First Sunday in Advent (A)
November 30, 2025
Text:
Matt. 21:1-11
“Behold, your king is coming to
you” (Matt. 21:5; ESV).
One of the things I find most
astounding in Genesis 3, is that… after Adam and Eve have plunged humanity into
sin, subjecting creation to the curse… after they’ve rebelled, rejected God and
His Word, and run off to hide in fear of Him… in spite of it all… and, in fact,
because of it all… the LORD God comes to them. Not to annihilate them. Not even to damn them. But to call them. To call them out of hiding. To evoke from them confession. Yes, to declare to them the full
ramifications of their sin. Pain in
childbearing (and in childrearing!). Chafing
under God’s order. Thorns and
thistles. Bread by the sweat of your
brow. Death. Dust you are, and to dust you shall
return. That is the Law, and the
preaching of it is critical. But even
that is not the purpose for which God came to them. He came, rather, to seek them. To rescue them. To save them. To give them the Promise, spoken to
and against the serpent. One is coming
who will undo all this… this curse, this sin, this death. “I will put enmity between you and the
woman,” O serpent, “and between your offspring and her offspring; he
shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). He came to proclaim another coming…
the coming of Christ, and His sin-atoning death, by which death would be
undone, and Satan conquered forever. And
so to call our first parents to repentance, and to faith in this
coming Christ, this Seed of the woman. A
Promise to sustain humanity, now, in the midst of the fall, even as they… we…
are exiled from Paradise, stranded east of Eden. God comes to Adam and Eve, right in the midst
of their sin and shame, to do that for them… for us.
And then He does something else
for Adam and Eve, and so for us. He unclothes
them of their fig leaves. Self-made
coverings for sin and shame never work.
And He clothes them, instead, with garments of skin. Note that very carefully. The first death in history, in all of
creation, is brought about at God’s hand, as a sacrifice to cover our sin
and shame. For, as God says
elsewhere, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins”
(Heb. 9:22), and “it is the blood that makes atonement by the life”
(Lev. 17:11). So He unclothes His
sinful humans, now living in death. And
He clothes them anew with what is dead, that they might live.
Now, this little detour through the
Garden and into the wilderness is brought about by these words in our Holy
Gospel: “They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their
cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of
the crowd spread their cloaks on the road” (Matt. 21:7-8; emphasis
added). What is happening in this
scene? Once again, God is coming
to those who have rebelled, rejected Him and His Word, and run off to hide in
fear of Him. He is coming, not to
annihilate them, or damn them, but to call them, to seek them, to
rescue them, to save them.
Yes, to declare to them the full ramifications of their sin. And, in fact, to suffer those ramifications for
them, in their place. Because
He is the Promised Seed of the woman, the One come to undo the curse, our sin,
our death. The One who crushes Satan’s
head under His heel, even as He is pierced by the serpent’s venomous fang.
But the cloaks! What is happening with the cloaks? Of course, the disciples and the crowd are
honoring Jesus as He rides into Jerusalem.
They are spreading the proverbial red carpet before Him, as is good and
right. Thus also the branches. They are preparing a royal highway for their
Lord. But what is happening theologically
with the cloaks? There is an
illustration, here, of what our Lord did for our parents in the Garden, and
what He does for us. He is unclothing
the people of their self-made coverings.
He is sitting on them, and His donkeys are trampling them. Because they’ll never do. Sinners require a different
covering. The covering of sacrifice. For without the shedding of blood, there
is no forgiveness of sins. It is the
blood that makes atonement by the life.
Jesus Christ, the Seed of the woman… the living God, the eternal Son of
the Father… has come to be that Sacrifice.
That we might be clothed with Him.
That is what happens for us in Holy
Baptism. In Baptism, as Paul says in our
Epistle, we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14). Or, as he says in Galatians, “For as many
of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (3:27). You’ve “put off the old self with its
practices,” Paul says again, this time in Colossians (3:9), and “put on
the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its
creator” (v. 10). Unclothed
of what is yours as you live here in death; clothed anew with Him who
died… but now lives!... that you might live.
Stripped of your death, you’ve put on His!,,, the death of
the cross. Stripped of your life,
you’ve put on His eternal resurrection life! Stripped of the fig leaves of your own
self-justifications, your own self-righteousness, you’ve put on His
justification, His righteousness.
So that you stand before God fully clothed. And restored. No longer an exile. The angel no longer blocks your way to
Paradise. The crucified and risen Lord
Jesus brings Paradise to you, right here and now, at the altar. And soon… soon He will bring you further
up, and further in (to steal a line from Lewis), so that you see with your
own eyes a sight more glorious than Eden.
Heaven. And New Creation.
Why do we wear clothes? To cover our nakedness. And why is that important? Have you ever thought about that? Why do we desire to be covered? We desire to be covered because of what
happened in the Garden. We don’t want
others to see us naked, because we understand that then our sin, our shame, is
exposed. So our clothes are essentially
fig leaves. Now, don’t misunderstand
me. Please continue to wear clothes this
side of the heaven. In fact, dear
Christians, we ought to lead the way in practicing the lost virtue of
modesty. But you know those clothes
don’t really cover your sin. They’re
just a stop-gap measure. Christ
covers your sin. And when Christ
covers your sin, the clothes really do make the man and the woman. Covered with Christ, you are righteous.
The Church’s ancient baptismal
practice confessed this. Now, again, let
me say, I’m glad we didn’t do this today… the Rainwaters are especially
glad!... and it would be entirely impractical for us to do this. But in the early Church, in the days of
baptistries, housed in another room or building, before entering the baptismal
pool (and, incidentally, out of sight of most of the people), the person being
baptized would be stripped of their clothes, right down to their birthday
suit. Unclothed. Fig leaves cast aside. And then all the way down into the water
they’d go. Full immersion. You don’t have to be fully immersed to be
baptized (baptizo in Greek just means washing with water), and we
usually don’t immerse in the Lutheran Church, but look at the symbolism of
it. Old Adam, drowned. Put off the old self, all the way to
death. And then, up out of the water,
all in the Name of our blessed Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then clothed. With a white garment. An alb, like the one I’m wearing. This is the robe of the baptized. Why?
What does it confess? You are
now covered with the righteousness of Christ. Unclothed, to be clothed. Dead, so that you may live.
And that is now the daily rhythm of
the Christian life. You are a sinner,
and you sin, and so you live in death.
In your sin, the Lord Jesus comes to you, calling you, seeking
you, to rescue you, to save you.
He strips you of your self-made coverings whereby you try to cover up
your sin and shame. He sits on
them. He tramples them. You repent.
You daily die. It is always a
return to the blest baptismal waters. So
that then you emerge again… you rise from death, to be clothed once again with
His life and His righteousness.
Beloved, all your sins are
forgiven. You are covered by the blood
and skin of Jesus. He comes to
you. That is what Advent is all about (Advent
means coming). He came as
your Savior, to bear your sin, God in human flesh (we celebrate that coming at
Christmas). He is coming again,
to bring you back into His Paradise, and further up, and further in. And He comes to you now, in Baptism,
in His Word, and in the Supper of His body and blood. Spread your cloaks under Him in confession of
sin, beloved. And be wrapped up in Him
as He comes to you in His gracious gifts to cover you with Himself. “Behold, your king is coming to you.” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
(Matt. 21:9). Amen. Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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