Ad Te Levavi – Sunday 3 December A✠D 2023
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 25:1-3a;25:4–5, 21–22;25:3-4;85:7
✠ Lection: Jeremiah 23:5–8;Romans 13:11-14;St. Matthew 21:1–9
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Behold, your King is coming to you! Two weeks ago on the Second Last Sunday in the Church Year, we were reminded of how terrifying the truth of the King coming on the Last Day will be for the goats, the unbelievers, who will be cast away from the glorious presence of God into everlasting punishment. But the righteous, the sheep, the blessed of the Father, will be welcomed into eternal life to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. That prophecy, that promise, is a blessing for the blessed ones for it prepares us for the Final Day and, at the same time, for the end of another annual cycle of life as citizens of the eternal kingdom of God. It prepared us to start over again in this new Church Year by reminding us of one of the three ways we consider our Lord’s Advent, His coming, because even more than the reformation of Ebenezer Scrooge does our flesh need to be constantly reformed to understand and benefit from this preparatory season of Advent by what it means for us.
Here today, in Anno Domini, the Year of our Lord, 2023, we look still ahead to the coming, to the Return of the King lying yet in our future and we joyously, eagerly pray that He comes quickly. We look around us and thank and praise Him that He is not a distant God, but also comes to us now. He comes to us at our bedsides, whether they be in our bedrooms or hospital rooms. He comes to us as we gather in our living rooms around His word to hear Him and pray to the Father in His Name. He comes to us most certainly and most mightily in this, His Divine Service, where His Word is proclaimed in its truth and purity and His own Body and Blood are given unto us for the forgiveness of our sins. He will come again, and alleluia, He also comes now.
On this first day of Advent, the Collect of the Day helps us more pointedly remember how and why the Lord Jesus has come in what is our past. We prayed together, “Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance.” Behold, your King is coming to you. As we hear these words of promise spoken by the Holy Spirit through the prophet Zechariah, we examine how He has come, what did He accomplish, and how we might prepare every day, and especially every week, to encounter our coming King.
Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. This was fulfilled when the King of the Universe sat on the colt that very first Palm Sunday and entered into Jerusalem as St. Matthew recounts. Again, we are astonished at the humility of Him through Whom all things were made that were made. There is no limit to Him nor to His power, and yet we hear of how He came, lowly, and sitting on a donkey. But to first come like this, as a grown Man nearing the end of His earthly Ministry and Life, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity first had to take up our flesh. He had to become Man. Without Him coming as a Babe that first Christmas, there was no Triumphal Entry. Without Him coming as a Babe, there was no crying out from agonized human lungs from the cross. Without having flesh that could die, there was no death of God in your place. This is why we genuflect, we bow to one knee, at the point in the Nicene Creed when we confess, “and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man.” He was made man so as to redeem man. Jesus, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven in His first Advent. He did not accomplish this salvation at His Holy Nativity, that very first Christmas, but He began its work by being born in your flesh, for without the birth for you in Bethlehem there could be no death for you in Jerusalem. Thus, we honor Him by kneeling in humility before Him Who humbled Himself for us and became man. That same humble One grew up like a young plant and eventually drew near to Jerusalem as we hear again this morning.
Behold, your King is coming for you as you need Him to. He had the power to enter Jerusalem with the mightiest army ever seen by the eyes of man, yet here He is, lowly, and sitting on a donkey coming to free you, coming to win you, not by force, but by grace. But what could anyone accomplish by this? Only Jesus, in His cloaked power and in all purity, could ride into the greatest battle of all time without any earthly weapons to wield. His own shed blood would be the ultimate, secret weapon to free us from our bondage to sin and reconcile us to His Father. This coming of Jesus into Jerusalem was His coming into His glory, the glory of being the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, not just sin committed on that Good Friday of His death, but He takes away the sin of the world on every day that has ever and will ever come into existence. That’s mighty. That’s altogether beautiful. This is how much our humble, yet mighty King has done for us. This is no small feat and it is most certainly no small gift. A picture of His actions can be seen in what the account from St. Matthew says.
They drew near to Jerusalem. You already understand the significance of your King doing this. He was drawing near to the place where His sacrifice would win your salvation, near to the place where you would be freed, loosed from your sins and the death that they bring. He came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, the very same place from whence He would ascend into heaven 47 days later. From this we have in mind what happened after His ascension, the time period in which we now live. From there, He sent forth not only His Holy Spirit, but He sent forth His disciples in His stead and by His command for a most glorious task. The ones sent in the office of pastor are sent for you, to bring you to Jesus and Him to you.
Jesus sent two disciples. When Jesus sends somebody to you and for you, it is a good thing. They come in His Name and at His instruction. But to whom do they come? To whom does Jesus send His sent ones in today’s Gospel? For clarity and emphasis, hear from the King James Version what Jesus says to His disciples, “Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her.” Yes, Jesus sends for the asses, the one speaking included. Two weeks ago, we were sheep, this week, we’re asses, and appropriately called so, because within us all on this side of glory is that stubbornness that is content and rather happy with being tied up, being bound to our sin and even its consequences. We need Jesus to send for us. We need His sent ones to bring His Word to us. We need His forerunner to call us to examine how we are bound to sin, even by our own doing, and to daily repent of them, believing the disciple’s word that Jesus sends words that effect forgiveness.
Only in St. Matthew’s Gospel do we hear of two animals being loosed and brought to Jesus that Sunday; one an ass and another a colt, the latter of which only Mark and Luke mention and tell us that no one has sat upon, similar to how Jesus entered the world through a womb that had yet to conceive another and was laid in a tomb that had yet to give rest to another. The path of Life was marked by the One Who brings newness of Life as He comes as your King. The new man that He creates within you gladly bears Him and His Name in this life and goes where He leads, while the stubborn ass of your sinful flesh must be pulled along by great effort, discipline, and stern, healthy doses of God’s Law. But where and how Jesus leads, salvation even for the most stubborn ass is possible and also already won by this King, this Savior of the Nations, Who has come.
So, being that this Branch of righteousness, this King called THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, has come in this way and has brought our salvation in His broken Body and shed Blood, how might we prepare every day, and especially every week, to encounter Him as He keeps on coming to us? Only the ass will ask whether we should, or do I have to, because such stubbornness must be dealt with by the Law. But as newly formed, joyous, obedient colts pleased to bear up our King and His Holy Name, we live not so much in the area not of should we, but simply will we? And if we will, some great ways to go about it is to treat Sunday like Sunday. It is the day for being in church. It is the day to prepare for beforehand, because picture in your mind the most important guest you’ve ever prepared for and have been honored to have in your home, all the preparations you did for the guest, and multiply their importance times infinity and that is what you encounter in this holy place every single time your King Jesus comes to you here. Prepare yourself for receiving His forgiveness by reminding your donkey-self why you need that forgiveness even more often than just on Sunday mornings. Prepare the way of the Lord in your mind and heart by reading ahead of time what He plans to say to you here. The readings for the next Sunday are printed in the blue sheet every week and the divine liturgy that we regularly use is written upon your heart. Pray to see if you desire to come receive what He freely gives, and if you don’t, repent, ask Him to swell up in you such a godly desire, and in the meantime, come anyway trusting that He gladly comes to you. He is that good to you. Praise Him!
The season of Advent is a regular opportunity to prepare more for this glorious King. The penitential seasons of Advent and Lent traditionally include Christian fasting, prayer, and alms giving. For those in good health and are neither young nor old, consider how fasting can increase your self-control over body so that you can learn more control over the temptations against your soul, even if it’s a simple fast of no food from Saturday evening until you come to the Lord’s Supper on Sunday morning. Take control of one hunger and create a greater one for your King.
You can increase your prayer life by coming together with us every Sunday and on Wednesday evenings for more prayer, more singing, more Communion, more King Jesus. You can give more, either to support the ministry of this church or when God brings a neighbor’s need to your attention directly. There is much opportunity for us all to increasingly prepare for our beloved coming King.
All of the preparations that we do in the here and now, whether we’ve practiced them for years or decide to add to them this Advent, aren’t only for remembering well that He came as a Babe in Bethlehem even though we will remember His birth in big, joyous celebration in three weeks’ time. The preparations aren’t only for anticipating well His coming to us in Church every Sunday, but, when we do these things, they cause our narrow focus on time to broaden to the beauty of eternity and get us ready well for when He comes in judgment on the Last Day.
This is the Advent of our King in how He has come, what He did when He came, and how we prepare for eternity by preparing well for Him as He comes now. Behold, your King is coming to you.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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