Hosanna: A Protest Wrapped in Praise

A Palm Sunday Reflection

BREAKING: Jerusalem—Tension was high tonight along the city's eastern gate as a controversial teacher entered the city while crowds gathered, waving palm branches as he passed by. The teacher—named Jesus—shared a message of grace and peace, drawing both devotion and scrutiny across the region.

Jesus arrived at the east gate riding a donkey—an image some call a subversive protest of Roman rule and Caesar himself. Yet, the response was anything but quiet. The people filled the streets with shouts of “Hosanna!”—a cry that means “Save us now!”—directed not at Caesar but this peasant teacher and healer from Galilee.

“Rome calls it peace,” said one bystander. “But there’s nothing peaceful about always living under the threat of death.”

Another said, “They tax us so much that we’re drowning in debt. No one can afford to live.”

“They say Caesar is the ‘son of god’—but what kind of god wants us to suffer like this?”

Bystanders were critical of many of Caesar’s policies and practices, but the teacher offered no rallying cry, threats, or swords—just silence, a borrowed animal, and the weight of unspoken defiance.

“Jesus doesn’t rule like Caesar,” said one woman in the crowd. “He rules with love. Jesus kneels to wash feet. He calls the forgotten blessed. I don’t even know if I understand him—but I can’t stop hoping.”

Meanwhile, sources close to Jesus say he has predicted his own death. Some believe this week may end not with a coronation but a cross.

Stay with us as we continue to follow this developing story.

You heard the report. Jesus rides into town, not with power or force, but with humility and grace. And the people? They're crying out. “Hosanna!”—“Save us now!”

That wasn’t just ancient desperation echoing through the streets of Jerusalem. That cry lives on. It lives in us.

We all cry out for someone to save us:

• From fear that keeps us awake at night.

• From the shame we’ve been carrying for far too long.

• From the crushing weight of bills, loneliness, or burnout.

• From a world where peace feels so far away, where war is still called “necessary,” children are hungry, and the vulnerable are overlooked.

HOSANNA
SAVE US NOW!

That word—Hosanna—isn't polite worship language. It's not a pretty song lyric or another way to say “Hooray for Jesus!” that we shout at a pep rally. Hosanna is a plea. It’s an aching word. It’s prayer and protest. “Hosanna—save us now!”

And what we’re usually hoping for—if we’re honest—is for someone to come in and fix it fast. We want Superman to swoop in and save the day with force if needed.

Our imagination is so limited sometimes that the best we can come up with is to meet violence with violence, oppression with oppression, and fight with fight.

The crowd wanted that too. The Hebrew people hoped for a military hero who would run the Roman military presence off with a sword. They wanted a king they could put on a throne. Instead, they got a borrowed donkey, a man with tear-stained cheeks, and a strange love that looked like losing rather than winning.

Jesus wasn’t the king they wanted.
But Jesus was the Savior they needed.

Are we still asking for the wrong kind of king?
Do we expect Jesus to fix everything for us but not change anything in us?
Are we following Jesus because we want Jesus to fight our enemies or because we want Jesus to teach us how to love them?

Do we cry out "Hosanna" with our lips but still trust the ways of Caesar with our lives?

The palm branches matter.
They are not just a decoration; they are a declaration.
The palm branches are a symbol of celebration and a protest sign of confrontation.

HOSANNA!
SAVE US NOW!

The crowds cry out for a Savior but get someone who doesn’t look the part.

Caesar wore a crown of gold. Jesus will wear one of thorns.
Caesar built monuments to himself. Jesus will let his body be broken like bread.
Caesar enforced peace through fear. Jesus brings peace through forgiveness.
Caesar called himself “son of god.”

Jesus reveals what the true Son of God is like—not distant and demanding but near and self-giving.

It’s disorienting.

This is not how power is supposed to work.
It’s not how salvation is supposed to work.

We wanted the rescue to look like victory… not vulnerability.
We expected war horses and banners… not donkeys and borrowed cloaks.
We hoped for fire from heaven… not a foot-washing God on his knees.

This is not the kind of king we asked for—but it is the Savior we desperately need.

Jesus still chooses love.
Jesus still chooses peace.
Jesus still chooses us.

HOSANNA!
SAVE US NOW!

At this point in the story, something changes.

The palm branches have been laid down.
The crowds have begun to thin.
And in the middle of the road—right in the way—someone sets down a cross.

It’s not off to the side.
Not in the background.
It’s right here, in the center of it all—unavoidable, unignorable.

Not just the cross Jesus will carry…
but the cross that reveals the path he’s choosing.

Jesus doesn’t detour around it.
He walks toward it.

Because the cross isn’t in the way.
The cross is the way.

The way of love—real love—
isn’t about avoiding pain or keeping things tidy.
It looks like surrender.
Like mercy in the face of mockery.
Like staying when it would be easier to run.
Like carrying another’s grief as your own.

The cross is not where God unleashes anger.
It’s where Jesus absorbs the world’s violence—and refuses to pass it on.

It’s not a divine punishment.
It’s a radical act of grace.

This is what love looks like when it refuses to turn away.
When it keeps reaching out.
When it says, even through suffering,
“You are still worth it.”

So when we cry “Hosanna! Save us now!”
Jesus does.
Not with power, not with spectacle…
but with a love that holds nothing back.

HOSANNA!
SAVE US NOW!

The cross is still here.

It stands in the center—
Not as a threat.
Not as a weapon.
But as a witness.

A witness to love that doesn’t flinch.
A witness to hope that doesn’t die.
A witness to a God who doesn’t stay far off but enters into the mess with us.

Holy Week invites us to walk the road Jesus walked.
To follow not just with our lips, but with our lives.
To sit in the tension.
To listen in the silence.
To not rush past the pain to get to the joy.

Because the story isn’t over.
The road doesn’t end here.
But it does pass through here.

So this week…
Sit with Jesus on Thursday night, when he breaks bread and bends low to serve.
Wait with Jesus on Friday, when love is poured out and darkness feels like it wins.
Wait and wonder on Saturday, when hope hides in the tomb.

But don’t skip ahead.
Stay in the story.
The Savior who entered on a donkey still walks with us now—
through grief, through silence, through death…
and into something altogether new.

HOSANNA!
SAVE US NOW!