This sermon was preached on the First Sunday in Advent (Ad Te Levavi), November 29, 2020. The text is Matthew 21:1-9. The message can be summarized like this: "As surely as our Lord came long ago, he will come again." My hope is that my hearers will grow in patience and use the Sacrament to address their impatience.
Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and our Lord, Jesus Christ! Our
Introit comes from Psalm 25. Psalm 25 is the perfect Psalm for Advent, because
it talks a lot about waiting for God:
Indeed,
none who wait for you shall be put to
shame…. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my
salvation; for you I wait all the day
long. May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.
The
word “advent” means “coming,” or “arrival.” The season of Advent proclaims that
God is coming to us. If God is coming,
then his people are waiting for him.
Israel Waited Then
The people of God living in the Old
Testament were waiting. Through his prophets, God promised that in the latter
days he would come to set things right. Every generation of Israelites was
called to wait for the Lord.
And you know what? Waiting can be hard. At one time or another you were a kid sitting
in the back of a car, waiting impatiently. “Are we there yet?!” And the longer
the wait, the harder the wait. Adults hate standing in line at the DMV, because
too often the wait is too long!
Thankfully, God made the wait bearable
by giving his people access to his presence at the Temple. At the Temple, the
God who hid behind a curtain gave them foretastes of the coming salvation—signs
of his favor. He offered them forgiveness through the sacrifices and his
blessing through the priests.
In our Gospel Lesson, the wait is
finally over. The Lord comes, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. The people
celebrated the advent—the arrival—of their King. They sang Psalm 118,
“Hosanna,” which means, “Save us, we pray!” Also, “Blessed is he who comes in
the name of the Lord.”
These Israelites were waiting for the
Lord to come, hoping that he would fulfill all of his promises. Specifically,
they wanted their King to judge the wicked Gentiles and destroy the oppressive
Romans. After all, Psalm 118 talks about the Messiah cutting off the wicked
nations in the name of the Lord.
Well,
these Israelites will be disappointed, because our Lord didn’t fulfill his
promises entirely that Passover week. God does things in his own time and in
his own way. The Lord has his own priorities.
The Israelites thought their biggest problem was Rome, but the Lord knew that
wasn’t the case. Their biggest problem—everyone’s
biggest problem—is sin.
God
promised to judge the world and he will. When he does, he must punish every
sin—not only the sins of the Romans, but the sins of his people too. God
doesn’t desire the death of any sinner. He must judge mankind, but he wants to
rescue us from his wrath against sin.
So, he became a man, not to condemn the
world, but to save it. He went to
Jerusalem, not to punish Rome for her sins, but
to take up the sins of the whole world and pay for them. Good Friday was a
mini Judgment Day, for the sins of the world were punished in the flesh of
Jesus. He was condemned in everyone’s place.
We Wait Now
This
means that our Lord had to come early. He had to come prior to Judgment Day, in
order to rescue sinners from Judgment Day. He had to die on the cross. Then, he
had to send out the good news, so that the world might hear it and sinners might
believe it.
And
so, we are waiting too. We are like the people of the Old Testament, waiting for the arrival of our Lord. We
wait for his return, for the Day when he will finish what he started, when he
will complete his redemption.
And,
like I said before, waiting can be hard,
especially for impatient sinners. Are you growing impatient? Do you resent
the Lord for not coming sooner? Are you tired of waiting, of resisting
temptations, of seeing the wicked enjoy success, and so on? Have you given up?
Have you stopped waiting?
O
impatient people, repent. Repent for failing to trust the Lord to come when the
time is right, neither before nor after. Confess that you lack faith.
Acknowledge that your grumbling is unjustified and admit that you have become
slothful.
My
friends, it is time to wake up, to be watchful, and to wait for the Lord. No one who waits for the Lord will be put to
shame. He is coming.
Thankfully,
the Lord is compassionate. He empathizes with your weaknesses. He knows how
easy it is to become impatient. So, just as he came to the Israelites at the
Temple, he comes to you during the Divine Service, in order to strengthen your
faith and your resolve.
He doesn’t hide behind a curtain, but he hides his body under bread and his
blood within wine. He doesn’t give you a mere symbol of his bodily
sacrifice, like those sacrifices in the Old Testament. He gives you something
better. He gives his actual body, the one
that was sacrificed on the cross, and puts it into your mouth.
He comes to you in the Sacrament, hidden
from your eyes, so that your faith might grow and so that your faith might draw
your eyes to the skies. He comes to announce his grace, so that you might
confidently wait for his return, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:26, “As often
as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
And so, what do we do before we receive
the Sacrament? We chant Psalm 118, just as the Jews did on Palm Sunday! We sing
these words: “Hosanna,” which means, “Save us, we pray!” And then we say, “Blessed
is he, blessed is he, blessed is he who
cometh in the name of the Lord!” When we sing the Sanctus, we are confessing that Jesus is truly coming to us in the
Sacrament, just as Jesus came to Jerusalem long ago. Also, by chanting our
Hosannas, we confess that Jesus comes in the Sacrament in order to save us.
A Final Plea
So, my friends, wait for the Lord. He
will come again and he will complete what he started. And if you are struggling
to wait, prepare to meet your Lord. He’s coming to you now in the Sacrament. He
comes to prepare you for his glorious return by proclaiming that this body that
is placed into your mouth was given into death for you. Amen.
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