I'm awake early this morning, the Sunday morning lull of 114 traffic is too quiet for one who has grow accustomed to its constant rush. Birds instead are my morning music.

I think "Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord."

I wonder what Hosanna means and what it meant to them so long ago, with their palm branches and crowded streets.

Save us! it meant. And I wonder how much peer pressure was present in that throng of ardent followers. Of course we crowd around the hope, we are all so desperate for the quick fix. Even if it comes born in a pile of straw and astride a mule to Passover. We will stoop to lowly depths if we think it will help.

Hosanna has changed, though, to mean something different: salvation has come!
Yet I wonder how it is that we are still desperate for the fix: save us!

Yesterday a teacher led us through Hebrews landing on an important truth: that Christ has sat down at the right hand of God. His work is finished. His plan is perfect. His gift of salvation is secure.

Yet we still cry, "Rescue us from this body of death!" "Save us!"

It is already and not yet, finished and yet not, secure and still ongoing.

This feels like a tease, but it is not. It is the tension which keeps us returning again and again to Christ and the tightness of His love for us. Unchanging and yet still being perfected.

A comfort.

No longer a need to find the quick fix, the quick healing, the quick windfall, the quick answer.

We are saved and we are being saved by His finished work on the cross. He did the work and is faithful to finish the work. No more need for throngs of ardent followers; He is interested in our faith, not our fandom.

In the language of grammar, Salvation is present, perfect and progressive: It is coming and has come and will come.

Blessed is He Who came in the name of the Lord.