Hosanna to the Son of David

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, ‘It is written,

“My house shall be called a house of prayer”;

but you are making it a den of robbers.’

The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, they became angry and said to him, ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Yes; have you never read,

“Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies

you have prepared praise for yourself”?’

He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

- Matthew 21:12-17

"Hosanna to the Son of David" is the cry of Palm Sunday, the day when Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem, sitting on a colt (the foal of a donkey). This passage from Matthew is the one immediately following the description of the events which we commemorate on Palm Sunday. So, in this gospel, his first act upon entering into Jerusalem is to disrupt the activities in preparation for the Passover, by physically challenging the practices of the buying and selling of animals for sacrifice, and exchanging Roman coin for the money of the Temple. This is an act of justice: it is penalizing to the poor because they cannot afford a sacrifice that is as worthy as others. This tells us that in Jesus' kingdom, there is equality before the Lord, the Judge, among all believers. We are not judged on the basis of money or material status or rank.

And the blessings and praise that come out of the mouths of the children further establish this notion of justice and equality - just praise, even just judgment (if we are to read this text with the understanding that these words of the children are true) is not a product of status or rank, but rather truth is in the purity of the heart. It is also in Matthew's gospel that we are told, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. This is a standard by which all are judged on an equal footing. It also tells us about the nature of the truth and the effects of Spirit, that the kingdom Jesus wishes to bring into the world, and his Spirit of truth, are not "respecters of persons" in the sense that it is given and distributed equally to all. Everyone is entitled to this truth - it is not something that will be shut away based on rank and kept away from those with no status, but rather to be received by the pure in heart.

This is a new and different kingdom, based on judgment that is just - and a judge before whom we all stand on equal ground, to judge with a standard that has to do with truth rather than material status. All of our prayers are heard, all of our hearts are read.