First Sunday in Advent

First Sunday in Advent (C)

December 1, 2024

Text: Luke 19:28-40

            “Come, Lord Jesus.”  Marana Tha. 

            Come, not in wrath, as our sins deserve, but in mercy, because that is who You are.

            Come into our world.  Come into our lives.  Come into our homes, and to our tables, and to every place we inhabit.  Come, Lord Jesus, into every moment of our time.

            As you know, Advent means coming.  And this is the Season of preparation for the coming of the Lord.  For Christmas, His coming into our flesh, to bear our sins.  For His coming in glory on the Last Day.  And for His coming to us in the meantime, here in His Church, in His holy Word and Sacrament. 

            The shock every Church Year (or, at least, what ought to shock us, if we weren’t so lackadaisical in our spiritual life and our hearing of the Scriptures), is that the Holy Gospel for the First Sunday in Advent is not a Christmas reading, or the Angel Gabriel coming to the Virgin Mary, or some such, but Palm Sunday, Jesus riding into Jerusalem to die.  It is a great surprise to anyone expecting sentimental schlock in the runup to Christmas.  But thank God for that.  We need this focus.  We need this preaching from the very start of Advent.  Because we must realize that apart from the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, His suffering and death on the cross for our sins, and then, of course, the triumphant resurrection that follows… apart from that, Christmas would be meaningless.  Christmas is about the God who came into our flesh to die in it.  To take our place on the cross, to be the Sacrifice of Atonement for our sins, that we might not die, but live.  In Him.  Because of Him.  That is why He came.  The first step in preparation for Christmas is to know that.

            And Luke makes this connection explicit in his telling of our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem.  “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord,” shouts the whole multitude of His disciples.  “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:39; ESV).  Wait, did you catch it?  They are singing a Christmas carol!  Unwittingly, I’m sure, but it’s a variation of the first Christmas carol, composed by the holy angels, and sung to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.  And Luke is connecting the dots for us.  That song, sung at the beginning of his Gospel, is being fulfilled now, here at the end. 

            Then, the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (2:14).  Now (in our text), the crowd sings, “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.”  Glory to God.  Peace between heaven and earth.  And the point is this: The Advent of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bridges the chasm between heaven and earth, between God and us sinners.  His coming makes peace, which is God’s glory. 

            The emphasis is on the two natures in Christ.  That is the bridge.  Remember, the one Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, has two natures, divine and human.  The divine nature: He is God from all eternity, eternally begotten of the Father, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, fully and truly God, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  And then His human nature: In time… at just the right time… conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  God in our flesh.  True God.  True Man.  Fully God.  Fully Man.  And (very important), God and man united in one Person.  The two natures are not like two boards glued together, simply stuck to each other (that would be the ancient heresy of Nestorianism).  Nor are the two natures mixed up together in such a way that a new, third substance is created (the classic Early Church example is water and honey mixed together to make mead, the ancient heresy of Eutychianism).  No, here is the orthodox Christian teaching and faith concerning the two natures: The divine nature interpenetrates the human nature in such a way that the natures are neither confused, nor the unity of the Person divided (there will be a quiz on this before you can leave!).  Which, being translated, means the two natures are joined in communion in the one Person of Jesus of Nazareth.  That Man is our God. 

            And what that means is that we have a Mediator, now… the only One who can bridge that chasm, created by our sin, between us and God: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).  He is God.  He is Man.  He has to be God to die for the sins of the whole world.  A mere man could only die for himself.  And He has to be a man to die!  (God cannot die!  But He did die!)  And so, this Man, who is God, bears in His human flesh, all our sins, and suffers the death penalty, our death penalty for our sins, on the cross.  Christmas is fulfilled in the cross.

            And in the empty tomb.  For our Lord Jesus doesn’t stay dead.  Having paid for our sins, and for the sins of the whole world…  He then rises from the dead on the Third Day, (note this!) in our flesh.  He has to be God to defeat death.  And He has to be Man to defeat it for us, to take our flesh up into His eternal life.  And even more than that: Who is it who ascended into heaven, to be seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty?  The eternal Son of God, yes.  But the eternal Son of God who is now flesh and blood.  Our flesh sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  And in that fact rests all our hope of eternal life with God in heaven, and the resurrection of our bodies on the Last Day. 

            Because, in His coming into our flesh, the Lord Jesus has reconciled us to God.  He has made peace… Peace in heaven, as the crowd sings on Palm Sunday.  Peace on earth, as the angels sang (the two, heaven and earth, are united in His Person)… among those with whom He is pleased.  And that is justification language.  He is pleased with those who are righteous on account of Christ, righteous by faith in Christ.  As Paul says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1).

            That is important as we anticipate His coming again.  Jesus is coming, beloved.  He is coming soon.  We contemplated that the past two Sundays, and that is also a main theme of Advent.  Will He come in wrath, as our sins deserve?  Or will He come in mercy, bestowing peace and life?  He will come in wrath to all who have rejected the peace of His mediation, the peace with God brought about by His incarnation, death, and resurrection.  But He will come in mercy to all who have been justified by faith in Him, granting eternal peace and life with God, in His glory. 

            But His coming to us is not only a coming in the past, and then a coming again in the future.  He comes to you now.  Even as He once came into the world in our flesh, so He comes into your life.  Into your home, to your table (“Come, Lord Jesus,” we pray), and to every place you inhabit.  He comes into every moment of your time.  To redeem it.  To redeem you.  To cover in mercy.  To forgive sin.  To heal wounds.  To deliver from brokenness and death.  To give life.

            There is no place in your life beyond His redemption.  There is no corner too dark for His light.  He comes into all of it.  He comes to transform it.  Not only to be with you in it.  But to be in you.  And to envelop you in Himself.  Immersed in Him in the baptismal waters.  Baptized into His death, and His life.  His voice ringing in your ears.  His body and blood, ingested, and now one with you.  The Glory of our Father, the one Mediator between God and men, the Man, Christ Jesus, making peace between heaven and earth.  God and sinners reconciled. 

            Come, Lord Jesus.  Marana Tha.  Come in peace, making all things new.  He has come.  And He will.  And He comes even now.  “Blessed is the King who comes in the Name of the Lord.”  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.