Robert Kolb (PhD, University of Wisconsin) is mission professor of systematic theology emeritus at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles.
Carrying something heavy strains our muscles, exhausts us, sometimes overwhelms us to the point of collapse. Weight comes in various forms, and what has piled up the pounds serves as a good image of the feeling we get when we have to bear misfortune of any kind. “Weight” serves as an apt analogy for the sense of vulnerability that our fears produce. “Weight” expresses what grinds us down when we feel ashamed. “Weight” in the form of guilt squeezes all joy out of us. Finally, the heaviness of guilt seems to be smothering us. Carrying the weights laid on us by our fears, our shame, our guilt robs us of contentment and threatens to take our breath away. These fears, our shame, our guilt crush us, grind us into little pieces.
The weight becomes heavier as we dwell on the fact that God has promised and his prophets have foretold a day of liberation. Yet we remain stuck in dreams that have not come to pass, in covenants unfilled that break our hearts. Fear and doubt combat faith and trust because the weight still causes us to stumble and stagger as we slosh through the problems, mistakes, and failures we perpetrate day in and day out.
Experiencing such weight helps us understand a little bit what Jesus felt when he rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. He usually came by foot, so riding on what had been a symbol of royal modes of travel should have taken the load off his mind as well as his feet. But he knew very well what lay before him before he would come alive and leave his tomb seven days later. We sense the weight on his shoulders as we contemplate his coming into Jerusalem two millennia ago.
Advent is a time of anticipation. We recall that long-awaited night on which he was born. We look back to his entry in Jerusalem when we join the crowds on Palm Sunday crying, “Hosanna in the highest,” borrowing a word from the Psalmist that originally meant “help, please!” or “save us!” For Jews of the time of Jesus, “Hosanna” had moved from a confession of dependence on God’s aid to a shout of praise for the one who could be counted on to help, to rescue, to pour out blessings.
But as we join in singing “Hosanna,” we know how the story is going to move forward. We can sense the weight on the shoulders of the man on the donkey even if it is so heavy that its weight far exceeds our imagination.
Like the contemporaries of Jesus, we feel the weight of promises, prayers, prophecies that have been repeated many times, as our ancestors and we have hoped for release from the weight of fears or shame or guilt. We experience the wondering where God is and why he does not intervene in our lives in the way in which we would like him to. Where is he when we really need him to be expressing his love and mercy? We know the weight of hopes deferred because our dreams seem to evaporate into the mistaken imagination of past days.
This song reminds us of just what Jesus came to do, as the prophet Isaiah foresaw this suffering servant of the Lord, the suffering Son of God, who bears our griefs and carries our sorrows. God appointed him to suffer the capital punishment that our rebellion against God, our doubt of his Word and defiance of his lordship, had earned us. And, wonder of all wonders, peace and stability stem from his punishment, as he died the death that the law was bound to pay each one of us. His being crushed on the cross liberates us who are imprisoned in our own self-made cells, with the walls closing in on us as we try to defy the boundaries God has set for our lives. For the Lord God himself willed that he be crushed in order to put our lives back together again, with the fresh breath of freeing forgiveness that sets us on the path of life without being weighed down. For with his gift of freedom from having to protect ourselves, our lives open up with arms outstretched to find peace in bearing the weights of those around us.
For in this suffering servant we do find the peace that has been promised, prayed for, and prophesied as our Creator’s gift to those who trust in the one was crushed for us. This peace is a gift from the one who went bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows through the streets of Jerusalem to Gethsemane and then to the palaces of Annas, Herod, and Pilate, on to Golgotha and then to the grave. But the one whose appearance was marred beyond recognition came back to startle the nations and shut the mouths of kings. The one who was cut off from the land of the living and made his grave with the wicked and the rich was to see his offspring and prolong his days in the carrying out of the will of the Lord. For God willed that new birth from above would come to his people despite their sinful rebellion.
In his bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, in his return to the land of the living, we recognize Jesus, the suffering servant and Son of the Most High, as the weight-lifter par excellence. For his death and resurrection have given us a new anticipation, the looking for and longing for his final return and our life that never ends. These lyrics invite us to read again Isaiah 53—Isaiah 52:13-53:12—to contemplate the heavy weight of the burden of our sins that loaded upon Jeus the suffering that culminated in his death. It also leads us to meditate on his victory over the death that could not hold him and the devil who could not conquer the corpse that came alive.
Therefore, we sing “Hosanna” as we prepare to celebrate his coming as the baby in Bethlehem, his coming in seeming triumph on Palm Sunday, his going to the cross and grave, his coming back from death, and his final return. Hosanna in the highest—Lord, save us.