Ensign: Hosanna To The Son of David!

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 18 April 2014

Usually I bring out “What's So Good About Friday?” when it comes to this day because it actually is Good Friday, the day when Christians commemorate the death of Jesus Christ their Savior and Lord upon the cross at Calvary. But this year I chose – or to go with divine-speak, I was led by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – to go with something my son said to see when we were seated at church this past Palm Sunday. Our church bulletin had today's title emblazoned on the cover, what the people of Jerusalem say to Jesus as He's arriving on the back of an ass, and my six-year-old Jeffrey who's so far unencrusted with doctrine – and that's a story for another day – looked up to me, pointed to that sentence and said with all honesty, “That's ME!”

My own name being David, though I believe I can assume most of you reading this know Matthew 21:9 – today's title comes from that verse, part of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem – refers to Jesus as the lineal descendant of David the shepherd boy who became Israel's greatest king, not literally his son, I couldn't help but beam at that a little. But as I'm rereading that account I'm amazed how the people who celebrated Jesus' entry into Jerusalem were five days later clamoring for His death on the cross. Until I was in high school in the late eighties, I didn't know that hosanna was closer in meaning to “please save” than it was like a “hooray!” you hear in an increasingly irrelevant professional sporting event. But I digress. Please save us, son of David.

“How did Jesus get to heaven if he rose from the dead?” “Do babies come out of a woman's stomach?” “Who was Darth Vader's wife?” These are three questions Jeffrey asked me when he saw a devotional book I was reading from a few weeks ago, totally unbidden by me. And like a better father, I did my best to answer them. I'm especially proud of the first one, that I was able to direct Jeffrey right to the source in the first chapter of Acts. Go teachable moments! I look at this almost as I do the lessons we teach in Sunday school and other forums – maybe not everything sticks, but some time later an event or circumstance will bring to our recall (and make no mistake, you can recall a lot more than you think you can) what we learned as a child. How to have faith like a child.

David the shepherd boy who became king of Israel a thousand years before Jesus was born on Earth was certainly not universally loved. I'm definitely not, but maybe you only dislike me. There are people in this world who truly despise me. Even Jesus Who was so welcomed by so many and seen as the God-promised Messiah or Anointed One Who would save His people from their sins – this “so many” did not include those who saw Him as a threat to their own power and authority. Keep reading the Gospel accounts and you'll see how those got Him into trouble and got Him dead. It's hard to wrap our heads around how Jesus dying on the cross, even for Christians, is all part of the plan to save us. We just have to want to be saved.

Please save us, son of David.