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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
The current president and several former presidents this past week were at the L-B-J Library in Austin, in connection with the anniversary of President Johnson’s signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. If a president is the closest thing to a king that the United States has, then secret‑service advance teams, Air Force One and limousines, and the state’s capitol‑city thrown into chaos might be the closest ways we can relate to the events of the Processional Gospel Reading on this Palm Sunday. Yet there is no doubt quite a contrast between any president’s coming to a city like Austin and the coming of “Our Humble King”.
I expect that most of us will attend a service or two this Holy Week before next Sunday’s observances of The Resurrection of Our Lord, and so this sermon focuses more on today as Palm Sunday and its alternate Processional Gospel Reading from Matthew chapter 21 than it focuses on today as The Sunday of the Passion and its appointed Gospel Reading from Matthew chapters 26 and 27. Today’s Processional Gospel Reading is also the Gospel Reading for the First Sunday in Advent, so we heard it read in the Divine Service as recently as last December 1st, but today’s liturgy brings out of the Reading a different emphasis than it did that day. Then we focused on our King’s coming to us, and today we focus on His coming humbly. Thus, this sermon’s title or theme is “Our Humble King”.
Today’s Processional Gospel Reading tells how “Our Humble King” came. All four Divinely‑inspired Gospel accounts tell of Jesus’s entry, but St. Matthew’s account particularly emphasizes both Jesus’s all‑powerful and all‑knowing control over the situation and His coming humbly nevertheless. With Gospel Readings primarily from St. Matthew’s account this whole Church Year, and with our special midweek sermon series on “Passion Prophecies fulfilled for you!”, we know how St. Matthew highlights Jesus’s fulfilling Old Testament prophecies. In today’s Reading he highlights prophecies that God spoke by Isaiah (62:11) and Zechariah (9:9), but more of the Old Testament is also relevant. Jesus’s humble entry that first Palm Sunday recalls the anointing of Israel’s first king, Saul (1 Samuel 10:1-9), the anointing of King David’s son Solomon (1 Kings 1:32-40), and the anointing of Jehu as king over Israel (2 Kings 9:13). At least some of the Passover pilgrims no doubt recognized those precedents (if not Jesus’s humility) as they responsively chanted psalm verses to praise Him and even cut down what St. John (12:13) tells us were palm branches to pave His way.
Yet those, what might be regarded as outward trappings of glory, must not make us miss the fact that our King nevertheless came humbly. Other Bible versions translate the Greek word used in Zechariah’s prophecy to describe Jesus’s coming as “meek” or “lowly”, “gentle” or “in gentleness”. Jesus came mounted not a steed or warhorse but mounted on a donkey, even a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. Jesus came embodying all the Old Testament prophesied about the meekness and lowliness of the Suffering Servant. Jesus came submitting Himself to all that He was going to permit to happen to Him, without any hatred or desire for revenge, totally dependent on God the Father and so confident that He would vindicate Him. Jesus came as a non-violent and non-warlike King of salvation and peace, in sharp contrast to the political Messiah or Savior for whom others were looking.
For what kind of Messiah or Savior are you and I looking? Do we perhaps also want one who will deliver us here and now? Do we perhaps want one who will deliver us or those we care about from tax situations or from physical afflictions? Do we perhaps miss or forget that Jesus came humbly to be our Savior from sin, so that we might live with Him for eternity? Certainly by nature we are not looking for the right kind of Messiah or Savior, if we are looking for one at all. If it were up to us alone, we would be as hostile to Jesus as were the Jewish leaders who put Him to death. Of course, ultimately our sin did put Him to death. Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem stirred up the whole city, and people wanted to know what to make of Him, asking “Who is this?” In a very real sense, we have to answer that same question. Either Jesus is someone you can ignore and you will live with your sin and its consequence of eternal torment in hell, or Jesus is your Savior and you will repent of your sin and receive eternal life by grace through faith.
To be sure, there is debate about the crowds’ understanding of what they said on the road and the meaning of their answer to people of Jerusalem. Admittedly, we do not know how many people on the road really knew Who Jesus was, what if anything they completely understood about Him, or whether any of them were later in the week among the crowds prompted to call and, in fact, calling for Jesus’s death. Yet, regardless of what they understood or meant or did, St. Matthew intends and means for us to understand that “Our Humble King” did everything the Messiah was supposed to do. In today’s Processional Gospel St. Matthew freely quotes the two Old Testament prophecies in such a way as to make it clear that “Our Humble King” embodies and brings righteousness and salvation, to and for us. We rightly call out to Him, the greatest Son of David, for salvation, as the Christ comes in the blessed human nature of the man Jesus, with the authority and power of the Lord, to be God with us. As today’s Epistle Reading (Philippians 2:5-11) described, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. In the words of today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 50:4-9a), He gave His back to those who strike and His cheeks to those who pull out the beard; He did not hide his face from disgrace and spitting, as we heard at length in the appointed Gospel Reading (Matthew 26:1-27:66). “Our Humble King” did it all—including rising from the dead—for us.
“Our Humble King” invites all who labor and are heavy laden to come to Him for rest. He is “humble” and lowly in heart, and in and with Him we will find rest for our souls (Matthew 11:28-30, where the ESV’s “gentle” translates the same Greek word as its “humble” does in Matthew 21:5). We are in Him and find rest for our souls only because the Holy Spirit works through the preachers, who are sent to tell us “Our Humble King” is coming to us. Such preachers are “apostled” or “sent”, as were the disciples and the donkeys in the Processional Gospel Reading. We are in “Our Humble King” and find rest for our souls only because the Holy Spirit works through Holy Baptism, enabling even little children, as prophesied, to sing Jesus’s praises, after the first Palm Sunday procession was over (Psalm 8:2; Matthew 21:15-17). We find rest for our souls only because the Holy Spirit works through individual Holy Absolution. Pastors bind and release the sins known and felt in the hearts of those who privately confess to them, just as the disciples found the donkeys tied and untied them (Matthew 16:19; 18:18). And, we are in “Our Humble King” and find rest for our souls only because the Holy Spirit works through Holy Communion. After singing “Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:39), with the eyes of faith we see Jesus really, physically present on this altar with His body in bread and His blood in wine, and we, who commune and believe, at this rail receive Him for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Here, in all these ways, as earth and heaven come together and as we are united in worship of “Our Humble King”, we are in Him and find rest for our souls.
So in Him and with rest for our souls, we do as St. Paul exhorts us to do: we have among ourselves the same humble and united “mind” as Christ Jesus. We do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility we count others more significant than ourselves; we look not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:1-4). We imitate Christ as the crowd in the Processional Gospel Reading imitated the disciples in laying down their cloaks, and we know from Christ’s own preaching that the “humble” are blessed by inheriting the earth (Matthew 5:5, where the ESV’s “meek” translates the same Greek word as its “humble” does in Matthew 21:5). We can also imitate the disciples but more in their faith in and obedience to Jesus’s all‑powerful and all‑knowing word. Especially when we fail to live in those ways, with repentance and faith, we live every day in the forgiveness of sins “Our Humble King” won for us and gives to us in His humble means of grace.
No secret‑service advance‑teams, Air Force One, or limousines, but a capitol city thrown into chaos. “Our Humble King” came and entered Jerusalem in order to die for us. “Our Humble King” comes to us now in Word and Sacrament and forgives us our sin. When we repent and believe, He does not come in wrath but lays wrath aside. “Our Humble King” deals with us in such a way that we cling to Him and find refuge in Him now, so that, when He comes in glory, we will be with Him for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +