Homily for Advent I

When our Lord stood before Pontius Pilate, he said: “My kingdom is not of this world.” He owned up to the fact that He was a king and that He had a kingdom. But not anything like what Pilate was thinking. We are so far removed from the days of kings that we forget what they were all about. Do you recall when the Israelites first demanded a king from God? It was so that they would be like the nations all around them and have someone to go out and lead their armies. A king was the man at the head of the charge. A king was the man who marshaled the troops to deal with the enemy. A king was the man to secure peace and prosperity for his people.

Small wonder, then, that throughout His earthly ministry our Lord steadfastly refused the title of King. He did so because people always heard it the wrong way, the worldly way. He didn’t come to be such a King. He didn’t come to deal with such paltry enemies as the Romans. His was to be a kingdom altogether different. Zechariah already signaled the difference. He foretold in clearest terms about the day the promised King would arrive. He cried out: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” It was only on Palm Sunday, as those words came to fulfillment, that our Lord first publicly took the title of King.

This King comes to establish His kingdom not among the nations of the world, but in the heart of men. This King does not come to fight against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the real enemies of the human race: sin, death, Satan, hell. This King does not come taking tribute, but giving out gifts to His people. And so He mounts the donkey and rides into Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday, as the palm strewed its branches and the stones lay within the roadway to pave His kingdom come, waiting for that fearful moment when God’s blood would stain the spearhead.

Jesus enters Jerusalem to be King, not of this or that nation, but in the hearts of man. In your heart and mine. What it means to have Jesus be your King is clear already from the prayer that He gave us. What does it mean to ask “Thy Kingdom come” except in the same breath to ask “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? Thy will be done in my life, not the will of the devil or the world or of my own sinful flesh. Thy will alone be done. Thus He reigns in the hearts of His own. We are a people who can no longer call the shots on our own lives. We can no longer pretend to be in charge. We have surrendered to Another and on His bidding we wait. The person who still would be his own boss has no part in this King or His Kingdom.

Jesus enters Jerusalem not to fight against this or that enemy of flesh and blood. He knows that the real enemy of the human race is not another human being, but sin, death, and the devil. These He enters Jerusalem to fight once and for all. He rides into Jerusalem the Sacrifice Appointed. He rides in to take our sin upon Him; no, even stronger, to be our sin upon His cross. To bear it entirely and fully in Himself. To die our death and so free us from the power of eternal death. To rise again and so be Himself the Promise that our sins have been atoned and forgiven. That’s how Satan is defeated, death destroyed, sin’s power removed from us. These are the enemies of the race. These the bullies He comes to fight.

Jesus enters Jerusalem not as a King exacting tribute from fearful subjects, but as a King bestowing gifts upon His grateful people. What is the gift He comes bearing? Jeremiah told us by the name given in our first reading: “The Lord, our Righteousness.” This is the gift He comes to give all people. It is for the bestowing of this, His righteousness, that He will yield His life up. As in the garden, God slaughtered animals to clothe the nakedness of Adam and Eve, so God provides a garment to cover the nakedness of our shame and sin - His Son’s own holiness. This will be our covering, our shield on the day of judgment.

Jesus enters Jerusalem. But that was long ago. That was far away. Why does the Church read out this Gospel on the start of Advent each year? Because the One who came as King to reign in the hearts of men, to defeat the enemies of the human race, to give the gift of His own righteousness, this King still comes to His own people, still with the same purpose. This is His Advent in the means of grace, in His Word and Sacraments. Think of it!

In Holy Baptism, the King came riding into your life on the lowly water. There He established His Kingdom in your heart. Marked you as His own dominion. Gave Himself to you as the Lord of your life. Gave you the right to pray the Our Father. Your life then ceased to be your own. It became His. “He delivered us from the dominion of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” is how St. Paul expresses the fact in Colossians 1.

In Holy Absolution, the King comes riding into your life on the lowly words of forgiveness spoken by the pastor. They do their battle still against sin, death, hell and Satan. For they bestow what they say: Christ’s own forgiveness. What Christ entered Jerusalem to obtain for you, is in those words most surely delivered. With sin forgiven, then death has no sting, and neither hell nor Satan can hurt you.

In the Holy Supper, the King comes riding into your life in the lowly bread that is His Body and the wine that is His blood. As He is greeted with the shout of “Hosanna!” and “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!”, He reaches out to you His own righteousness. For that is what the Body and the Blood of Jesus are. His righteousness given to cover your sin.

Such is the bounty, the gift that the King came to bestow upon you. Clothed in such riches, you have the joy of a seat at His Table on the Day of His return in glory as Judge of the living and the dead, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages! Amen.