Sermon: Advent I - 2017

“And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” “Behold, your King is coming to you.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ: we are just three short weeks away from Christmas beginning. Stores may have had their Christmas items out since before halloween, but now it’s December, Christmas is definitely coming. Thus with Christmas on the mind of our nation, what’s personally on your mind? Do visions of sugar-plums dance in your head?

Or like many, is your mind preoccupied with matters you’d rather it not be? Instead of excitement, you feel only anxiety over the long to-do list. Instead of joy, you feel only loneliness. Instead of jubilation, you feel only sorrow about those who you can’t spend Christmas with. The only thing on your mind is that long illness, the winter blues, old memories you wish could be made new again.

My dear friends, today marks the beginning not of Christmas, but Advent. This season of Advent is a time to reflect on the Coming One, a time to reflect on the one who comes to comfort and console you in all of life’s heartaches. The Coming One is the Christ. Christ is our King of peace who comes to us and for us today, bringing us to the mountain of grace.

The woes, sicknesses, and heartaches that you face today are the same sorts of tribulations faced by people since the days of Adam and Eve. Not a single person has escaped the pangs of sin in this lifetime. Therefore our most loving and merciful Father has given us the greatest promise: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king.”

A righteous King shall come and reign as supreme in our lives. This King reigns with power and might, and His dominion is over all the earth! Against sadness and greed, over death and sickness, greater than every ruler and authority upon the earth. Jesus is our King to whom every knee will one day bow; believer and unbeliever, rich and poor, governor and slave, angel and demon.

But Christ your King doesn’t come to you like any ordinary king. Upon the earth, kings come with armed guards and a large entourage, intimidating anyone who looks at them. By all appearances, they have the power over life and death, heaven and earth. But they don’t! They have no power except given by the heavenly Father. To Jesus however all authority has been given not just on earth, but in heaven above. 

Instead of an intimidating posture, “Behold, your King is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” Your King comes to you not riding on an animal of war, but upon a beast of burden. Think about it, a donkey is a farm animal, it’s not going to outrun any army nor overpower any opponent. A donkey is an animal of peace, and Christ our King comes to us in peace. 

By Jesus’ actions He wants you to know that you have nothing to fear. Jesus is the one who comes to comfort and soothe, not to frighten and kill. Christ is a King with a threefold kingdom, yes He rules over the universe by His almighty power in His kingdom of power, but He rules over it so that He may give you peace and safety, He rules over it so that He may be the one to give you His grace and mercy, He rules over it for you.

Indeed, Christ our King rules today in His kingdom of grace and this is the kingdom that He has established upon the earth for us today. In His kingdom of power, Christ rules by the stern sword of the law. But in this His kingdom of grace, Christ rules by the free-running, sweetly-ringing word of the gospel.

Christ reigns in His church today by which He comes to us not to protect us necessarily from earthly, temporary danger, but to protect us from the evil one and the wrath which we deserve from the Father. Jesus does come as the King to wage a war on our behalf, His beloved subjects.

In this war, Jesus moves from the Mount of Olives to mount Calvary, from the place of olives to the place of the skull, from the place of life to the place of the cross. Jesus our King of peace fights on our behalf, for us, not be slaying and slaughtering His enemies, but by handing Himself over to be crucified. 

The mount of olives was a place where olives grew in order to be crushed to make olive oil. This olive oil was then used to anoint kings to signify that they were chosen by God and to anoint priests to sanctify them for service in the temple. The mount of Golgotha was the place where Jesus was crushed and anointed with His own blood, sanctifying Him to be our great High Priest and our eternal King. On that mountain Jesus overcame the power of our sin and became our righteousness. “This is the name by which He will be called: The Lord is our righteousness.” 

Jesus has come to reign as our righteous King, not just in ages past, but today and for us. Jesus is the King who comes to us in His Word of grace. In our timid and prideful hearts Jesus comes to us, emboldening us to stand before Him and tearing us down from our high thrones of pride by the strength of His Word. 

My dear friends, Jesus comes to us today and He comes for us. Christmas is certainly a historical event that occurred in history. Approximately 2000 years ago Jesus was born of the virgin Mary in a stable in Bethlehem and wrapped in swaddling cloth and laid in a manger. But it’s more than a historical event! Jesus came for us! He came for you and for me, to be our King and declare us righteous from our sin. 

This didn’t just happen in the past as a historical event, as if it’s something to memorialize however, Jesus continues to come to us and for us today. This is why Jesus instituted the sacraments, this is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, so that even 2000 years later Jesus would continue to come to us in order to be near us in our weakness.

Jesus’ sacrifice upon the cross delivers to us His righteousness, this event is our justification. But there’s more to it than just big words. Jesus is our righteousness which means that Jesus is the one who wants to be with us and be near us. Our sin that we’ve inherited from Adam and Eve, and our sin which we continue to do even to this day, separates us from God, it removes us from God’s image. 

When Christ declares us righteous and justifies us before the Father, He takes away our sin, He removes all of the guilt that we have. All of the wicked things that we have done that separate us from God and our families, all of the things that makes Christmas get-togethers awkward or non-existent are forgiven in the blood of Jesus. Christ is our righteous King who restores us to our neighbor and restores us to our God.

When Christ anoints you with the water of forgiveness in your baptism and anoints you with the blood of the sacrament in the Lord’s Supper, He is cleansing you of all of your shame. All of the horrible sins done against you, the lies that were said, the pain that was inflicted, you are freed from it all. Though you may feel dirty and ashamed, your King comes to you to wash it all away. 

When Christ comes to us everyday in His Word of truth and grace, He comes to us in order to be near us and in our hearts. All of the loneliness and sadness, the memories of loved ones who have left us, and the isolation we now feel. His Word penetrates you to the very soul and dwells in you richly all of your days. Though our loved ones have departed, God is with us. 

He gives you a promise of this and assures you that He is with you by coming to you in the sacrament of the altar. He hasn’t abandoned you, He hasn’t left you alone, He hasn’t left you as orphans, but He comes to you even now. In Jesus’ Kingdom of grace He comes to be with us still today in His sacraments and His Word. Christ is with you, have no doubt.

Remember however that just as Christ has come to be with us today in His kingdom of power and His kingdom of grace, He also promises to be with us eternally in His kingdom of glory. Through His kingdom of grace upon the earth, He leads you along in procession to His heavenly kingdom. The foretaste of the feast you have today and the robe of righteousness He clothes you baptism now is only going to continue in that heavenly kingdom. As a matter of fact, the kingdom of glory is this earthly kingdom of grace, the church, made perfect.

In that place, Christ our King will have removed from you all traces of sin. No more tears nor loneliness, no sickness and fear, no shame nor guilt shall ever plague you in this kingdom of glory which is yet to come. Though we must journey through this valley of shadowy death upon the earth, Christ has come to us as our King and He carries us to His mountain of grace. In this life it appears as as a skull and a cross, but in the kingdom of glory we see it as the mountain from which flows the river of life. 

Truly I say to you that our King has come! “The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” Awake, O sleeper, and see the dawning day of our King is here! Awake, O daughter of Zion, “Behold, your King is coming to you!” “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”