Hosanna

I spent a quiet Saturday morning in the book of Mark and came across this passage,"And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!'" (Mark 11:9-10) Hosanna, such a shout of joy to go before the Lord! And for the life of me I couldn't remember what it meant.
 I did a familiar Google search and came across this passage by John Piper sharing from a Palm Sunday message. He says it more beautifully than I could ever paraphrase so I wanted to share with you all. May your heart join in saying "Hosanna" today. Hosanna is a freedom song, and if we're honest, we all want to be free to sing.



From John Piper: Our mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples, through Jesus Christ. Feel free to copy and share this message by following our lead in not selling it but by providing it freely to others. We ask that you share it in its entirety as is. For more information about our ministry visit our web pages at Desiring God Ministries or email us at DGM.
PIPER'S NOTES

March 27, 1983
(Palm Sunday Evening)
Bethlehem Baptist Church
John Piper, Pastor

I know one of the concerns of the children's music ministry is that the children understand what they are singing and that they mean it. And I share that concern for our people. In a moment the choir will sing a song called, "Hosanna, Hosanna!" And after that we all will sing a song which begins: "Hosanna in the highest!" So I want to give a little lesson in Greek and Hebrew to make sure we all know what the New Testament means when it says in three different places, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" (Mt. 21:9,15), or "Hosanna in the highest!" (Mk. 11:9,10), or simply, "Hosanna!" (John 12:13).
You all know that the New Testament was first written in Greek and the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew. Wherever the word "hosanna" occurs in the New Testament do you know what the Greek word is? Right! It's "hosanna." All the English translators did was use English letters (h-o-s-a-n-n-a) to make the sound of a Greek word.
But if you look in a Greek dictionary to find what it means, you know what you find? You find that it is really not originally a Greek word after all. The men who wrote the New Testament in Greek did the same thing to a Hebrew word that our English translators did to the Greek word: they just used Greek letters to make the sound of a Hebrew phrase. I know this sounds sort of complicated. But it's really not. Our English word "hosanna" comes from a Greek word "hosanna" which comes from a Hebrew phrase hoshiya na.
And that Hebrew phrase is found one solitary place in the whole Old Testament, Psalm 118:25, where it means, "Save, please!" It is a cry to God for help. Like when somebody pushes out off the diving board before you can swim and you come up hollering: "Help, save me" … "Hoshiya na!"
But something happened to that phrase, hoshiya na. The meaning changed over the years. In the psalm it was immediately followed by the exclamation: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" The cry for help, hoshiya na, was answered almost before it came out of the psalmist's mouth. And over the centuries the phrase hoshiya na stopped being a cry for help in the ordinary language of the Jews. Instead it became a shout of hope and exultation. It used to mean, "Save, please!" But gradually it came to mean, "Salvation! Salvation! Salvation has come!" It used to be what you would say when you fell off the diving board. But it came to be what you would say when you see the lifeguard coming to save you! It is the bubbling over of a heart that sees hope and joy and salvation on the way and can't keep it in.
So "Hosanna!" means, "Hooray for salvation! It's coming! It's here! Salvation! Salvation!"
And "Hosanna to the Son of David!" means, "The Son of David is our salvation! Hooray for the king! Salvation belongs to the king!"
And "Hosanna in the highest!" means, "Let all the angels in heaven join the song of praise. Salvation! Salvation! Let the highest heaven sing the song!"
Picture a super bowl game, and (believe it or not) the Vikings are three points ahead of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are on their own 35 and have no more time outs. There are two seconds remaining on the clock. The Vikings' fans are going wild. The Steelers line up, fake a pass to the receivers on the left field line and run a wide sweep around the right end and the quarterback breaks into the open and heads down the right sideline -- 40 - 45 - 50 - 45. The only hope for the Vikings is Willie Teal, the safety, cutting a diagonal across the field. And out of the Vikings' grandstand come two kinds of Hosannas, the old kind and the new kind. One part of the crowd is yelling: "Catch him! Catch him, Willie!" (That's the old Hosanna.) The other part of the crowd is yelling, "You got him! You got him, Willie!" (That's the new Hosanna.) The word moved from plea to praise; from cry to confidence.
So when we sing "Hosanna" now, let's make it very personal. Let's make it our praise and our confidence. The Son of David has come. He has saved us from guilt and fear and hopelessness. Salvation! Salvation belongs to our God and to the Son! Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!

© COPYRIGHT 1983, 1998 John Piper.Piper Notes

Everyday Inspirations

This is what my desktop looks like. It's a collection of notes and quotes from famous individuals and people I know who inspire me. 

The notes remind me, they encourage me, they inspire me. When life gets to be crazy or my heart is found restless I'm reminded of truth from the words of other. Some follow below.


"Walking toward Him is walking away from sin. The better you know Him, the further from it you will be. But you can't walk away from sin, not in your own strength. Everything He wants to do in you will get done as you learn to live in His love. Every act of sin results from your mistrust of His love and intentions for you. We sin to fill up broken places, to try to fight for what we think is best for us, or by reacting to guilt and shame. Once you discover how much He loves you, all that changes. As you grow in trusting Him, you will find yourself increasingly free from sin. --"So you don't want to go to church anymore."


"If it wasn't chance, it was anti-chance, something like God." --Jane Goodall


"Christians know what the world does not — that the mother tending her child, the farmer planting his crops, the father protecting his family, the couple faithfully living out their marital vows, the factory worker laboring to support his family, and the preacher preparing to preach the Word of God are all doing far more important work." --Al Mohler on Steve Jobs' passing


“Here then are two instructions, ‘love your neighbor’ and ‘go and make disciples.’ What is the relation between the two? Some of us behave as if we thought them identical, so that if we have shared the gospel with somebody, we consider we have completed our responsibility to love him. But no. The Great Commission neither explains, nor exhausts, nor supersedes the Great Commandment. What it does is to add to the command of neighbor-love and neighbor-service a new and urgent Christian dimension. If we truly love our neighbor, we shall without doubt tell him the Good News of Jesus. But equally, if we truly love our neighbor, we shall not stop there” --John Stott


‎"It is appropriate to be restless (even when you have grayed some) about what God has not yet done in the future. But it is never good to be restless about what God has already given. Thank him for it, and build on it."--Doug Wilson


"The pain reminds our heart that this is not our home. What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?" --Laura Story


"The most I hope for is to chase after the the things I dreamed of when I was younger and brave. And if it's supposed to happen, it will. And if it doesn't, I'll chase hard after something else, but at some point I'll find just what God has already set before me. And knowing He knows my heart gives me great comfort that I'll find it. --Martha Lee Ann Ryles


"If I Die Young" --The Band Perry


I'm inspired by a secular activist who experiences God in the wilderness as an anti-chance. I'm amazed at how our God speaks in nature. I'm encouraged as artists sing through the pain in the trials of life. I'm motivated by commands to live out what I so easily blog about. I'm hopeful as I look to an everlasting home and burdened by a world that often doesn't see it. I'm passionate as I see how knowing my Savior fights sin and changes lives. I'm contemplative as I listen to angst filled lyrics in songs that stir my soul. I'm thankful for a restlessness that draws me forward and a rest that quiets my heart.


Some days we need everyday inspirations. We are chronically forgetful people, forgetting what God has done in our lives and forgetting the dreams to which we have been called. The Lord calls us to "Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant;I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me." Isaiah 44:21

Form everyday inspirations in your life today. Write notes to yourself, remind yourself of what inspires you and what draws you in to the presence of the Holy today. After all, freedom moves us on from a foundation of knowing who we are in light of Who He is. And find freedom in knowing that even though we forget, we are not forgotten.


Happy Tuesday blog buddies! Be inspired today!

Coming home

Hubs and I recently went on vacation. I love vacation, or maybe just the idea of vacation. I love the clean slate, the leaving, the moments of quiet relaxation away from the busyness of life.

We spent a couple nights here:

Hiked to here (awesome, I know :)

And drove here...

To see this. Is God awesome or what?!

Vacation is sweet. It's those little moments of silence, of being somewhere new, and experiencing it together. It's interesting because the more I vacation the more thankful I am for home. Those corny words "there's no place like home" seem like profound truth after a few nights in a tent or a long (2 hour ha!) airplane ride. 

I think there's always a place in our hearts that longs for home. And sometimes I think that home is hard to find, I mean really find. 

Home for years was Clarksdale Arizona and to this day I'll often refer to it as my childhood and where I'm "from", when the familiar question is asked. But we've gone back years later and those familiar feelings and faces have changed, and while I love those memories it's not home anymore.

Home for 12 years was this house: 

It was the best picture I could find :) house is to the right and yes, Iowa always has this much snow!

Home for years was an apartment with college roommates, living in a basement during an internship and now is the second of two apartments with my hubs in Madison, WI. 

Even with these lovely pictures and places to call home, sometimes I experience a longing to return--to go "home". The longing isn't satisfied by being in a certain place or time. I think CS Lewis said it well when he said, "If we find in ourselves a longing for which the world cannot satisfy, the only explanation is that we were made for another world." 

And so I find myself. Here. Home. Longing for home. 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 says this. "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be put on our heavenly dwelling." I echo amen! Tents are wonderful for a time being but are not permanent and we long for home. And our home is a heavenly building with the Lord. May my heart long in such a way that home is found only with Him.

So friends, may your home be found in a place not made with human hands and may your heart long while here for that home. But know you are not alone in this longing, John 14:23 promises, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." Find freedom knowing that the God of the universe has come to make His home with you. And someday all that He calls home will be ours also. What a beautiful picture of true freedom, finally finding home.