may remember her from their visit with us last summer. This week we got a call from Kristin’s parents. The news is not good. The acute leukemia is back. We hope to learn more about her prognosis early this coming week.
It was with this painful news on my heart that I approached the task of preparing for this sermon. I remembered something my wife said the first time Beth was sick. It was after Beth’s lungs had unexpectedly filled with fluid and the doctors were rushing her into emergency surgery to drain them. With tears in her eyes, Kristin said, “even if God were to take her from me- even if I were to lose everything I treasure most in this life- God is still worthy to be praised because of what Jesus did for me on the cross.” She asked me to help her not to forget, and so we worshiped God together. That memory ran through my mind as I read the words of this week’s Scripture, “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” And I remembered another verse where Jesus tried to warn His disciples about their coming trials and His upcoming death. He said in John 16:33,
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
“’I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Jesus- the lamb of God- the one who comes in the name of the Lord- He overcome the sins of this world and in Him my soul has peace. I do not know how much longer we have with Beth. But in the midst of the uncertainty and feelings of loss, we will continue to remember what Jesus has already done for us. So we will sing “Hosanna,” even in the dark of night. we will sing Hosanna in the middle of hardship. One day, because of His sacrifice, the suffering will end and we will sing Hosanna in heaven’s glorious halls.