Advent 1
Mt
21:1-9
12/2/18
Don’t worry. It’s ok.
It’s perfectly understandable. It’s not surprising if you thought you
were in the wrong location during the Gospel reading this morning. As you heard the reading about Jesus’
entrance into Jerusalem, you probably felt like you should be standing outside
of the church on the sidewalk and parking lot.
After all, that is where you were the last time you heard about this event.
Our Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem
on a donkey is, of course, the focus of the beginning of the service on Palm Sunday. You pick up your palm frond on the table at
the back of the nave and then go outside the church. There you hear the reading from John’s Gospel
about Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and then we all process in
singing the hymn, “All Glory, Laud and Honor.”
But of course, it’s not Palm Sunday. Instead, it is the First Sunday in
Advent. And we are not preparing for Easter. We are getting ready for Christmas. And actually, our reading is from the Gospel
of Matthew, and not that of John.
Today is the first Sunday of a new
church year. On this Sunday, we begin
our preparation to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Yet on the first Sunday of this preparation,
our Gospel lesson takes us immediately to the first day of Holy Week. No sooner have we begun getting ready to
celebrate the joyous event of Christmas, than we have a text that calls to mind
Jesus Christ’s suffering and death. Because while Jesus enters to adulation on
Sunday, by three o’clock on Friday that week he hangs dead on a cross.
Naturally, the choice of this Gospel
lesson for the First Sunday in Advent was very intentional. On the first Sunday
of the church year, as we begin to prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus
Christ, we are immediately directed toward the goal and purpose of his
birth. We begin the season of Advent – a
name derived from the Latin word adventus
which means “coming.” We prepare to
rejoice in the Lord’s coming as he was born as a baby in Bethlehem. And immediately we hear about the coming of
Jesus to Jerusalem – his adventus –
in order to suffer and die.
It’s a reminder that what we are
doing here in Church on these four Sundays – what the Church is doing during
the season of Advent – is very different from what the world is doing. You know that even before Thanksgiving the
Christmas decorations began going up.
Hallmarks’ Christmas movie marathon began. You’ve begun hearing about “the spirit of the
season” as the world tries to make something profound and meaningful out of a
fat dude in a red suit; out of plastic trees laden with ornaments made by the kids
when they were in kindergarten; out of the biggest spending spree of the year.
Advent reminds us that the Church
doesn’t have to work to make up something profound and meaningful. It is already there. What we need to do, is to pay attention to
it. We need to focus upon it as we
prepare to celebrate the birth of the Savior – the birth of Jesus the Christ.
The birth of Jesus was always about
the week that began in our text. It was
always about Holy Week. Our text begins
by saying, “Now when they drew near to Jerusalem.” Near the end of the previous chapter Matthew
has told us: “And
as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on
the way he said to them, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man
will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn
him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and
crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.’” In fact, this is the third time Jesus has predicted his death.
On
Christmas we will celebrate Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. He was born there in fulfillment of God’s
Word, because he is the Christ – the Messiah – descended from King David. Jesus was born in Bethlehem in order to die
in Jerusalem. He comes to Jerusalem to
die, but he does so in a way that declares, “King, Messiah, Son of David!”
Our Lord
sends the disciples to get a donkey for him to ride into the city. This is very
intentional, because it is the animal associated with kingship in ancient
Israel. Indeed he does so in order to
fulfill Scripture. As Matthew tells us, “This took place to fulfill what was
spoken by the prophet, saying, ‘Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king
is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a
beast of burden.’”
And the
people get it! They spread their cloaks
on the road and spread branches they have cut from trees – actions done for
royalty in Israel. They cry out,
“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!”
But all is
not as it appears – or at least, as it seems to the people. Yes, Jesus is the King. He is the Messiah. But he was not born in a palace. He was born in a stable. And he comes not to sit on a throne. He comes to be enthroned on the cross.
Matthew emphasizes
this in the way he quotes the prophet Zechariah. He quotes the words, “Behold, your king is
coming to you, humble, and mounted on
a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” Jesus is described here as humble.
There are
other parts of this text in Zechariah chapter nine that he could have
quoted. He could have quoted the next
verse where he prophet says, “I
will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the
battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule
shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” He
could have included the words that occur just before the reference to humility:
“righteous and having salvation is he.”
But he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “humble, and mounted on a donkey.” Jesus comes to Jerusalem as the humble One,
because he comes to die.
He does this because you aren’t humble. You want to come first. You want to have your
way. You want to leave the work for
someone else to do. Jesus said that all
the law and the prophets is summarized by the twin truth that we are to love
God with all that we are, and that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. But we aren’t humble enough to do that
because we are too in love with ourselves.
That is why the Father sent the Son
into world in the incarnation. That is
why Jesus was born in Bethlehem. As St.
Paul said about the Son of God, he is the One “who, though he was in the form of
God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself
nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And
being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point
of death, even death on a cross.”
In
humility, Jesus offered himself on the cross for you. He did so in order to redeem you from sin,
not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood, and innocent
suffering and death. Yet his death on
the cross led to the exaltation of his resurrection and ascension. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, you know that
death has been defeated.
Jesus’
death and resurrection has changed everything.
Now instead of being sinners, in God’s eyes we are saints. Instead of death, our future is resurrection
and eternal life. And instead of pride
and selfishness, Christ’s Spirit moves us to humility and service – just as our
Lord Jesus did for us. He said to the
disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and
their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you.
But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be
first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
It is only
Christ’s death and resurrection that can make this possible. And in order to give these benefits to us,
Jesus’ coming – his adventus –
continues this morning. We prepare for
it by singing in the Sanctus the same words as our text: “Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna
in the highest.”
In the
Sacrament of the Altar Jesus comes to us as he uses bread and wine to give us
his true body and blood, given and shed for us.
He forgives our sins and nourishes the new man within us so that we can
humble ourselves in service to others.
We kneel at his altar and receive his body and blood that joins us
together as one body – the Body of Christ.
He does this so that we can serve the people who are here kneeling with
us: our husband or wife; our father or mother; our brother or sister; our
fellow congregation members.
The means
he uses to do this appear humble – just as the manger did; just as the cross
did. But he does so as the risen and
exalted Lord and so it is the means of his power, forgiveness and love. He forgives our lack of humility by the means
that now enables us to be humble in our service toward one another.
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