In just five weeks’ time, the eyes of the nation (and, indeed, of the world) will be focussed on the coronation of King Charles III. We’ve been promised a “slimmed down” and “modernised” ceremony in comparison to his mother’s back in 1953 – whether the weather will be better is anyone’s guess! Nevertheless it’s sure to be a grand occasion, full of pomp and ceremony and doubtless with cheering and flag-waving crowds lining the route to and from Westminster Abbey.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was, of course, a much smaller-scale affair, not quite a “spur of the moment” event but surely one which didn’t involve a great deal of detailed planning (apart from arranging the donkey). And, while the crowds lining the road can’t have been as large as those who’ll be lining The Mall next month, they certainly didn’t lack enthusiasm and weren’t held back by British notions of restraint. So we see them cheering any perhaps dancing, throwing palm branches and cloaks onto the road for Jesus to ride across, and of course we hear them shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David”!

Now if I were to ask you what you think that word “Hosanna” means, you’d probably reply that it means “Praise God!” or something similar. And that’s, of course, how we use the word today, how we’ve used it in our worship this– but those people in Jerusalem were actually shouting it for quite a different reason. That’s because “hosanna” is derived from a Hebrew word which means “to save”  or “to rescue”. The Bible only uses the word in connection with Jesus although we read something very similar in Psalm 118 which says “Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!” In fact the word “hosanna” can be linked back to the name “Jesus” and its Hebrew form “Yeshua” which means “God is salvation” or “our deliverer”. So, when those crowds shouted “Hosanna”, they weren’t just expressing their excitement or joy: they were stating that they regarded Jesus as the one who God had sent to bring them freedom or salvation.

But what sort of freedom or salvation did they think that Jesus was offering? I think that there are two answers which are actually inter-connected. We know that Jesus again and again offered a more liberal and flexible approach to Jewish Law than most of the religious leaders of the day: he wasn’t hidebound by rules and regulations but offered a fresh and dynamic way of looking at them. We know that many people found Jesus’ approach attractive, so perhaps they thought that this was the moment when he was about to overturn the staid religious establishment – often, it seems, thought of as self-serving, status-seeking  and money-grabbing – and bring in a new and less onerous regime. His dramatic overthrowing of the Temple traders’ tables later that day only seemed to reinforce that view of Jesus.

And certainly the Jewish authorities did feel that their authority was being undermined: they were angry when they heard even children crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and asked Jesus, “Do you hear what they are saying? How can that possibly be right?”, which he replied to by famously quoting a verse from Psalm 8:  “Have you never read, ‘From the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” The priests and scribes were supposed to be the people who knew the Bible and could probably quote verses for every occasion – but Jesus bested them at  their own game. What a put-down!

That’s one way in which people may have thought that Jesus was bringing freedom, one reason for them to shout, “Hosanna! God, save us!” But, even if that a motive for their cries – and I’m not 100% sure that it was – they had a much stronger reason for shouting out, one that wasn’t religious but political. As you well know, Israel at this time was an occupied country; like Vichy France in the Second World War it had “puppet” leaders whose strings were pulled by powerful men elsewhere and whose chief aim seemed to be to “keep a lid” on any kind of uprising which would threaten the status quo (and put themselves at risk of arrest and death at the hands of the mob). Neither the Jewish king Herod nor the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate wanted to see the Jewish unrest that was always simmering beneath the surface erupt into a nationalist revolt; their intelligence networks must surely have informed them not just of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem but also its manner, a parody of a king entering in triumph and a blatant challenge to their rule. The people were acclaiming Jesus as their king: the whole city was “stirred up”. Jesus had to be stopped before things got out of hand. And that would need the united efforts of secular and sacred, Roman and Jew.

Of course, Jesus had no political ambitions whatsoever, as he made  clear to Pilate during his trial – so much so that Pilate was prepared to release him without charge. But many of his fellow-citizens refused to believe him, they simply thought that he was trying to “keep his powder dry” while quietly recruiting a army that would overthrow Rome. We know from their request for ministerial positions in his future government that some of his closest disciples harboured dreams of high status; we also know that, even after his resurrection, those disciples quizzed him intently: “Is this what we’ve all been waiting for? Is now the time?” They must have been so disappointed when Jesus, instead of raising an army and marching on Jerusalem, simply vanished in a cloud. In fact the hundreds of people who might have called themselves his followers must have been disillusioned or even in despair. For their “hosannas” had been misguided and futile; their high hopes had literally disappeared into thin air.

The story of Jesus’ triumphal entry is very familiar. Dare I say that it’s one of those Bible stories which we tend to trivialise? For we all love the thought of the parade and the excitement and the donkey and the cloaks and the palm branches … but may not go beneath the surface to think about what was really going on. So I’d just like to close this message by thinking about two groups of people: the ones we’ve mentioned whose excitement was soon to be replaced by anger and rejection; and the much larger group of people didn’t witness the events of that day (but may, of course, have heard about them).

The first group of people we can dismiss quite quickly. And we have to wonder how many of the people who shouted “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday cried, “Crucify him!” just five days later. We can’t know the answer to that; but crowds are fickle things and it’s easy to be swayed by the mob; indeed, it may feel very dangerous to say, “No! I disagree!” But, quite apart from that, I wonder how many of people in churches today – or, let’s be honest, people who used to be in churches on Palm Sunday but now spend their Sundays doing other things – feel that Jesus hasn’t fulfilled their hopes, hasn’t given them the healing of body or mind that they thought he would, hasn’t made life easier or happier for them; in short, how many folk have become disappointed by Jesus because he hasn’t really “delivered the expected goods”? And let’s go further: have they been disappointed because some evangelist or preacher over-promised the benefits of being a Christian, saying that life would be a wonderful adventure and dream from the moment of their conversion? Or is it simply that they’ve prayed to Jesus again and again about some issue that really matters to them – and that prayer seems to have been totally ignored? In other words how many folk are there who’ve experienced Jesus, followed him for a while, and concluded that he’s not all that he’s cracked up to be?

And what about the second group of people, those who simply weren’t there to cry “Hosanna”. Perhaps, unlikely as it seems, they hadn’t heard of Jesus. Perhaps they thought he was a fake or a fraud, not worthy of their attention. Perhaps they were seeking a freedom that felt more tangible than the kind that Jesus seemed to be offering, Perhaps they were worried about their neighbours’ reaction if they saw them enthusiastically acclaiming him.  And what about those who were too weary to leave their homes, those who would have liked to go but were caring for their families, preparing meals, or couldn’t get off work. Some of the folk who didn’t throng the streets made the conscious decision not to go; others simply didn’t have that choice.

Perhaps some of us don’t feel like shouting “hosanna” this morning, because we still think it’s a shout of praise and there’s not much in our life to be happy about. Or perhaps we do know what “hosanna” means, but can’t work up any enthusiasm for shouting it out because we want God to help us but don’t honestly think that he can or will. And I wonder if that’s the way that some – perhaps many – people were thinking on that first Palm Sunday; either that Jesus was yet another so-called saviour who wouldn’t be able to set the Jews free from Rome’s domination, or because they had been crying out to God for freedom for such a long time but he didn’t seem to have answered. People like that would have seen Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem as an empty spectacle, a joke; although the people were hailing him as their deliverer he was clearly going to be yet another disappointment.

I wonder what feelings people had as Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday – and how those feelings changed as they witnessed the events of the next few days. Had ordinary Jewish onlookers hoped for a coronation, but then saw their elation dashed as their prospective leader was arrested, tried and put to death on a criminal’s cross? Were the Temple leaders, treading that fine line between Jewish identity and complicity with the occupying powers, first worried by Jesus’ popularity and then relieved when he was taken from them? And what about Pontius Pilate: did he hear about Jesus’ entry into the city and, if so, did he see it as a threat to his fragile power? He must have been pleased to be rid of an inflammatory revolutionary – yet, as we know, he found Jesus most unsettling.

And what about us, two thousand years later? Do we just read this story as a no more than a happy episode in Jesus’ life, beloved by children – or do we look for a deeper significance? Would we have rejoiced with the exultant crowds – or would we have turned our back on the celebrations? Would we have seen the event as a sign of hope or would be have despaired at the gullibility of so many people? Those are questions worth thinking about as we enter Holy Week and realise that “Hosanna” is far more than a cheerful shout of praise.