Hosanna!!

I hope you don't mind a brief interlude to my family posts. :)

And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!
Mark 11:7-10

My friend let me borrow this Hillsong cd recently and on it is this song that I love called 'Hosanna'. It is such a beautiful song and God has been using it to draw my heart into worship over the past few days. After a while though, I was thinking what a beautiful word hosanna is and I had this feeling, "I want to know what it means!" So I looked up the meaning of the word which is pretty amazing. First though here are the lyrics to the song I have been singing recently.

I see the King of glory
Coming on the clouds with fire
The whole earth shakes, the whole earth shakes
I see his love and mercy
Washing over all our sin
The people sing, the people sing

Hosanna, hosanna
Hosanna in the highest!

I see a generation
Rising up to take the place
With selfless faith, with selfless faith
I see a near revival
Stirring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees, we're on our knees!

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity.

So I looked up the meaning to hosanna and it means, "Save now!" or "Save, I pray!" I had thought that crying out hosanna was just another way of saying "praise God", but "save now" gives it so much more meaning both within the context of scripture and when sung together as a church. I didn't realize the word was filled with such a spirit of brokenness and need for God. It reminds of what I read of John Piper's second message from New Attitude 2007. He says,

I asked Bob Kauflin if we could sing one line of a song after the message. Here’s the line…
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to thee

"Debtor to Grace" may be written on my tombstone and it will be true forever. Past grace at the cross not only paid for my sin but it bought a reservoir of ocean-like grace flowing onto my in the future. What God wants from me is not payback but increasing debt.

How do you pay back God? You ask for more.

God is not glorified when we take our tiny buckets of righteousness up the mountain to his everlasting stream of righteousness. God is glorified when we take our empty buckets up the mountain to his overflowing stream. He’s glorified when take the full buckets down the mountain and pour them on others.

I am forever in debt before God and my cry is to remain there. I will keep singing "Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!" Save now Lord, I pray, as I walk from earth into eternity.