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Dear baptized believers in Christ’s church, last Sunday, on the last Sunday of the church year, Pastor Wolf Mueller preached about the end times, when the present heaven and earth will all pass away. On that day, the Lord Jesus will come again, as he promised it from his throne on high, and he will appear in the sky with his entourage of all the saints who have died before that day. Amen. All the dead resurrected along with the living will see Jesus with their very own eyes as he sits before the great divide. There on his right, as known as the sheep, he will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And then he will say to the group on his left, known as the goats, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
The only difference between these two groups is the presence and the absence of faith in Christ Jesus, God’s Son, the Savior of the world. No one knows when that day will occur except our Heavenly Father. So Pastor Wolfmuller was encouraging you, me, and all people gathered on that day, to stay awake, stay awake.
But on this day, we find ourselves here this morning starting all over again with the beginning of another church year with this day known as the first Sunday in Advent. Another lap around the track. Another journey around the sun, another 365 days of unknowns before us, and another year where we have the privilege to be in God’s Word, by which He feeds us and sustains us.
As we continue to learn more and more about His love for us exhibited in the gift of His Son from His incarnation to His ascension, with all the prophecies of his first coming fulfilled and the promises of his second coming revealed, which he enables us to cling to him and his word by faith. The first time he came into the world as the Savior full of grace and mercy. But the next time he will come as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the judge who is impartial and just.
So in this morning’s gospel lesson, we see Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, which was foretold in the Old Testament, as it also gives us a glimpse of that day yet to come. In the text, we find ourselves in Jericho near the Dead Sea. This is where Jesus looked up to see the vertically challenged Zacchaeus sitting in a sycamore tree. Since Luke 9, verse 51, Jesus had had his face turned to go to Jerusalem. Now, the day in our text, Jesus is less than 20 miles away and only seven days away from the Passover, and soon the words of Jeremiah will be fulfilled.
“Behold, the day is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time, I will cause the righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called, ‘The Lord is my righteousness.'”
Now only a couple miles away from Jerusalem, which is still out of sight because of the apex of the Mount of Olives, Jesus commissions two of his disciples to go ahead of him with the mission to bring back a colt. They found everything as he had told them, and they had success in bringing back this humble beast of burden that had never been ridden. Upon its arrival, cloaks were draped across it, at which point the disciples assisted Jesus in taking his place upon it.
All of the preparation for this day is now complete. On this day, the words of the prophet Zechariah would be fulfilled: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation, as he humbled and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Within a short distance, Jesus and his entourage of disciples behind him would crest the mount, and before them would be Jerusalem. As they looked down into the city, in its splendor was the house of God built on the temple mount, God approaching his earthly dwelling. The news had reached the city. It was there Jesus was coming. The people poured out of the portal of the eastern gate of the outer wall and lined the roads through the Kidron Valley and up the Mount of Olives.
As Jesus descended that windy road down the mount, with people laying cloaks before him so the colt’s hooves made no contact with the stones, like a red carpet for those of royalty, the wave of the cut branches in the air symbolized victory and peace. With the other gospels, including the word “Hosanna,” which means “Save us now,” the gospel of Luke records the multitude rejoicing and in unison praising God in a loud voice.
Why? Because of all the mighty works that they had seen done by Jesus. The crowd gathered with confidence that Jesus was the one, for they were shouting in song, “Blessed is the King who comes to us in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.”
On that day, there were three different perspectives. The first, the people. They saw the dawn of a new day. The king has arrived. There will be a coronation, and in the coming days, the oil will drip off his head after he is anointed, and he will sit upon the throne of David, and he will reign over God’s people with earthly authority. He will throw off the oppression of Rome, and all the surrounding nations will fear him as the people live in peace and prosperity.
In the second, there were the Pharisees and all the other religious leaders who rejected that notion that Jesus is the King, the fulfillment of the promised Messiah. To them, his teaching and preaching were not in concord with their interpretation of the Scriptures, of the writing of Moses, the history, the Psalms, and the prophets. Matter of fact, Jesus was a threat to their position of power, prestige, and prosperity. Thus, we see their view when they commanded him to address the crowd that had gathered. “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
And as he’s done numerous times before, when people came, stood before him and fell before him, he received their worship and praise again, for they were acting in accordance to the table of the law, the fulfillment of God’s word. His response was, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
Jesus was telling them of the reality of what would be happening in the coming months. Not only will the Jews be lifting their praises and thanksgiving for God’s gift to the world in the sending of Jesus, his son, but the stones will. The Gentiles will join in this assembly of those who have faith in his words and works for them, thus joining in the chorus.
And finally, there’s Jesus’ perspective. He saw, with the passing of each day of this coming week, the cross on the Mount of Calvary drawing closer. Amen. His reason for coming into the world was now before him. He knew that the only way for the people to become right with God, the Father, Himself, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, was to become passive, allowing Himself to be put into the hands of sinful men, finally to be killed by the means of crucifixion.
To be that perfect, sinless, selfless, sacrificial substitute for you, for me, and for all the world, it’s true. Jesus died on the cross to defeat sin, death, and the power of the devil, and it is by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus that there is the forgiveness of sin, salvation, and eternal life for you and for me and for all those who have faith that Jesus is the one.
It is true. On that day, the king entered his city, but in the coming days, the songs of joy proclaimed in that processional line will turn to shouts of, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The leaders of the people responsible for the plans of his crowning will be his judge, jury, and executioners. His throne will be a wooden cross. His crown will be made of thorns. His attendants would be those two criminals hanging on crosses to his left and to his right. His title would be written on a random piece of wood and nailed above his head, and the words proclaimed for all to see: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
His audience either shouted insults with the pride of their success, or were cowering, defeated, broken, and in unbelief. In the shadows of the background, after he breathed his last and his heart was pierced by a spear, his bed was made of a rock, and his chamber door was a large stone. But he also knew that after this journey of suffering and death, on the third day, he would rise from the dead as he foretold, and he would ascend on high and sit on his heavenly throne in splendor and glory as the king of kings and the lord of lords with all the power and might to reign over all heaven and earth.
But what does this mean for you? What does this mean for me? I would like for us to concentrate and think about three short thoughts. The first: There were all those different distortions of views and opinions and hopes in Jesus, who he was. But he never deviated from who he is. He never deviated from the source and mission of the one who sent him. The creator entered into his creation. The Son of God came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Through history, we’re chasing all kinds of things in this world, trying to fill a void in our lives so that we can proclaim that we have a blissful peace, but in reality, we can’t. And we’re all walking toward the same large gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy. For Jesus said, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Jesus is the narrow gate, for he says in the Gospel of John, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can come to the Father except through me.”
You can’t earn it. It is a gift from God, and Jesus is the only way of salvation. The second is this: Because of Jesus’ gifts for us, you and I have been changed. Romans 6 states that because you have been washed in the liquid word of holy baptism, you have already died with Jesus, as well as risen to a new life with Him.
Galatians 2 states that you no longer live, but Christ lives in you, and your focus and purpose have changed. 2 Corinthians states that you are a new creation in Christ. You are the vessel of the Holy Spirit, and you don’t belong to yourself any longer. The old nature will try to fight against it. They’ll lie to you the contrary, but it is true. Covered with the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, the price has been paid, so through the gift of faith, you have been adopted into God’s family. Amen.
You are now an heir of all of his gifts, some of which you see now while others are still hidden. But on that day to come, you will see them all in their fullness. And the third is this: You and I are now living between the Lord’s two advents. Since his ascension, we are living in the end times, and there is a spiritual war raging all around us. In his highly priestly prayer, Jesus prays to his Father concerning his disciples, “I do not ask that you take them out of this world, but that you keep them from the evil one.”
So as you walk by faith, there will be those mountaintop highs, and there will be those valley lows in your lives. There will be those good days, and there will be those difficult days. And don’t be persuaded by some in Christendom that believe that this is an indicator of God’s proximity to you. God’s Word never promises to remove all the storms in the lives of His children, but He does promise to be with us as we journey through them and give to us all that we need to dwell in them and to exit them, with true peace from Him.
With these gifts from God through His means of grace, we are enlightened, equipped, and enabled, and all by the power of His Word and the working of the Holy Spirit. Through these God-given lenses, we look at ourselves differently, and as we look at the world differently as well.
Does your stuff control you? Amen. Or do you control your stuff? If it was all taken away from you today, would your faith be shaken? With all of this said, I have this thought. I personally know my parents. I personally know my grandparents. And I personally know a couple of my great-grandparents. Beyond that, my extended family members are only names in the front of my family’s family Bible. Their stuff has been scattered everywhere. Where it has decayed and been destroyed, one day in the future, if the Lord gives time, one of those names in that book will be mine.
And my distant descendants will have no memory of me. They will only see me in that book as a name. And all my sentimental stuff will be scattered. But this isn’t a sad thought, because I will be with my Lord Jesus. But there is one gift that is passed from generation to generation through the decades and through the centuries. It’s the life-saving gospel of Jesus Christ.
Because others have poured this truth of the law and the gospel of God’s word into our lives, the Holy Spirit, through our vocations, pours this same gift into the lives of other people that the Lord brings into our lives. Those that will come with us today, and those who will come after us. And we commend it into his hands that it will flow down from generation to generation and spread way wide and far, until that day when he returns to earth to collect all his own, to lead us to our heavenly home to be with him forever.
So as we wait for the Lord, we continue to stand firm in God’s word and in sacraments, but we are never standing still, for we are God’s people, and he lives in us, and he sends us into the world. Dear friends, dear fellow believers who are heaven-bound, the peace which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
