“Hosanna, Lord, hosanna!”(Ps.118:25a) “…and in your loving-kindness save me.”(Ps.31:16b) We find the Passion psalm echoing in the psalm we read in the Liturgy of the Palms in crying for salvation (“hosanna” means “save”). Together they invoke the mood of Holy Week as the culmination of our Lenten focus. As the apostle Paul reminds us, this is what Christ Jesus came to do—to incarnate God’s saving grace in the world for all to recognize and experience. In and through his life, death, and resurrection, Christ Jesus demonstrates God’s life-giving love and calls us to be reconciled in our relationship with God.

The cross, to which we will be drawing nearer day by day this week, stands as an image of that reconciliation, of our invitation to participate in God’s salvific design, of the opportunity to work out (manifest) [our] salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil.2:12) with humble dependence on God’s steadfast love and mercy. The vertical member of the cross symbolizes the axis between heaven and earth, drawing our attention to the transcendence of God, while the horizontal arms outstretched to enfold the whole world symbolize the immanence of God ever with us. The unifying Spirit of God resides in the center where the two are joined symbolizing God’s sanctifying presence in our lives.

May “hosanna” be our ever-present arrow prayer, our mantra, this week as we approach the cross of Christ, indicating our desire for resurrection into new life in Christ, trusting him to enable us to walk henceforth in his holy ways.