This week our King arrives in Sydney for a special visit. And no doubt there will be enthusiastic crowds lining the road, and pretty posies submitted to the royal hand, and a grand car with the royal insignia flags flapping in the breeze and giving testimony to the presence of the royal personage, and dignitaries at the ready with their solemn ‘Your Royal Highness’, and bows and curtsies and so forth. But will there be a Hosanna?

The word means to save, and with emphasis. It was once said in earnest to a King on his journey to Jerusalem, but I doubt it will or can be repeated. Perhaps someone might cry it on behalf of the royalists against the republicans, or the indigenous against the colonialists – though I doubt they would appeal to the King of England – or perhaps a plea from the green enthusiasts against the rapacious capitalists. But not a real Hosanna, like once was given.

The One who rode the donkey had not come to bring salvation in the political or economic or environmental sense, but to fix our broken relationship with our Maker. And crowds lined the road, and he received palm posies, and rode a donkey in the style of Hebrew kings, and ironically was even entertained at some state functions, for which they dressed him in purple and scarlet and placed a crown upon his head and a staff in his hand. But his purpose was different. And wonderful!