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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.
Several of our members on different occasions recently have said to me, and accurately I think, that the devil is hard at work in our midst. The Gospel is purely preached here, and the Sacraments are rightly administered here (Augsburg Confession VII:1), and so the Lord Himself comes here in those ways to bless us with the forgiveness of sins. But, as we were reminded several weeks ago when our Catechesis focused on the Third Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, the devil, the world, and our sinful nature do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come, in those or any other ways (Small Catechism III:11). So, the devil, the world, and our sinful nature lead us into discord and strife that disrupt our relationships with God and one another; they lead us as the individual members of Body of Christ that is the Church in this place to not work together and so to not let Christ our Head work through us to care for one another and to reach the lost around us as we should. We may be starting a new Church Year today, but in many ways we are the same old sinners, struggling with the same old sins.
Good thing, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, that “The Coming King brings peace and glory”. Although we have switched primarily to the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke for this the third year of our three-year cycle of appointed Readings, on this First Sunday in Advent we still hear the traditional account of our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem to bring us peace and so glory to God. The scene has been called one of the most-beautiful in the Gospel (Arndt, ad loc Luke 19:36, p.397), although as St. Luke uniquely reports, it is met with different reactions.
Surely most of us, if not all of us, know about our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem to bring us peace and so glory to God, and so, considering our life together, as I mentioned, we might say that the beautiful scene is met with different ugly reactions even by us. St. Paul’s exhortation to the Church in Thessalonica that we heard in today’s Epistle Reading is along the same line (1 Thessalonians 3:9-13), for as he says believers are to increase and abound in love for one another and for all. We are not to gossip about one another, instead of our caring for one another. We are not to hold ourselves back from working as members of the Body of Christ, because someone said or did something we did not like, instead of our forgiving one another and so serving together.
In the Gospel Reading itself, Jesus may well speak of the stones of destroyed Jerusalem crying out against the Pharisees who rejected Him, but, in the verses before and after today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus unmistakably speaks of judgment of and condemnation on both those who reject His reign over them (Luke 19:27) and those who fail to recognize the things that make for peace (Luke 19:42-44). What do our thoughts, words, and deeds suggest is the case when it comes to us? Jesus’s having so come once humbly to bring us peace and so glory to God can be called a guarantee of His coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead. We will face certain judgment and condemnation, unless we repent of our sinful nature and of all of our sin.
God calls and so enables us to repent each and every day, especially on Sundays as we come into His presence seeking and receiving His forgiveness, and most especially during penitential seasons such as Advent, during which we penitentially prepare both for His final coming in glory and to celebrate His humble birth into human flesh. When we repent of our sinful nature and of all of our sin, then God forgives our sinful nature and all of our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin for the sake of the Coming King Who brings peace and glory.
In the Gospel Reading, having addressed false suppositions about His Kingdom (Luke 19:11-27), Jesus went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem, as a King to His coronation. Knowing everything as true God in human flesh, and exercising His Kingly right, He provided for Himself a humble colt suitable for royal and holy use. As royal courtiers of a sort, His disciples put a few of their outer-garments on the colt as a saddle and caused Jesus to be seated on it. And, as the men around King Jehu had done (2 Kings 9:13), they carpeted His way with their other outergarments, honoring Him and submitting themselves to Him. Recognizing Him as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and promises of the Messiah, such as those in today’s Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 33:14-16), they acclaimed Him such in the language of the Old Testament, echoing the praise at His birth, calling Him the blessed King Who comes in the Name of the Lord, and praising God in heaven for the peace that the Coming King brings us and so also the glory that He brings to God in the highest.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus affirmed those acclamations of His being the Messiah as He spoke to the Pharisees, and, in part because of those acclamations, the Pharisees went on to bring about Jesus’s death on the cross. Yet, Jesus died on the cross voluntarily for the sins of the whole world, including for your sins and for my sins. He was punished for our sins so that we do not have to be punished. For a time He was crowned with thorns, so that later He and we might be crowned with glory. He came not with a secular, worldly reign to benefit Himself but with a reign of peace to bless others (Arndt, ad loc Luke 19:36, p.397). We on earth receive the peace that is in heaven not on the road to Jerusalem some twothousand years ago but here today, in the ways that God has given for us to receive that peace: as we are baptized in the Name of the Lord, as not colts but our sins in individual Holy Absolution are loosed by those He sends, and as He with bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar miraculously provides us with His Body and His Blood (confer Luke 22:13). At this Altar and its Rail, more than anywhere else, the peace of heaven and earth come together and we depart in peace.
Such deliverance brings forth our praise of God, Who is the author of our peace-making salvation through His Son, and so brings about His own glory! The whole multitude of His disciples rejoice and praise God with a loud voice, united as one in the historic liturgy and hymns of the Church. Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, the psalmist writes, who exult in the Lord’s Name all the day (Psalm 89:15-16, part of the Introit for the day)! As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 25:110, antiphon v.6), the Lord remembers not the sins of our youth or our transgressions but, according to His steadfast love (His “mercy”), He remembers us for the sake of His goodness. As God has forgiven us, we, in turn, forgive one another. We do not hold back, but, as we are able, we all serve together as fellow members of the Body of Christ in this place. We do not gossip about but instead care for one another. The devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come, but God’s will is done when He breaks and hinders their evil plans and purposes. Instead of their discord and strife, in Christ we have peace. Instead of a lack of care and dysfunction, we care for one another and work together to reach the lost around us and so glorify God.
As we in considering the Gospel Reading have realized this morning, “The Coming King brings peace and glory”. He has come, comes now, and will come a final time. Rejoice greatly! Shout aloud! Your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation! (Gradual: Zechariah 9:9; Psalm 118:26, altered.) As St. Paul in the Epistle Reading did for the Church at Thessalonica, so we do for one another: we pray that God may establish our hearts blameless in holiness before Him at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +