What does “Hosanna” really mean?

In John 12:12-19, crowds wave palm branches and shout “Hosanna!” as Jesus enters Jerusalem. In this study, Dr. Toby Holt explains what they were really asking for — and how they misunderstood their King.

“Hosanna” means “save us now.” The crowds wanted a king to free them from Rome, so they greeted Jesus like a conquering hero. But Jesus rides in on a humble donkey, exactly as the prophet Zechariah had foretold — a different kind of King, who came first to save His people from sin, not from Rome. Dr. Holt notes that within days many in that same crowd would call for His death. Jesus comes lowly now; one day He will return as the conquering King of Kings.

Questions this study answers:

1. What does “Hosanna” mean? It means “save us now.” The crowds were crying out for rescue — but mostly from Rome, not from their sin.

2. Why did Jesus ride a donkey? To fulfill prophecy and to show what kind of King He is: humble and approachable, not a warlord.

3. Why did the crowd’s cheers turn to anger? Because Jesus was not the political deliverer they wanted. When He did not meet their expectations, many turned against Him.

“Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ The King of Israel!” — John 12:13 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This sermon is part of the John Explained study from New Geneva Theological Seminary. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.

In John 12, Jesus entered Jerusalem for the final time and was greeted by crowds waving palm branches and shouting, "Hosanna." But there was a problem. Their understanding of who He was and why He came was seriously mistaken. In today's study, we'll explore Christ's purpose in heading to Jerusalem in light of what would unfold just five days later.

At Christmas time, we celebrate the Messiah's arrival. We talk about Jesus' arrival in a manger. We talk about how wonderful a thing this was. We talk about how significant it was that the entire nation was changed forever. Not just the nation, the entire globe was changed forever. For 2,000 years, there's never been another man across the span of that time who has had more impact than the child born in a manger in Bethlehem. However, the thing that's interesting is that the people around Him, the people in Bethlehem and Nazareth, the people in Israel and Judea, even though the most significant moment, not only in their lives but in all history up to that point, had just occurred, virtually no one knew that it had happened. Now, God did notify some people through angels and the stars and the like, but the most significant event in 4,000 years of recorded history was not commonly understood the moment it occurred. While the angels trumpeted, mankind largely ignored. Well, in today's text, as we fast-forward, in today's text here in John chapter 12, even if mankind had collectively ignored the arrival of this child in Bethlehem, at this point in His arrival on a donkey in Jerusalem, no one's ignoring Him. In fact, all eyes are going to be fixed upon Him, but to what end? To what end? Well, let's find out now as we return to today's text. Let's look at verses 12 and 13, and then work our way through the balance. Verse 12. "Now the next day, a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem," the guy who'd done miracles and all sorts of wonderful things, when he heard that He was coming to Jerusalem, they took the branches of palm trees, and they went out to meet Him, and they cried out, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! The King of Israel." All right. As we just said a few moments ago, at the start of chapter 12, Jesus had dined with Mary and with Martha and with Lazarus in this little hamlet, this little village, this little suburb just outside of Jerusalem. If you're in Jerusalem, you've got the East Gate, there's the Mount of Olives. On the other side of the Mount of Olives, there's Bethany. So He was not far from Jerusalem at this time. When the meal's concluded, He's rested up. The next day we see He heads out in verse 12. He heads out into Jerusalem, and what He finds is that it is very crowded. The hillsides are filled with people and with pilgrims. Now, why is that? Well, as we said a few moments ago, it's because they were coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover feast. Now, what day was this? If this wasn't the Passover itself, if the Passover was yet to come days later, then what's going on on this particular Sunday? What is this particular day all about? The day that we call Palm Sunday, the day we celebrate as Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, what did this day mean to them? Well, I guarantee you, no one referred to it as Palm Sunday then. However, they would've known it by a different name, and if you've been in church the past number of Palm Sundays here in this church, you've heard us repeat it time and time again. The Jews would've understood that particular day, that particular Sunday, as Lamb Selection Day. Why? Why? Well, because that's the day that they prepared for Passover. That's the day that they went and picked out the perfect lamb to be sacrificed days later. So on this particular day, on the particular day in which Jesus, the Lamb of God, enters into Jerusalem to face His death, the people, interestingly, ironically, are doing what? They're looking for a lamb to slay for the Passover feast. Now, what is the Passover feast? Let's backpedal here just for a moment to make sure we understand that, so we can understand this. What's the Passover feast? Well, the Passover feast was a remembrance, a celebration of the events of the Passover. In what book of the Bible do we read about the Passover? The book of Exodus. In the book of Exodus, we see that God's people had been oppressed. Remember, Pharaoh was oppressing God's people. God sends Charlton Heston. He sends Moses to go and to rescue, to save, to redeem, to deliver. He brings all these plagues down upon Pharaoh and Pharaoh's house, and Pharaoh, man, that's a stubborn guy. Pharaoh was a stubborn leader. He wouldn't let the people go. He wouldn't let the people go until the final plague, the death of the firstborn. So you remember what happens there in the book of Exodus is that God warns him and says this is going to be bad. Warns him through Moses this is going to be bad, and the plague of the Passover would involve the angel of death coming through the land, and the firstborn of both animal and man will die, will perish. Unless what? Unless the house in which they dwell was marked. Marked by what? Marked by the blood

of a lamb. During the Passover feast, the Jews were told to go find a perfect lamb. Not just any lamb. Not the three-legged, lazy-eyed, buck-tooth lamb, but rather to find the perfect lamb. Find the perfect lamb, and when you find the perfect lamb, we will prepare the perfect lamb in such and such a way, and then you will take the perfect lamb, and you will take the lamb's blood after it is slain, and you will mark the lintels of your door. And then at midnight, when the angel of death swoops through the land, he will do what? He will pass over your house. You will be saved by the blood of the lamb. Well, guess what? Centuries later, here we have the people in Jerusalem, the people in Judea, the people in Israel, looking back, remembering what God did all those centuries before the time of Moses, and they continued to celebrate this meal, the Passover feast, in remembrance of what God did way back when, when He spared the nation, freed the nation, delivered the nation. And when they were spared by the taking of the blood's lamb, marking their own doors, and they continued to seek out the Passover lamb, the perfect lamb, the unblemished lambs. They might slay this lamb and perform the same remembrance with anticipation that someday a final deliverance, maybe even a final lamb, would show up. So here we have in John chapter 12, you have Jesus Christ, who's just literally raised a man from the dead. Everyone's buzzing about this guy, but they don't know who He is. They don't know what to make of Him. They were poorly instructed by their priests and leaders because their priests and leaders, man alive, they were just bad eggs. Just bad, bad eggs throughout the whole Gospel record. You can see the leaders didn't know what they were doing. They were leading the people astray, and so the people didn't know what to make of it. They celebrated this feast. They didn't know quite why. I mean, they didn't have the fullness of understanding. So the great irony here is in John chapter 12, you have Jesus Christ enter into Jerusalem for the last time. He enters into Jerusalem, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, which is what John the Baptist said when he saw Him on the riverbank. He said, "Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." That lamb shows up on lamb selection day, walks right into the city, walks right into Jerusalem. They know it not. Now, if they knew it not, then why are they saying, "Hosanna?"You know, as a kid, I thought Palm Sunday was pretty cool. Everyone was celebrating Jesus, right? Everyone was excited, and these are all saved people, believing the right things for the right reasons. Is that the case? Not so much. These were people who wanted a king, they wanted to deliver, but they wanted to be delivered from something other than sin, and they wanted a king who would be an entirely different sort of king than the one who showed up on a donkey. See, they chanted, "Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna." Why? What does hosanna mean? Let me reverse it. What does hallelujah mean? Praise God. What does hosanna mean? Save us. Save us now. So when they're chanting hosanna, when they're taking palm branches and laying them down, they're chanting, "Save us, please. Save us now. Save us immediately." Save us from what, though? You think there was a person standing there with a palm branch saying, "I'm such a sinner, I need to be saved from my sins?" No. What did they sense they needed to be saved from? It starts with an R. Rome. Right. This was a people who were being oppressed by the Roman Empire. These were the rebels. The Empire had come on in. They wanted to be saved, so they say, "Save us, please." They laid down palm branches. Why palm branches? As an aside, what's the deal with the palm branches? The palm branch was symbolic. If you go back to the time of Judas Maccabeus in the intertestamental time, Israel had been freed through the leadership of Joseph Maccabeus and others from the tyranny of Syria and other bad guys, other villains at that time. With that said, in the intertestamental age, the palm branches had become the symbol of Jewish identity, so to speak. So it was a very nationalistic thing. You had a palm branch in your hands, especially when you were being oppressed by Rome. The Romans might not have fully understood it, but the Jews did. This was a sign of open rebellion to wave palm branches. And so when you lay them down at the coming of a king, what are you saying? You're in effect saying, "We want a king who's going to come to save us and kick out the Romans." Now, in the 60s, long after Jesus had died, long after he was dead and resurrected, but long after that time, in 60 AD-ish, probably closer to about 68 or 69 AD, the Jews did something interesting. They minted coins, and on the coins, at a time when they were desperate to be freed from Roman bondage, you know what they put on the coins? They put a palm branch. And the palm branch, again, was a sign, even on their coins. Whether they're laying down palm branches, raising palm branches, whether it's on their coins, it was a symbol of their identity, principally. And so they minted coins that referred to or spoke to their identity and their long desire that they would be freed from the villains, freed from the bad guys, freed from the Roman Empire. The great irony is that after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, you know what Vespasian, the Emperor, the Roman Emperor did? He minted coins, too. On one side of the coin was him. On the other side of the coin, there was a palm tree and a woman crying. And the coin was symbolic of the Roman victory over Israel. With that said, when we stand back, we could go on with the history, but when you stand back from this, the point is that the palm branches were not just like, "Hey, what to do? How do we celebrate? Oh, there's the tree. Let's grab some palm branches and put them down." Nothing like that. The palm branches were 100% symbolic of the sort of king that they wanted to come on in. And hey, that guy's doing miracles, raising the dead. Hey, we're desperate for a king. They had been desperate for a king for a long time. And this guy, the rumors are he does what? He heals people, he raises the dead, and so forth. Even if he's not the king, at least he's maybe a prophet of the king or what have you. Whatever the case is, this can't help but be good for us. Hosanna. Save us, please. So they're very enthusiastic. Again, not necessarily because they saw themselves as sinners who needed a savior. They saw themselves as oppressed and who needed a good leader. And that's principally why they did what they did. But interestingly, Jesus is going to do what? Well, instead of doing what most kings would do, riding into the city, he chooses to ride in the city on the animal that you would least expect him to enter in upon, and that's going to be a donkey. Let's look at the next verses and see what that's all about. Let's look at verses 14 through 16. "Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, he sat on it, as it is written: 'Fear not, daughter Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.' His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done these things to him." All right, so Jesus says, "All right, time has come for my entry into the city." And he saw the people with the palm branches and hosanna, and he understood that their motivations weren't necessarily in line with who he was or exactly what he came to do. They were enthusiastic, but not necessarily for the right reasons. Modern-day Christendom has a lot of that, people enthusiastic, but not necessarily for the right reasons. Well, Jesus looks out at the city. In the Gospel of Luke, it says as he's going into the city, he does what? Instead of being all excited, "Hey, they're cheering for me. What a day this is," he weeps over the city. Why does he weep? He says, "Because your day of destruction is coming." He says, "You don't get it. You don't get me. You don't know why I'm here. You don't know what I'm all about." And he makes a conscious choice here, which is reflective of Old Testament prophecy, but he makes a conscious choice. He sees people that want to take him and make him some sort of conquering hero, so to speak. People who, if they could, would put him at the head of a chariot to head into Jerusalem. And he says, "You know what? Let's find the motleyest, smallest critter that's capable of bearing a man, and I'm going to ride that." Way back in the Book of Zechariah, there was this prophecy that a king would come. In due time, a king would come, but he would come on the least likely of all animals, and that was a donkey. Now, you and I, when we think of donkeys, we have an Americanized, Westernized understanding of a donkey. We don't think they're the smartest, shrewdest animals at all, of course, but we think of them as larger than they would've been in this context. We think of them, it's not quite a full horse, but sort of horse-like. That's not what this is. In the Old Testament book of Zechariah, the specific quote in Zechariah in chapter nine about Christ's entry, the king's entry into Jerusalem, it says this. It says, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you;Jews of every age would have been fine up to this point. "He is just and having salvation." Okay. What is salvation? That was debatable. But he is just having salvation. But then the last part of the verse is what even his own disciples didn't understand at the moment he rode in. It said this: "He will be lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey." You see, the animal that Jesus Christ rode into, it was a donkey, but that doesn't do it justice. Have you ever seen the old cartoons where you have a guy riding in on the smallest possible horse, where you have to lift up your knees just to keep your feet from touching the ground? That's what he rode in on. He rode in on the smallest creature capable of bearing a man. The least likely, the least impressive critter that you could imagine is what he rode in on. What kind of king is this? They should have been asking, "Why is he on that thing?" Now, they didn't go back in their mind's eye to Zechariah chapter nine and go, "Aha! I think I know what's going on here." No one did. Even his own disciples didn't do that, which is a sign of the biblical illiteracy of their age. Remember, these were a people who just didn't understand things, and it didn't help that the priests weren't doing their jobs. The priests weren't properly educating the people, so they didn't know what to make of it. They didn't know what Zechariah nine says. They didn't think back to these things. It was only after the fact that the disciples looked back and go, "Oh, wait. I now get why he came in on the donkey." Right? But they didn't know it at this time. However, it should have been a tremendous visual cue to see the guy that they were trying, these crowds were trying to coronate here as the one who was going to conquer throughout Rome and usher in the days of milk and honey, and he says, "I'm here all right, but I'm a different sort of king, and I've come to bring a different sort of kingdom.

And when you see me riding on a donkey, that should be a hint. I'm not the sort of king that you either want or are expecting. But I am a better king if you open up your ears and pay attention." Now, there's something cool about this idea that the God of all creation came down from the most glorious throne imaginable. Just saying it's a throne, it's far greater than any sort of throne we could picture. He came down from a throne to be born in a stinky, smelly manger, and then he enters into Jerusalem on the smallest, stinkiest little animal. And you stand back and go, "Wow." Despite his majesty and despite how awesome and majestic and powerful and mighty and radiant this king is, he's humble in ways you would never expect. Note this, during the ministry of Jesus Christ, and even now, for you and I who might be hurting this week, Jesus is very approachable. He's an approachable savior. You ever watch the coronations of the British kings and queens, all the monarchy sort of stuff? And you see everyone all kind of finely dressed and not moving and all stationary and their eyebrows tweezed and everything looking just right in case the king should so much as look at them, right? Right? And they dare not even breathe when the king walks by. They've got to slew just right. That's our understanding of how you interact when a king is in the room. Well, here, Jesus says, "I am a king from a different sort of kingdom, but I'm far more approachable than those guys. I will come to you when you're broken. Not when you're ready, not when you're tweezed, not when everything is perfect. I come to you when you're broken, and I want to be with you. And even though I'm holy and radiant and powerful and majestic and all those things, and although that is true, I am approachable. And I am one who has come down from a throne, not simply to go to a manger, not only to go to a cross, but I'm here to stand by your side through what you're facing." Very approachable, this savior. The religions of the pagans don't have saviors like this. You look at Zeus, you look at the Baals, you look at all the gods of antiquity. None of them did this sort of stuff, riding into the people in order to give their life for the people and coming in in the most humble fashion imaginable. With that said, let me step back for one second and point ahead. The Lamb. The Lamb of God. That's a term we use to refer to Jesus Christ. He's also referred to as what, though? As the Lion of Judah. And we have to remember that this one who rides in on a donkey and is humble and is approachable and the like, a day is coming when he'll be riding a white horse. Book of Revelation, what do we read? Revelation 19 says this: "I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself, and he was clothed with a white robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, and he has on his robe and on his thigh a name. And the name that is written is this, King of Kings and Lord of Lords."

Same guy. Same guy who comes in here on the most humble creature imaginable into Jerusalem, tender and mild, lowly. Remember this, he's also fierce and majestic, one whom a sword comes from his lips. You see, Christ's love of sinners is not a love of sin. Never forget this. Christ's love of sinners is not a love of sin. In due time, he will judge every last ounce of sin, and that's what we see in Revelation chapter 19. You will encounter this one. You will encounter this one. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. You will encounter this one, and your inevitable encounter with this one, with this Christ, it'll involve either a hosanna on your lips, "Save me, please," or a sword upon his.

Which will it be?

Let's look at verses 17 through 19. Verse 17: "Therefore the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead, they bore witness. For this reason, the people also met him because they heard he had done this sign." Let me stop there for a moment. The majority of the people who went out to seek him, again, they were not laying down their jackets and their palm branches and saying, "Hosanna," because they were recognizing that the savior of mankind was here. They heard. What did it just say? They heard he had raised Lazarus from the dead, and that's why they sought him out. "Therefore, the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, they bore witness. And for this reason," verse 18, for this reason, this one, this one right here. "For this reason, the people also met him, because they heard he had done this sign."The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, "You see that you're accomplishing nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him." All right. In these last verses, in verses 17 through 19, the people were not turning to Jesus for the right reasons or motivations. We've stressed that many times, and it's worth stressing here. They're seeking him out because they heard he did something amazing, something awesome. So they go and seek him out. But the fact remained that whether they were turning to him for the right reasons or not, they were turning to him. And if you were a Pharisee, what was your reaction to that? Well, for the longest time, if you were a Pharisee, the people came to you. If you were a religious leader, if you were the priest, the people came to you. They sought you out for your insight, your input, your instruction. You were the grand poobah, right? The problem the Pharisees had here, it's not theological, it's not doctrinal. It wasn't like they were parsing the book and going, "Well, I don't necessarily think that this Jesus guy is who he thinks he is based on what I see here." Not at all. Their problem wasn't theological, their problem wasn't doctrinal, their problem was pride. Their problem was that this guy has rolled into town and everyone's following him. Everyone's following him, and it doesn't help that he just raised this Lazarus character from the dead. That doesn't help us. In fact, we need to take out that Lazarus guy. If we take out Lazarus, then there won't be proof that this Jesus guy did it. How depraved is that? Just as an aside, how depraved is it that this man Lazarus, poor Lazarus, he's had a tough week, as we talked about recently. What a week Lazarus has had. He's died, he's been there two to four days, he's resurrected, and now, almost immediately upon being resurrected, there are people who want to kill him. Why? For doing nothing more than being the object of a particular miracle. With that said, how depraved these priests are that they want to put not only Jesus to death, who they saw as a threat, but they want to kill Lazarus just because his very existence gives validity to the identity of Jesus himself. So the Pharisees saw that a personality cult, in their view, was bubbling, and that's how they saw it. Make no mistake, they saw it as a personality cult. A personality cult was bubbling up in their midst, and they needed to deal with it. But here's the thing, personality cults have been around a long time. Anyone remembers Sun Myung Moon? You have to be older than a certain age to know who he is. What were his followers known as? The what?

Moonies.

The Moonies, right? Sun Myung Moon, right? He claimed to be the Messiah. One of many. He's just a very recent one I can pull out. I could go back across 2,000 years, and we could talk about all the individuals who've identified themselves as the Messiah. There were people before Jesus who did that. There were people after Jesus who did that, who would identify themselves as the Messiah. And many times they'd get followers. There'd be people like, "Yeah, let's go follow that guy. We'll be his followers and disciples and acolytes and the like." And that's happened to people across the ages. Personality cults have developed. Sun Myung Moon, the Moonies. Big, I don't know, that was the '60s, '70s, '80s, in that window. They would go to the airports. And it wasn't just them. You remember Hare Krishnas? Again, you have to be a certain age here to remember going to the airport and coming off the plane, and there's guys handing out the tracts and the robes and the like. Well, there's always been, across the ages, different groups and cults that have formed around individuals. But when the individual dies, so does the cult. Generally speaking. When the individual passes, the people look around and go, "Well,

what to do now?" And they drift into other things. But that's not what happened with this carpenter. That's not what happened with Jesus of Nazareth. If he was not who he said he was, if he was not the one, the Lamb of God, the divine Son of God, if he was not, then you would fully have expected that in due time his followers would depart. The sands of time would peel back the layers of Christianity and leave it just bare and empty if he was not who he said he was. With that said, if we fast-forward 2,000 years from the time of Christ, how many followers does Christ have now? It depends, is a good answer. It depends. So I googled it. Google, how many followers does Jesus have? You know what it says? It says 2.3 billion professing Christians. Now, do I think all 2.3 billion people who profess the name of Jesus are necessarily of Jesus? No, not necessarily. But whatever the case, there's at least 2.3 billion people who profess the name of Jesus Christ in our own day, and that's across 2,000 years. You add up all the people, the billions and billions of people across 2,000 years of history since this time. I am not here to do the math, but I'll tell you this, it's a lot of people, and it doesn't show any sign of dimming. This is not a personality cult. What we do at Christmastime is not merely a remembrance and reflection on something we kind of, sort of hope happened that might kind of, sort of mean something to us in our own future. Nonsense. This is so much greater, so much more grand. Now, if you're on the outside looking in this Christmas season, if you're on the outside looking in, you say, "I don't know what to make of all this story and this Jesus and the what have you. I've heard these tales, but it hasn't really sunk into my heart of hearts." If that's where you're at this morning, then what do you make of the fact that there are 2.3 billion professing Christians in our own age? Is it possible that a guy who fulfilled a host of messianic prophecies that were written centuries before his birth, is it possible the guy who performed miracles that even his staunchest critics acknowledged existed, is it possible that the guy who has disciples numbering in the billions in our present age, maybe just maybe that guy is who he said he was? Maybe just maybe the one person who's left a bigger stamp on all of humanity across 6,000 years of recorded history, maybe just maybe the one guy who history singularly turns upon, BC and AD, before Christ, after death, and the like, the one guy on which history and time itself turns upon, maybe just maybe that guy is who he said he was. And maybe just maybe this Christmas time, when we look down in the manger with our mind's eye, maybe just maybe it's not a baby we see here. Maybe just maybe this is the divine Son of God. This Christmas, we talked about Christ's arrival. Today, we've talked about Christ's arrival, his arrival into Jerusalem. Do you know there's another arrival coming? At Christmastime, on the one hand, we look back. Look back into the manger and the like. But Christmas, for the Christian, is not merely looking back, it's looking forward with expectation. He arrived just as scripture prophesied that he would, in the exact time and place in which scripture anticipated that he would. He arrived right on schedule that first Christmas. Secondly, he arrived here in Jerusalem. He arrives here in Jerusalem in fulfillment of prophecies in Isaiah, Zechariah, and elsewhere. He arrives in Jerusalem lowly, riding on the back of a donkey. Later on, he would arrive in the upper room, resurrected to meet his own. There's another arrival coming, and that arrival is the grandest of them all. It's the arrival in which he returns. At Christmas, we look back and we say, "God, what you have done. God, what you have done." But we also look forward and say, "God, what you will yet do." Let's pray.

[gentle instrumental music] To search through an archive of Dr. Holt's previous sermons, please visit us at fpcgulfport.org, or you can look us up at sermonaudio.com.

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