- 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.
Except for the young among us, we all have memories to some degree and in some ways of “good ol’ days”. Considering what we face day in and day out in our present world, even the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ tends to look back longingly at such times as what we read about in the book of Acts, in historical records about how our great fathers battled heresies and the Gospel made great headway, and even back to when Church pews were regularly full in our own communities as Sunday was rightfully the center of Life. Our flesh quickly forgets about thanksgiving, that is, the actual giving of thanks, just about as fast as the turkey holiday comes and goes for us every year. In measures that matter, the Church is primed to shine into the darkness that surrounds us by glorifying Christ in our own lives and in love to our neighbors by praying, praising, and giving thanks to the Giver of all good things. Those with an eternal perspective do not merely long for what once was, but also for what is and for what is to come. Every second in the present that leads us closer to the future Last Day, is one that passes in which the Lord has preserved His Holy Church against severe spiritual attacks from without and within. Every minute that comes is our Father carrying us another step closer to the Great Judgement and Deliverance where every tear will be wiped away and the curse of sin will not even be worthy of a fleeting memorable thought. Every hour that comes is the Lord’s call for us to wake from sleep, to take heed of His treasures that He daily and richly pours out upon us. Every day that comes is one in which the Lord’s Word goes out, not returning to Him void but calling the lost by the gospel and sinners like us to repentance while consoling us with the assurance of the forgiveness of our sins. Every year that comes is one in which faithful Church leaders and theologians write, speak and teach, thus adding to the vast pool of edifying resources that grow larger and more readily accessible than what any other age has ever seen. Every Sunday that comes is one in which eternity strikes brightly in the night of time as we gather where heaven and earth meet to receive, absorb, and be built up by the deep riches of the hundreds and hundreds of years that has gone into making this, and every, Sunday what it is, all built upon the commandment and grace of God. Salvation is indeed nearer to us now than when we first believed. Salvation is in our midst. Salvation unto us has come. He is here. This is the Day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
We use the one-year lectionary, the assigned Scripture readings for each day of the Church Year, and follow the historic Christian calendar so that we can take full advantage of those nearly 2,000 years of development that have gone into making all of our Lord’s Days beautifully joyous and each packed full of God’s gifts of Word and Sacrament so much so that we will never exhaust His deep wells of goodness in each one of them. Each Sunday’s value in our lives will never wane by its lacking, because lacking it does not. Any drop in its valuation is only in our own fallen perception, deception, and distraction. May the Lord guard our minds and our hearts against such illnesses and renew us again with each new cycle of the year!
It is the new year, the new Church Year, the beginning of our blessed return and progressing onward toward the Lord’s glorious return remembering and giving thanks to Him along the way. In looking at our worship, the overarching framework of our Christian lives is that we are in constant preparation, always. What happens in here today isn’t detached from all the other days that pass by each week. Every day on the calendar that ends in the word “-day” is another one closer to our individual and collective prize, that is, the end of our race, be it through our death or by still living at the Second Coming. There isn’t a day that goes by where our minds as Christians shouldn’t be on our Lord’s return and what that truth means for us in every present moment and unto all eternity. So, it doesn’t matter if we’re drawn by a Sunday’s focus to the end time teachings of our Lord, like mid-November was, or if we are in Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, or any other Church season pondering upon those aspects of our dear Lord’s glory. It is healthy for Christians to always keep in mind the entire reality of our past, present, and future while enjoying every focal Sunday where we dip into certain aspects of God’s succulent favor for us, His own beloved children.
Advent isn’t as narrow as the pressure of the surrounding world tries to make it to be in its insatiable hunger to bounce from once season of consumption to another with viper-strike quickness, to hurry up and get to Christmas so that more can be bought, more can be eaten, more can be drunk. Being that Advent enters in the haze and shadow of the turkey and pumpkin pie comas of Thanksgiving and all the activity surrounding it, and that store displays and advertisements of Christmas decorations that were already in third-gear jump straight to overdrive, Advent can easily be relegated as just a lengthy Christmas Eve. Let us keep it from being such among us, because it is that and more. Our preparation to celebrate The Nativity of Our Lord is but one diamond of Advent, but the overarching idea of the Lord of heaven and earth coming to us, not just in the manger, but in Triumphal Entry, yet lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey, is one that becomes all the more richer to us if we step back and behold the King of Glory, the LORD of hosts, coming to us as He has, is, and will. To be able to fully celebrate Christmastide, we are rightly drawn at the entrance of the Church year to the Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem as the eternal King from Whom the ruling scepter of God will never depart stirs up His mighty power in response to our cries for salvation. The unblemished Lamb of God enters Jerusalem and that sets the true stage of eternal significance for His might to then be grasped by faith; not by worldly intrigue or gain, but in redemption that rings out eternal unto the heavenly places. Jerusalem is the place where He died. Little baby Jesus is no good to you in a Nativity set without Him, the Righteous Branch of David, Who shall rule as King Eternal, coming to you, lowly, to bear the burden of your condemnation for sin up onto the cross. If the Christ Child in the manger in Bethlehem wasn’t prepared to die here, years later in Jerusalem, then He would’ve been a mere child and no Christ. That He was born to ride lowly to His death as your Triumphant King is why He is the blessed Christ, your Savior, for in this has He indeed stirred up His divine power over sin, death, and the devil.
We believe, teach, and confess the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, came in the flesh of the Incarnation because remaining fully God, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man, thus being His first advent; a singular coming of the Son of God in the flesh that happened in our past. We believe, teach, and confess that the crucified and resurrected Jesus ascended into heaven and assumed dominion at the right hand of the Father; that the devil and all his powers must be subject to him and lie beneath his feet until finally, at the Last Day, he will completely divide and separate us from the wicked world, the devil, death, sin (LC II:31), thus it will be His second advent; the other singular coming of the Son of God in the flesh that will happen in our future. His third advent is a gloriously, equally miraculous, yet repetitive, coming that takes place at the holy altars that He has established among His people as He sends forth His workers to prepare the way for Him to come in Body and Blood. These continuous advents sustain us in this present evil age, for He comes to sustain us in the one true faith unto that Last Day by receiving the rewards that He won for us when He first came. Let us not forsake Him nor fail to lift up our heartfelt Hosannas. Yes, Lord Jesus save us! He has not forsaken us, but regularly sets His blessed table for the feast by which we are satisfied in ways that Thanksgiving dinners can only envy.
This sustaining Advent of your Savior is one for which you only have to wait until you again take eat, until drink of it all of you, not a once-a-year feasting, but a regular, at least weekly divine meal in which He comes as God entering, coming into this holy place in the Eucharist, where you feast on His given Body and His shed Blood for the forgiveness of your sins. Such is His current Advent for you. He comes for you; for your salvation; for the forgiveness of your sins. All the life that the Lord has given you revolves around the Savior of the world riding into Jerusalem upon the beast of burden as the One upon Whom the burden of God’s wrath against your sin rested and was fully satisfied. Jesus took all upon Himself. The King of Kings drew near to Jerusalem to die upon His throne for you so that you may be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity, and He will raise you from the dead when He comes again. The King of Kings drew near to Jerusalem to die upon His throne for you so that He would come to you now in that very same incarnate, crucified, resurrected, ascended Body and Blood, so that you may be constantly prepared here and now in the Christian life of repentance and forgiveness as He sustains you in your waiting for that, and Whom, which is to come. Prepare with repentance. Prepare with forgiveness. Prepare with thanksgiving and everlasting joy always mindful of what you receive when your King comes to you at His Holy Table.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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