Hosanna!

(ROCKWALL, TX — March 27, 2018) I wonder what song Jesus was singing in His heart while everyone else was singing, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!” It’s a song of expectancy. They’d sung it before, but never to Him. They hoped He would be the One who would free them from Rome.

But what song would Jesus sing, knowing their “tune” would change in a week? I’m borrowing songs from my generation, Roy Orbison, Hank Williams, and of course, Elvis Presley. They sang well about loneliness. Orbison declared in song, “Only the lonely…know how to cry.” Hank Williams owns the words expressing so well the state of lonesomeness. He includes the tune of the lonesome whippoorwill, the whine of the midnight train, a moon going behind a cloud to hide his face so he could cry. You’re probably familiar with Elvis’s lyrics, “Are you lonesome tonight? Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again?”

These songsters express the loneliness of the human who is facing what no one can help them with. Each of us have felt the pain of losing a loved one either in death or abandonment. Music seems to help us pore out our feelings. The only time we hear of Jesus singing was when He closed the Last Supper with the Disciples. These were probably some of the words to the song He sang from Psalm 116.

“The cords of death encompass me, the terrors of Sheol come upon me; I suffer distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the LORD; “O LORD, I beg you, save my life!” For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I shall walk before the LORD in the land of the living. I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD. I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the name of the LORD.”

Even in this song declaring what He was about to face AFTER He heard their hosannas, He is singing about thanksgiving! The Hebrew word He sang from the Old Testament, translated “the sacrifice of thanksgiving”, is the Greek word eucharistia That’s one you might be familiar with. It is a thank-offering picturing Himself being offered IN OUR PLACE! He knew what was ahead, yet He sang a song of thanksgiving. AMAZING!

What song are you singing during this week of Passion? Gratefully I’m not sounding like that lonesome whippoorwill. The clouds don’t need to hide my face. My song is one of perhaps tears, but they are tears of thanksgiving. My song goes like this…Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluia! I’ll acknowledge His death, His burial, but I’m singing about HIS RESURRECTION!

I love Roy Orbison’s lonely song. It reminds me of high school dances and penny loafer. But Jesus’s song reminds me that my loneliness can be filled with hope, and that He indeed is coming again. No clouds. No tears. No pain.

That’s a good word.

By Paula Lively. Paula is a Volunteer Chaplain at Broadmoor Medical Lodge in Rockwall. She is a VERY retired RN who loves serving the residents at Broadmoor. She and her husband, Fred, have lived in Rockwall for 15 years.

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