Hosanna to King Jesus!

Reflection for Palm Sunday 2020

I place myself among the crowd watching you.! Sadness finds itself penetrating every thought. I so want to shout out, STOP! No more of this, but I have learned this is the way it must be…

I hear the cries of the people shouting- HOSANNA, KING OF DAVID! And I ask myself, the same questions a poet wrote in a reflection poem which I now share.

1. What kind of king rides on a donkey, a donkey that might be borrowed, or might even be hijacked?
2. What kind of a king builds a castle with a wide open door for children to enter but a needle-eye sized hole for the rich? Or enters his assassins’ city without a security guard? Yes, what kind of King are you?
3. What kind of king can send two followers to fetch a donkey and know exactly what they’ll need to say? Or tell a blind beggar “Your faith has made you well” and actually make him see?
4. What kind of King can weep at the funeral of his friend only to say, “Lazarus, come out!” and watch him come back to life?
5. What kind of King can sit at the dinner table with his subjects and be subject to them and wash their feet?
6. What kind of King can carry his own cross and help in his own execution?
7. What kind of King can die so that his assassins can live? Yes, I ask again, what kind of King are you?
8. What kind of King can sit at the dinner table with his subjects and be subject to them and wash their feet?
9. I believe you are a King who came to serve and to give your life for me. A King who will keep His promise and one whom I can trust. A King that I desire to follow.
10. And so I come to you King Jesus not to be served by you, but to serve you and to give my life to you.
11. Use me, King Jesus, all of me as you see fit. Make of me whatever you wish me to be. Just as long as your Hand if the one moving me. Yours is the Mighty hand with an outstretched arm, that rules with an iron scepter and that knit me in my mother’s womb.
12. Use me, King Jesus, all of me as you see fit. Make of me whatever you wish me to be. Just as long as your Hand if the one moving me. Yours is the Mighty hand with an outstretched arm, that rules with an iron scepter and that knit me in my mother’s womb.
13. And if the child in me shouting “Hosanna!” grows up to an adult shouting “Crucify!”, bring me back to the water where I can be born again.
14. Let me sit at the table with you and take bread and wine from your Hands and let me lay my head on your chest.
15. And if 30 pieces of the world’s silver are ever enough to draw me away – wash my feet and make me clean again.
16. Let me pray with you at Gethsemane and learn from you how to be vulnerable with the Father. Let me see your tears and sweat and grief.
17. And if my prayers give way to sleep – wake me again with the water of regeneration.
18. Let me walk with you to the cross. Let me be Simon of Cyrene, and learn to carry your cross with you.
19. And if my Simon of Cyrene becomes Simon Peter and I walk away from your cross to deny you – lead me back to these waters where I can still die with you …. and live.
20. And along this long rough road, let my song be: Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest!

So, as YOU and I move with the crowd
towards the Lord on this Palm Sunday -
may OUR sadness SLOWLY turn to THANKFULNESS and love.

As tenderness touches us –
may it enable us to walk the crowds daily
Remembering… that because of you, King Jesus
– WE are also raised

Amen.