Ad Te Levavi – Sunday 1 December A✠D 2024
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 25:1-3a;25:4;25:3a, 4;85:7;25:1-3a;85:12
✠ 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.
We enter into another Church Year today. The old has passed. The new has come, which makes it proper to orient our minds and hearts upon He Who enters into our midst as King. We welcome Him. We adore Him. We worship Him as He deems fit to come to us. He arrives not in grand motorcades nor in private jets. He does not flex power as the world sees power, yet comes in a power so mighty that it bears our wretched souls unto life everlasting; a power that is hidden beyond recognition to those who call themselves wise, but understood by those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Christ entered into Jerusalem fulfilling the words spoken by the prophet saying, “Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” He is the Lord Almighty and bearing salvation is He.
He comes to us now in shrouded power that sustains us even unto eternity. He answers our call of “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Hosanna in the highest!” Hosanna, meaning ‘save us’, we cry out to Him and He faithfully answers in grace and mercy along with unrivaled power and might. He’s God. He saves us by forgiving our sins, thus we sing Hosanna every time we come to where He enters into our presence at His holy altar. If we come seeking God’s favor, then we find it, for we surely gather as a multitude around the advent of our King in humble bread and wine that is His Body and Blood, powerful and mighty enough to cleanse us, to forgive our sins.
Was it not the Lord Jesus Himself Who decided to go up to Jerusalem for us, to a place in which He knew that He would be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they would condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles? And they would mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. By this, we are to have confidence in His divine plan and to be peacefully sure that He is in control of all things, no exceptions, even in His submission to an earthly death in our place and for our salvation. There are no moments ever in which evil has the upper hand on the Almighty. Even the wicked acts of many, He uses for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. This is no ordinary, limited, earthly King Whom we serve, to Whom we belong, in Whom we hope. Jesus has come not to rule over just one nation, but as the Savior of the Nations, thus we pray ‘come!’ Humble and lowly is He, yet exalted high above all and for all.
By His command, He sent forth the Disciples to carry out His will in how He would serve and bring peace to all men. As He prescribed to them when and where to find that which He would use to triumphantly enter Jerusalem, so does He in our day point His ordained servants to that which bears Him unto His people. Once He came in blessing, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, riding as the rightful King unto His death to conquer it and show that God is the God of the Living. Now He again comes in blessing on altars throughout the world on this Lord’s Day, descending upon all of them, no longer humbled upon a lowly beast of burden, but gifted unto you in bread and wine that is far more than it appears. His Body and Blood are given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins, entering into you to take away all guilty burdens of the flesh. Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord.
He, your King, the Righteous Branch of David, is in perfect tune and fulfillment of all that the Holy Scriptures spoke about Him. The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms all revealed the heart of this Blessed One; how He Himself gave the Law, had mercy upon His people, called them to repent of all their sins, came in the flesh to die their death, and rose again to give them the life they could not obtain for themselves. This is why we hold to all that has been given to us in Scripture about Him, so that we can join our voices to those of all the saints and the hosts of heaven. Christ is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the One Who was, is, and is to come. We need not look to or latch onto other finite gods, things, or conditions that will do nothing for us in the present and will most certainly disappoint upon the deathbed and at the trumpet sound on the the Last Day when the Almighty King returns to judge all and set all things aright, seen and unseen. His vindication shall come and so it shall for all who are found in Him, according to the Scriptures.
We shall be sustained in Him until that Day not by what we do, but by what He continues to do to us, in us, for us as He comes in His Divine Service. In this meeting of heaven and earth, our glorious King does not pompously sit as haughty men do awaiting our service to Him so that He may be appeased like some petty god of our imagination, but instead serves us who so desperately need Him to. He needs nothing that we bring to Him, for all is His already. He desires not the sacrifices of bulls and goats, but instead that of broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise. For, it is the broken and contrite heart, it is the repentant upon whom He applies the soothing balm of the Holy Gospel, which then stirs awakened hearts toward Him in the sacrifice of thanksgiving for all that He has done, especially for His salvific work in riding into Jerusalem to carry the sinful load of the world and its punishment in His own Body unto a rightful death; not of His, but of ours. Blessed is He.
He has done so very much, beloved in the Lord, so that He could come to you and give to you again on this Day and in every feast of His to which He invites you. There is no greater encounter of the Christian with his Savior than in the midst of the Lord’s Divine Service. You see where He enters into your world. You hear Him draw you near for the comfort and joy of prayers answered, burdens lightened, hearts refreshed. You call out to Him to save you, to think upon you, to be your King rightfully because you are to have confidence in Him Who comes in the Name of the Lord. Bearing such a mighty Name, while bearing all your sins, in is of no small significance. Only He could have done this and has. He is the rightful King of heaven and earth, and, behold, He comes to you humbly in the Divine Service; in His Word, in His Supper, in His Power, because He is mighty to save. Amen! Hosanna! Save us, Lord!
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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