Hosanna!

I was made to celebrate….. I love a gathering.  I love a birthday.  I love a graduation. I love ALL the holidays.   I love giving a “woot, woot’ or an “amen” when people are preaching, talking, or announcing.

At Christmas time the nativity characters I  identify with most are the Christmas Angels.  They had to fill the sky with the good news. They couldn’t stop themselves. 

I love the Old Testament scriptures of Miriam and others dancing as Moses leads them out of Egypt and across the Red Sea.  Or of David dancing and celebrating….

I love Jesus' triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.  

The new Chosen movie around this event actually uses fun, updated music with a great drum beat to show and help the audience feel the excited nature of this event.   The celebration is amazing.  I recall being at a Palm Sunday with the BHS choirs during Landon’s year in San Antonio Texas. We were at a big Catholic Church and the choir kids all got to participate in the Palm Sunday procession, waving palm leaves as they entered the church and got to their places to sing.  It was glorious!   I wanted to shout hallelujah and amen!

I loved being in Israel and around every turn a hymn came into my head as I walked where Jesus walked. I just kept singing. I had to praise the Lord.

On Palm Sunday we shout “Hosanna!”   David Butler said at a Palm Sunday celebration, “Hosanna is gratitude unfiltered and unhinged. It’s the big grace of a  big God pouring into a little heart that cannot be contained anymore and has to burst out.”

This feels so much like musical theatre…the song and the dance continue the story and the emotion.   Maybe that’s why musical theatre also speaks to me. 

There is a chapel right at the pools of Bethesda.  ( Saint Anne’s Chapel. ) While in Israel, I couldn’t contain myself and went to the front of the chapel and conducted our tour group in singing "How Great Thou Art."  I  felt compelled and had to burst forth.  I sang with all my heart and cried and sang some more.  It was glorious!  

I love Easter and the celebration.  He is risen....He is risen indeed!