Obviously, it comes from the New Testament Greek. But before Greek, there was Old Testament Hebrew. The Greek word is actually "hosanna", but that came from the Hebrew word which is "Hoshiya na". Hoshiya na is found in Psalm 118:25 "Lord, save us". Then verse 26 follows that up with, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." That word, hoshiya na is answered with the New Testament Greek which changed the meaning of the word to a word of praise for He who is our salvation...He who has saved us. The meaning changed from "save us" to "our salvation has come." Glory in the highest, for our salvation has come. Can I get an amen?
That brings me to the point of my blog today. (I'm long winded, I know.) Michael has been in the Ukraine now for 4 days. He has learned so much in just those 4 days, that I can't wait to see what God still has to teach him! Three years of seminary culminating into seeing people yearn for truth and long for the teachings of God.
Our youth praise team had been working on several songs to sing in the Ukraine. One was "Hosanna" by Hillsong.
As they had been practicing, these words were reverberating in Michael's soul, "Heal my heart and make it clean. Open up my eyes to the things unseen. Show me how to love like you have loved me. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause. As I walk from earth into eternity."
Each time he interacts with the Ukrainians, his prayer is for God to open up His eyes to things unseen and to break his heart for what breaks God's heart. And God is doing just that. He is seeing the great need for these youth camps that the Ukrainian church puts on there. Many kids come to this camp several times a year. Their dollar is extremely low, so it only costs the kids US $45 to attend this camp. That is a lot of money for the Ukrainians, so the church absorbs a lot of that cost because over half the kids won't be able to pay it. How easy it would be for us to come up with $45 in our lavish country. Michael is learning what "poverty" really is...not like the American version of poverty.
He was crunching some numbers to try to get them to make sense in his brain today. He took his own monthly salary figure and asked the Ukrainian translator, "If someone in Ukraine made this much money how would they live?" The translator said that person would live like a king in Ukraine. And there are just a very few people who live on that "much" money there. "Open up my eyes"...to see that we are blessed, even on a lower salary than we are used to while we are in seminary. "Break my heart for what breaks Yours"...in seeing how frivolously we spend our money when there is so much more Kingdom work that could be done. We spend so much on temporary things that don't matter when we could easily spare $45 for a teen to go to camp and feed on God's Word. And that is exactly what they do...they can't get enough of God's Word. When was the last time we were that hungry for God's truth?
Our country seems to be shouting "Lord, save us", but I want to shout from the rooftops, "Hosanna...our Salvation has already come!"
It's all wrapped up in a man named Jesus.
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