Save Us Now: Hosanna and the Tender Box

In one paragraph

Palm Sunday fell in the middle of the church's walk through Romans, and Pastor Carl used it to step away from the text for one week and trace the events immediately before Jesus rode into Jerusalem. The thread connecting it all was a simple question: where do you place your identity, and who are you calling on to save you? The passage in Romans 2 that the series had reached was still circling the...

Read together

1. Romans 2:25-29 the main Romans passage read and expounded on circumcision of the heart versus outward circumcision
2. Romans 8:1 quoted briefly to make the point that identity is found in Christ: 'there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ'
3. Romans 4 mentioned as the coming passage where Paul uses Abraham believing God and it being counted as righteousness
4. John 11:1-46 read straight through as the immediate background to the Palm Sunday entry, covering Lazarus's death and resurrection
5. Luke 19 referenced for Jesus weeping over Jerusalem as he approached over the Mount of Olives
6. John 12:12-19 the Palm Sunday entry text: crowd takes palm branches, shouts Hosanna, Jesus rides a donkey's colt
7. Psalm 118:25 cited as the Hebrew source of 'Hosanna,' meaning 'save us now' or 'I beseech you, send prosperity now'
8. Zechariah referenced as the prophecy fulfilled when Jesus rode in on a donkey's colt: 'Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold your king is coming seated on a donkey's colt'
9. Revelation 7:9 read as a future forecast of a vast crowd from every nation holding palm branches and shouting 'Salvation comes from our God'

Talk about it

1. Pastor Carl walked through the political, economic, and cultural pressures the Jewish people were living under in first-century Roman Judea, and drew a parallel to the pressures Christians feel today. Where do you find yourself looking for relief or rescue that is not Christ?
2. Paul argues in Romans that Christian identity is to be found in Christ rather than in where you came from or what religious practices you keep. What things, other than Christ, do you find yourself tempted to build your identity around?
3. When Jesus told Martha 'I am the resurrection and the life,' he asked her directly, 'Do you believe this?' Martha answered yes even while standing in front of her brother's four-day-old tomb. Has there been a moment in your own life where you had to answer that question in the middle of a situation that looked hopeless?
4. The crowd shouting 'Hosanna' were crying out 'save us now,' but they had a specific kind of salvation in mind, one that looked like political and military victory. By the end of the week they were shouting 'crucify him.' How do we guard against doing the same thing when God does not save us the way we expected?
5. Pastor Carl closed with Revelation 7:9, a picture of every nation, tribe, people, and language gathered before the throne holding palm branches. How does keeping that future reality in view change the way you think about what is happening in the world around you right now?