29 November 2020
Text: Matt 21:1-9
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
While the world can’t wait for the year 2020 to come to an end, we in the Church have begun a new church year today. We begin by reflecting upon the advent of our King, whose birth we will celebrate in a little over four weeks. And so we are in a time of anticipation, much like the people of the first century – both the Jews of the Roman Empire who looked at the signs of the times, and the Gentiles afar off: the magi who looked to the skies for signs of the coming Messiah. Both Jew and Gentile had some idea of who and what to look for from the Holy Scriptures.
And to the parents of John (who was to be known to the world as the Baptist), and to the mother and stepfather of the soon-to-be-born Jesus, Emmanual, God-with-us – there was a dramatic sense of anticipation, of waiting expectantly for God to do something mighty. They knew the Scriptures, and they had the sign and the message of the angel guiding them just how to wait, and what to expect.
And it is in this context of the coming of the King that we ponder our King’s official entrance into the Holy City, five days before His coronation and enthronement: being crowned with thorns and seated upon a cross. Jesus rode a donkey into the gates of the city, and to people then and now who know the Scriptures, this is significant. For this was how King Solomon, the son of David, the King of Israel, made his royal entrance into David’s royal city.
Everybody understood the significance of what Jesus was claiming here. The crowds understood, for they gave Him a royal welcome, strewing palm branches on the road, and shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David.” “Hosanna” is the Hebrew word for “save” – calling to mind the more modern practice of saying, “God save the king!” Only this King is not the one whose salvation we pray for, but rather this King is our salvation, for He saves us, and He prays for us.
The enemies of Jesus also knew the significance of this royal entry. For in five days, our Lord will be nailed to a cross accused of claiming to be a king, as the charge above his thorn-crowned head will read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Some Jewish leaders will complain about this, but Pilate, who believed Jesus to be innocent, ordered the placard placed, and he refused to change it: “What I have written, I have written.”
The advent of our King has many facets, dear friends.
As the great hymn we just sang by St. Ambrose offers prayer to Jesus to “come,” we sing to Him as “Savior of the Nations,” and we reflect on His coming as the “Virgin’s son” making His home with us by His marvelous birth here on earth.
Our hymn also reflects on our Lord’s coming to us followed by His return to the Father, following His “throne and crown,” that is, His crucifixion.
The hymn also reflects on our Lord’s “victory won” in His “flesh.” For He defeated Satan at the cross, rose from the dead triumphantly, and “ran His course” returning to the Father.
And of course, this is where we are now, dear friends. We anticipate the coming feast of the Incarnation, of Christmas Day, but we also anticipate His coming again, His second advent. Like the Jews and Gentiles of old, we look to the Scriptures, but while also looking at the signs of the times in the joyful hope and expectation of the coming of our Lord, the advent of our King.
And this next advent will not find Him as a baby, nor as a ruler bound by space and time, “humble and mounted on a donkey,” nor as a condemned man dying upon a cross – but rather coming from the heavens in unspeakable divine power as King of kings and Lord of lords, coming in glory to destroy the forces of evil on the last day, to judge the living and the dead, and to create a new heaven and a new earth.
This is the advent we await, dear friends. This is the next event yet to come. And as this world falls further into decay, we long all the more for the Lord’s return to set everything right again. The saints in the heavenly realms will bear palm branches as they too will welcome the Lord’s royal coming to His Holy City – a city that will be the Heavenly Jerusalem, the Church made triumphant by His death and resurrection and coming again.
But even as we look forward in time to this second advent, we still cannot help but linger, looking back to the beauty of His first advent – even as St. Ambrose muses, and we join him in song: “From the manger newborn light / Shines in glory through the night. / Darkness there no more resides; / In this light faith now abides.”
For this is exactly what it means to wait and watch, dear friends. It takes faith. It takes belief. It takes trust in the Lord and in His fulfillment of His promise to come again in the flesh – even as He kept His promise to come to us the first time in the flesh – being born in Bethlehem. And likewise keeping His promise to die for us in the flesh, at Golgotha, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, the One whom the crowds welcomed as their King, the same One whom we will welcome as our King when He returns.
And even as we look forward to the end of not only this annus horribilis, this horrible year, we look forward to the end of this horrible age, an age in which Satan has sway over creation, in which sin corrupts us in body and soul, and in which death comes to each one of our loved ones and to each one of us. For the new age – the real new age, not the phony one promised by John Lennon and Oprah Winfrey and crooked politicians and technocrats – the real new age will be life in eternity, in the flesh, under the unquestioned rule of our Lord Jesus Christ, in a glorious new heaven and new earth.
Indeed, we look for the signs of the times, dear friends, but more importantly, we look to the Word of God. The Scriptures testify of the Lord’s promises – past, present, and future – promises kept over six thousand years of history, including the promise that He will come again, and the promise that “whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” We have the promise that the doors will be flung wide open to those whose lamps are trimmed and whose flasks are full of oil, the wise ones who wait expectantly for the Bridegroom to come.
We have the promise that all of the misery of this fallen world – not only the year 2020, but of the entire age – will yield to a time of glory, when Wisdom, “proceeding from the mouth of the Most High” will pervade and permeate “all creation, mightily ordering all things.”
And even as we celebrate the coming of a new church year, and as we commemorate the coming of our King, to the manger and to the cross, we joyfully anticipate His coming to us at the end of this age, coming in glory unspeakable.
Meanwhile, we pray with saints of every age: “O Wisdom… Come and teach us the way of prudence.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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