The Irony of It All
Those who went in front and those who followed were crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest! (Mark 11:9–10)
There is so much irony wrapped up in the Palm Sunday account. Irony can be defined as “incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result” and it can be “incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play.” And we see both of those in this account.
The most obvious form of irony here, is that Jesus rides into Jerusalem as a victorious king, yet on a humble donkey colt. He doesn’t ride into Jerusalem on a white horse, like most other kings. Nor does he appear to be a victorious king, when five days later, he is hanging on a cross like a criminal.
And then there is the irony of the crowd that is gathered there. They cry out “Hosanna” which means “save us, please.” And the irony is that they cry this to Jesus, whose name means “The Lord saves.” And that is exactly what he was going to do. The crowd didn’t know it, but they would witness Jesus save them although not in the way they wanted him to.
And so we see the irony in our victorious King coming, riding on a donkey, to his death, to save all of humanity. The Creator, slain by those He created, for his creation. The sinless Son of God crucified as a criminal, so that sinful man can spend eternity in heaven. And so we cry out with the crowd “Hosanna,” knowing that he already has. We celebrate this victorious King who will return one day to take us into his kingdom forever. Amen.
Our song for today is “All the World Awaits (Hosanna)” by Chris Tomlin