Monday, November 29, 2021

Sermon - Advent 1 - Luke 19:28-40

 

Luke 19:28–40

“The Messiah Comes to Save”

A blessed Advent season to you.  Advent means “coming”, and of course Christmas is coming – and for many it’s been here since November 1st, especially in our ants-in-the-pants American culture.

But the Church is more patient and orderly.  We take our time approach the celebration of Christ’s birth.  And so, the season of Advent.  A mournful longing that takes us back to join the Old Testament people of God who prayed and waited and watched for the fulfilling of God’s messianic promise.  And much like Lent strikes a sober and even somber note of repentance which prepares us for the seriousness of Holy Week and the joy of Easter – Advent makes us liturgically ready for Christmas joy and celebration.

Advent also carries forward the reminder that yes, Christ has come, and yes, Christ is coming again!  Once he came in humility as the Babe of Bethlehem.  But his Second Advent is at hand – he will come again, but in glory, to judge the living and the dead.  We heard quite a bit about the last day, the end times, and the judgment day in the last few weeks.  Now that same theme reverberates in Advent – Christ is coming, and coming soon.  Here we even use blue paraments, in part, to remind us when he comes again it will be in the sky – and all will see him.

But there are other Advents.  There are the Old Testament advents – when he came and appeared in the burning bush, the pillar of cloud and fire, and as the Angel of the Lord.  There was the wrestling match with Jacob by the Jabbock River.  There was the visit to Abraham with the two angels.  Even when he stood in the road and blocked Balaam’s donkey.

And then in the New Testament, perhaps you wouldn’t call it an advent but simply an appearance – but the Ascended Christ appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, and to John on the Island of Patmos. 

But today, the lectionary invites us to consider his triumphal advent, his kingly arrival on Palm Sunday.  Accompanied by the fanfare of the crowds, the cries of Hosanna, the palm branches strewn and the garments spread out before him.  He’s welcomed as king – as Son of David – and really, as Messiah.  The one who comes in the name of the Lord!

It’s a beautiful and celebratory event in Christ’s ministry that infects us with joy even today, as we see it as a foreshadowing of his great and final Advent in glory at the close of the age.  Christ is coming, and coming to save.  “Hosanna, save us now!” the church still prays, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus”

And yet not everyone took kindly to such adulation and praise.  The Pharisees said to him, “teacher, rebuke your disciples”.  And this is something maybe we need to examine a little further.

Well, for one thing, Jesus never responds well when other people tell him who to rebuke.  Do you want us to call down fire and brimstone on those cities, Lord?  No.  Send these annoying children away.  Oh, then Jesus gets indignant.  Send this woman away, she keeps crying out after us!  But Jesus engages her in conversation, and eventually grants her petition.  He’s a Lord of mercy, after all, and loves to welcome needy sinners into his good favor.

To be sure, Jesus does rebuke people.  He rebukes Peter, who would point him away from the cross, “no, Lord, this shall never happen to you”, “Oh Yeah?  Get behind me, Satan”.  He rebukes the disciples, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them”.  He rebukes the crowd who wanted to stone the adulterous woman, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone”.  But he will rebuke on his timetable, and in his own way, those who need a rebuking.  Usually it’s those who oppose his word, and would stand in the way of the gospel, or keep people from receiving his grace.  It’s those who, like Satan himself, would turn Jesus away from his mission to the cross – if only they could.

The Pharisees here on Palm Sunday understand well the implications of the crowd’s celebration.  They would have been right in seeing all this messianic hubbub as pure blasphemy – if Jesus wasn’t, in fact, the Messiah.  If he was just some teacher, even a great teacher.  If he was only a man.  If he was anything but the One promised deliverer, David’s Son and David’s Lord.  But he is all that, and much more.  And he deserves the praises of the crowd, and much more.

Palm Sunday, as we’ve said, is a foretaste of the great Second Coming of Christ.  When he comes in glory, and all his angels with him, then the fanfare will be even more – it will be heavenly.  Then he will come to his own, not just his holy city – but to his holy bride. 

Jesus replies to the Pharisees, “If these were silent, even the stones would cry out”  Let’s unpack that a little bit, too.

On one level, he is accepting and validating their worship of him, as he always does.  Jesus rarely claims his divinity directly, but certainly never refuses the worship and praises of the faithful.  He is God, after all, and will never lie about himself. 

But when God is praised and worshipped in the Scriptures, it is less often for who he is, and more often for what he does for his people.  Their shouts of Hosanna, a form of worship, are at the same time a confession that he does, in fact, “save us!”  They may not fully understand how this will happen, they may be confused about what or whom they are being saved from – but the truth still stands.  The Son of David is on the scene.  And he comes to save. 

That we need saving is also part of that confession, and we can say it just as much as the Palm Sunday crowds.  We need saving from sin.  We need saving from death.  We need saving from the devil.  We need him to be the savior because we can’t save ourselves.  And so we rejoice that the Messiah has come to save.

Praises are due.  Worship must be given.  Honors are afforded.  Rejoicing is only natural.  It simply must be said.  And if the people didn’t say it, even nature itself would be forced to bear witness.  The stones would cry out.  The Messiah has come to save.

There’s one more advent we haven’t mentioned, and that is his coming among us today.  Jesus has arrived, and is here.  He is among us, for 2 or 3 and more have gathered in his name.  He is present, by his word of absolution and Holy Gospel.  He is preached and proclaimed to you from this pulpit.  And soon he will be in our midst in a most wonderful way, in, with, and under the bread and wine of his Holy Sacrament.  Here, too, the Messiah has come to save.

And here, today as well, those who are saved break out in songs of praise.  Think about what we do liturgically.  Before we receive Sacrament, we sing the Sanctus, which connects the song of the angels, that God is “holy, holy, holy” with the “Hosanna in the highest” of Palm Sunday.  We’re rehearsing and echoing the song of the crowd that day, in the song of the church through the ages when the Messiah comes to save.  And we sing after – “Lord, let your servant depart in peace…. For my eyes have seen your salvation”.  We depart from his sacramental presence with the peace of his salvation – because here he has come to act – to forgive – to save.

And if we didn’t recognize – even the stones might cry out.  In fact, that’s sort of what happens anyway.  Think about it.  What’s more dead and inert than a stone.  What’s more lacking life, than something like a stone that has never even been alive?  One answer might be:  the human heart, born into the corruption of sin.  And yet our Lord Jesus Christ, by his Spirit working through the Gospel and the water of Baptism, creates in me and you a new heart, and a right spirit.  He brings life from the dead, even, as we are buried and raised with Christ.

John the Baptist once tangled with the Pharisees, too.  He anticipated one of their arguments, “We have Abraham as our father”.  John was not impressed, he said, “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”  And surely, that is what God does, through the miracle of the Gospel.  He raises up hard-hearted, stone-dead people of sin into fully new creations, alive and well, who shout and cry out their hosannas of praise to the Messiah who has come to save.

His Advent is, or should we say his advents are – at hand.  He came in the flesh, he came to his holy city, he came to the cross, he came to life again.  He comes in the word, he comes in the meal, and he will come again in glory, to judge the living and the dead.  But for his people, the Messiah always comes to save.  Thanks be to God.

No comments:

Post a Comment