Hosanna: The Cry of Sukkot

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

today appropriate props. Um So, let's see. So, I want to start today um with the a story from a great historian uh that lived a little bit before the 1st century uh when Yeshua was around. His name was Josephus. And hopefully you've heard of Josephus. Wrote a lot of things that help us put context to the time of the when Jesus uh lived. And uh he writes about a young man, uh teenager, um named Aristobulus. And this story takes place around 30 years before Yeshua was born. Um Herod the Great was ruling as king over Judea during this time. Uh and of course, Herod has a problem. Um and his problem is that he's not actually from the old royal family, the Hasmoneans, the Maccabees.

Remember the Maccabees, right? Uh he's not from them. He's actually an Edomite. And what took place earlier in earlier generations after the Hasmoneans pushed out the Greeks and took back over Judea, then they invaded the north and took over Galilee, um they came to the Edomite and they basically said like um you guys are are going to be forced to convert to Judaism uh or else. Right? Every religion does it at some point in time in history, right? And this is the sore spot in Judaism. Yeah, so they they forcefully converted uh the to Judaism. And uh but even though they converted, they were never really Judeans. Everyone kind of knew it.

A Teenage High Priest at Sukkot

And so Herod, even though he played his cards right and now he's king, everyone knew he really wasn't one of them. Right? And so because of this pressure, this young boy, uh Aristobulus, he uh he feels pressure to make him the high priest because this young man is from the Hasmonean dynasty, right? He was 17 years old when this happened. And so I want you to picture this. Sukkot comes along, the Feast of Tabernacles, this huge feast in Jerusalem, and this boy uh comes up to the altar in the temple, and he's wearing the full garment of the high priest with miter, with the ephod, everything. and the people see that one of them, one of their own, one of the man one of the young man from the royal lineage of the Hasmoneans is up there, and they they absolutely lose it.

Uh they start cheering, they start chanting blessings. Josephus writes that the love of the people for him broke out right there in the courts. So, if there was ever a time for decorum in the courts of the temple, they threw it away because they were so overcome with excitement to see this young man up there, one of them, finally, right? And Herod is watching all this take place. And so when the feast is over, everyone's exhausted, they all go back down to Jericho, and of course it's still a little warm in some parts, right? Especially down south. Uh and the young men are going swimming in one of the big pools that they have.

Held Down at Jericho

Um and Aristobulus is going swimming with his friends, and some of Herod's men uh get in the pool with them, and they're playing around, and they're dunking him, and he comes back up, and then they're going to dunk him again, and he comes back up, and then they dunk him. And he doesn't come back up. They hold him down. They kill him. He was 17 years old. He was a high priest for 1 year in Israel. And what got him killed was the crowd at Sukkot, the way that they cheered him on by the altar, um was seen as a threat by the king. Now, if a king named Herod that kills young people sounds familiar to you, uh it should because it's about 30 years later when this same King Herod uh slaughters small children in Bethlehem in the name of national security, right?

Branches and a Strange Command

He's trying to kill Jesus. Um so we have the same king there. And we're going to come back to the story here in in just a few minutes. Um but now I want to talk about one of the things that the Torah speaks about that's specific to Sukkot, and we spoke about it last night. It's a very strange command uh where you are to take various uh pieces of vegetation and wave them around and swing them around, right? And of course we know we're talking about the lulav, right? And the etrog. And Leviticus 23 uh verse 40 uh says, "On the first day," God says, "take palm fronds and the willow brook and all of these these variety of branches and you will rejoice before the Lord your God for 7 days."

And so you're supposed to take branches out of the trees, is what the commandment says, and you're supposed to rejoice. And in Leviticus 23, it really doesn't even say wave, it doesn't say walk around with them, it doesn't it just says rejoice. You're supposed to rejoice with them. Um and so that's what Israel built up lots of different traditions on how to demonstrate that. Now, remember the app we mentioned earlier? Guess what's on the app for today's message. The slides are on the app for today's message. So if you open up your app, there should be up at the top slides for the message and you can see all the slides and Bible verse references um that I'm referencing.

after a long time of tradition and evolution Israel found a lot of different ways to demonstrate rejoicing with the lulav and the palm branches and the palms and so on and so forth. And um according to uh one Jewish source named the Mishna, uh it was a um the Mishna is a Jewish document that after the temple was destroyed, the priestly families got together and said we have to record how things were done in the temple. We have to record protocols. We have to do record how we did things, right? Uh it's a very important piece of historical document. And what the Mishnah says took place in the first century and what people did with their lulavs is uh is interesting.

Willows Around the Altar

It says that at Sukkot people would go down to a spot uh below Jerusalem and they would cut willow branches, big long ones. Uh and they would carry them back up to the temple and then they would stand them up around the altar. They would have them placed around the altar. Uh so if you can imagine the altar being wrapped in this greenery. It's just pretty striking picture. Uh and then they would walk around it. Um and the big long shofar would blast. Um they would walk around it once and as they walked around it they would cry out a single line from a Bible verse, which is Psalm 118.

Uh and on the seventh day of Sukkot they uh they don't go around once, they go around the altar seven times. and um and they have that same line out of 100 uh Psalm 118. and this is a verse that was part of their Hallel Psalms that they sang during Sukkot. It was a song of praise while they were holding their lulavs. And the Mishnah says that they waved them at the line. and they so this same line goes out around uh around as they walk around it. And here's here's the line from Psalm 118 in verses 25, 26. It's Lord save us. Lord, please grant us success. He who comes in the name of the Lord is blessed.

From Hoshia Na to Hosanna

From the house of the Lord, we bless you. Lord save us. That first line there in Hebrew, what was chanted what was chanted while they were waving the lulavs, while they had this big demonstration. Uh it's it's Anna Adonai. hoshiana. Hoshia is the first word. It means to save, right? It's where It's the root of the word Yeshua. So, everybody say hoshia. Right? And then na na na na na na means It means um please. Please. Lord, save, please. Hoshiana. Hoshiana. Now, what happens when you say hoshia na fast three times in a row? Keep going. Let's see. Hoshiana. Hoshiana. Hoshia Hoshana, right? Hoshana. That's where we get that word.

And when the word hoshana is transliterated into Greek, it becomes the word that we read in the New Testament, hosanna. Right? So, this is where the word comes from. Hosanna. It's a prayer. It's what you shout when there's a need of rescuing. Um and it became so tied to Sukkot that the seventh day uh the day that they circled the altar seven times uh came to be called, even till this day, the seventh day of Sukkot is Hoshana Rabbah. It's the name of the day, the great hosanna. So, at Sukkot, the lulav, along with this phrase of hosanna, go together. Save, please. Save, please. Also, on this very day, in synagogues all over the world, they are reading uh a chapter out of Zechariah.

It's chapter 14. Um and it's uh it's kind of the end of the story of Zechariah. It's his visions uh vision, and he has this vision that the the Lord is coming back. Um in the great day, and his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Um and then what takes place after is all of the nations of the world will come to Jerusalem once a year for what reason? To keep Sukkot. The whole world comes to worship the king for Sukkot in the end times according to Zechariah's vision. And there's also history wrapped up in all of those song those palms as well. When the Maccabees, the Hasmoneans, when they took the temple back from the Greeks and they cleaned it.

Do you guys remember how they celebrated it? How they celebrated the rededication of the temple? They celebrated Sukkot even though it wasn't time for Sukkot. They did it in the winter. They said, "We're going to We're going to rededicate the temple at Sukkot because that's what That's when the dedication happened with King Solomon's temple." It's wintertime. So what? We're still going to do it anyway. So they did Sukkot at the wrong time of the year because they wanted an excuse. They said, "We're going to dedicate. We're going to party. We're going to do something." And you know what they brought? They brought palms. They brought the lulav in the winter.

Um to celebrate and to worship the king, the Lord of armies, to celebrate the Festival of Shelters. So at the end of all these things, Sukkot is a feast historically where the whole world is going to eventually come and gather and worship the king. I love it. So by the By the time Yeshua comes along and is born, the palm branch in Judea carries two big things with it. Um It carries symbolism of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, and it carries the symbolism of victory, overcoming the enemies, God's victory, rescuing us. And maybe now we can kind of at least understand why Herod killed the young man, the young boy from the royal family, the boy that was at the altar at Sukkot, and the crowd that just could not stop cheering him on, being excited.

Passover Palms on the Jerusalem Road

All right, that was a big That was a lot. Everyone still good? Okay. Good. in the Gospel of John, in chapter 12, we see we see something happen. And it doesn't happen at Sukkot, it's actually the spring because it's Passover week. And in the ministry of Jesus, he's just raised Lazarus from the dead in Bethany, a little village right over the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem. And the city is jam-packed with Passover pilgrims. I mean, just hundreds of thousands of people jammed into this little town with all of their animals. Can you imagine? Can you imagine being in little Jerusalem in the first century? What is it? 1 to 300,000 people are the estimates.

And and again, everybody has has an a mammal with them on a leash or something, right? It's probably a goat. Passover lambs, right? and so you have all these people crammed in the street, walking through the street with all these animals. What do the animals do? They do. Do. Right? So, you can imagine what your sandals would look like during Passover week if you were walking around Jerusalem. And so, that's why when Yeshua and the followers go up into the upper room, no one really wanted to wash anyone's feet. It wasn't like a It wasn't like a oh, I forgot. It was I'm not I'm not messing with the doody.

Um and so, that just brings the whole context that whole scene of when Yeshua makes himself into the servant, right? Anyway, back off the exit ramp. So, we have John chapter 12 and um Lazarus has just been raised. And you have Passover packed. And in John chapter 12 starting in verse 12 to 15, it says, "The next day when the large crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took what?" Palm branches. And they went out to meet him. And they kept shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel." Yeshua found a young donkey and he sat on it just as it is as it is written, "Do not be afraid, daughter Zion.

Look, your king is coming sitting on a donkey's colt." So, look at what the crowd does. They take palm branches. And they go out to meet him. Which is right, which is I guess what you do when somebody who somebody is arriving, right? And they're shouting Psalm 118, "Hosanna! the Lord." But they actually add something to the Bible verse. What do they add to it according to John? King of Israel. "Hosanna! Blessed are you who comes in the name of the Lord, king of Israel." So, how do we put this together? Because it would be great if this was Sukkot and I could just nice and neatly be like, "Oh yeah, they waved the lulavs."

But this is Passover. They They did it wrong, right? It's Passover week. they create this processional here. And Hosanna was also something that was praised. It was part of the Hallel Psalms. So, it was something that was said at every feast day. It wasn't just Sukkot specifically, right? Um they sing it at all the pilgrimage feasts, Passover included. Um so, the song itself isn't really what's strange about the week and them shouting Hosanna, but the crowd with branches in a processional crying, "Save, please." That's what they did during Sukkot. And so it's Passover week and the crowd reaches for Sukkot's branches and the Sukkot song, I guess you could say.

Why? Because Sukkot is the feast when the king arrives. That's the Zechariah 14 reference. Sukkot is when the king's going to be coming. And they think he just did. He's He's coming down from the Mount of Olives right now. He's coming into the city. This is exactly kind of what Zechariah spoke about. And what did they want from him? Hosianna. Save, please. What did they want from him? We're in the first century. It's kind of hard not to hear the oppression of Rome in their voices. They're not their own people. Most of them are slave status in the Roman Empire. They've been overtaken. They haven't been free for a very long time.

Roman soldiers are sitting in a fortress that's right next to the temple just as a beacon of oppression so that no uprising would ever happen. Every time you go to the temple, there's the fortress right there ready for you if you ever want to make a move. But every person on that road knows what palm branches meant the last time the enemy got driven out. The way the Maccabees did with harps, cymbals, and palms of victory. And so what does Yeshua do? He finds a donkey, not a war horse, a young donkey. Uh he doesn't refuse the title King of Israel, but and he doesn't stop them shouting Hosianna, but he rides in on something that tells you that he's coming to do something that they probably don't think he's going to do.

He's not going to do exactly what they think he's going to do. And then John says something. He says something kind of transparent there in in his in his gospel account. Says that his disciples did not understand these things at first. Not the crowd, not anybody. They ended up getting it later after he was glorified. So, if the people waving palms that day had the right king in the wrong idea of how he was going to save them, yeah, they uh they were in good company with each other. A few days later, Jesus is talking about his death. And he says this. He says, "Now my soul is troubled. What should I say?

He Would Not Save Himself

Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I came for this hour." That word That word save in Greek is sozo. It's it's when Jewish translators put Psalm 118 into Greek. the word they used is Lord save, which was the the same word sozo. And so, a few days after a crowd waved palms at Yeshua and cried, "Save us, please." Jesus stands there and says, "Should I pray, save me?" And he says, "No. No, this is why I've come." They cried, "Save us." And he answered it by refusing to save himself. And so, think back to the young high priest at the altar. A crowd was cheering him on.

They were so excited. Finally, things are being reversed. And the powerful people that are watching decide he has to die now. That's what happened to Aristobulus Aristobulus at Sukkot. and decades later, Jerusalem is now watching in John 12. They're going to watch it happen again at Passover, except um except now the second one rode in on a donkey knowing exactly what the cheering was going to cost him. He knew this was going to get him killed. And he let them cheer anyway. The crowd that welcomed Yeshua waved the palms of Sukkot. But he came to be the Passover lamb that day. So did Hosanna ever get answered? Did the celebration they started on that road, did it ever come to fruition to completion?

The Multitude with Palms

Well, for that we go to another book in the Bible, the one at the very end, which is the book of Revelation. And the chapter right before the end, it ends with the whole world um, terrified hiding in rocks. And they're asking one question. They're asking who is able to stand. And then John turns around, and here's what John sees in Revelation 7:9-10. It says, "After this I looked and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and every language." Starting to sound like Zechariah 14. "Which no one could number standing before the throne and before the lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands."

And they cried out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the lamb." Who is able to stand? Well, here it's them standing. And what's in their hands? in the Roman world, palms also meant victory. You handed a palm to anyone who ran the race, you know, and won. This is your palm branch, a symbol of victory. So, palms here are saying that the lamb won. Um, but keeping mind in this scene, it's also painted with Feast of Tabernacles imagery, and Zechariah 14 imagery. The victory of God and all nations are now coming up to experience the salvation of God. Every nation, every tribe, every people, every language.

All nations coming up to celebrate. And listen to what they're shouting. At the altar they cried, "Save, please." And on the road into Jerusalem with Yeshua they cried, "Save, please." And here the cry is turned around. It's something else now. It's It's not a request anymore. It's a fact. Salvation belongs to our God and to the lamb. Hosanna got its answer. And then the elder asks John, he says, "Who Who are these people in white robes?" And the answer is that they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. Which is a little backwards, you know, we're used to hearing that imagery, but it's kind of backwards cuz blood stains.

We all know that. Uh you don't wash things in blood except this blood. This is the lamb. The one who said, "Shall I pray to save me?" in John. No, this is why I have come. His blood doesn't stain. His blood cleanses. And then it says the one seated on the throne will shelter them. The word there comes from the word for tent. Right? He spread out his tent over them. And here we are. Sitting in our booths, our shelters, our tents, on a mountain. Um and it's one of the Bible's last great pictures of this feast where God is pitching his tent over every nation. And think about where we're sitting.

We're standing. Uh we're outside. Some of us are squinting a little bit at the sun. A little bit. And it says in Revelation it says that they were no longer hungry. And they will no longer thirst. The sun will no longer strike them. Nor any scorching heat. The lamb, the Passover lamb, will shepherd them and guide them to springs of waters of life. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. So, the crowd with the palm branches in John 12, they did have the right king. Uh, they just showed up at the uh at the celebration a little early. They were waving the branches of a feast that hadn't happened yet.

Rehearsing the Feast

And in Revelation, it happens. So, here's where I think that kind of leaves us. Remember the command from the very beginning. We take branches and we do what? We rejoice. Rejoice before the Lord your God for 7 days. We don't think about it. Uh, we don't feel bad about it. We don't consider it. We just rejoice. That's the whole point. No feast in the Torah, no appointed time, gets told to rejoice more than the one that we're rehearsing right now. We're celebrating right now. And now you know what we get to. Every time Israel waved those branches, they were crying, "Save, please." And they were waiting. The crowd on the Mount of Olives cried it.

And when they did, they were still waiting. And we know how it turns out. Salvation did come. Yeshua did answer the the plea. But he answered it on the cross. And the last time we see those same palm branches in the Bible, there's nobody begging anymore. There's nobody saying please. They're all celebrating. And so, I'll say all that to say this. Um that's what Sukkot is for us. That's This is why we do it. It's a rehearsal. Um we're camping in booths, right? We're eating outside. We're up in the mountains uh with our kids running all kinds of around and out of our view, not having a clue where they're going.

We're watching them have a blast. Because we're practicing for the day that God spreads his spreads his tent over every single nation. And nobody's going to be hungry, and nobody's thirsty, and the sun doesn't beat down on anyone, and every tear is gone. We're practicing. The same song that they sang and rejoiced over, Psalm 118, the Hosanna Psalm, had this line right before the cry for help. It says, "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." That is right before save, please, in Psalm 118. There's rejoice. Because they knew who they were praying to. They knew who they were talking to. So, this week, I want you to remember that you are embodying what Israel did historically whenever you pick up the lulav, whenever you participate in the feast day.

The cry that they made around the altar when the high priest was up there, the palms uh they waved and met Yeshua with coming down from the Mount of Olives, and the palms that are going to cover the space in front of the throne of God, rejoice because you know how the story ends. And so, I want to encourage you this week, sing like it. I want you to eat like it. I want you to stay up late around the campfire like it. Because the Hosanna got its answer. That's why we're here today because we already believe that. Salvation belongs to our God and to the lamb. again, with that said, I want to end with the last verse of the same song.

And it says, "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His faithful love endures forever." So, I don't know where you're at today. We got a whole week of celebrating ahead of us. And so I just want you to remember, no matter what, find a reason to rejoice this week. You might wake up on the wrong side of the bed, usually around day two or three. People get grumpy historically. No one will admit to that. I see you. It's okay. Find a reason to rejoice. Find a reason. If it's cold, it's okay. If you're a little hungry, go get another snack. It's okay. Stay up late, that's fine. Rejoice cuz that's why we're here.

Amen? So, join us as we conclude and uh as I conclude with prayer. Avinu Malkeinu, our Father, our King, Father, we thank you for the opportunity just to come and celebrate your feast. Father, come and sing with joy uh and we thank you for the opportunity to be a community uh that orbits you and orbits that spirit. And I ask that this community would be filled with nothing but joy and peace uh this week and that uh we would feel your presence on an intimate and deep place this whole week. We thank you, Father, in the name of Yeshua, we pray. Amen.