TITLE: “The Coming King”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel lesson just read, with focus on the words from Zechariah, Behold, your King is coming to you.

A new year has begun. I know, I know, like with most things, the Church is a little bit out of step with the rest of the world. But for us children of eternal life, today is the beginning of a new year of grace. What gifts will God bring to His people this day, this week, this month, this year? How will Christ show Himself to us during this holy season of Advent?

The season of Advent is perhaps the most misunderstood of all the church year. For the world, this month is one big extended pre-Christmas. In our church’s neighborhood, there were Christmas lights up on a few houses before Thanksgiving. The shopping has begun early this year, because everyone is worried about having presents get to where they are going on time. Everything seems a little sooner than it should.

And in the midst of all of this, it is very hard to let Advent have it’s own place in our church calendar. We so much want to get on with Christmas. We so much want to just skip Advent entirely and get to the good stuff. We want to sing Christmas carols and bring out all of the Christmas festivities early, so that by the time Christmas actually rolls around, it’s kind of a let down in church.

But here in the Christian Church, we’re always working hard to let Advent have its day, because our Lord wants us to prepare. This is Advent, and it is an important season for us, because it teaches us to wait and to look for our Lord’s coming in repentance and faith. It isn’t all just about pre-Christmas. We can actually learn from Christ our Lord about His coming during these four Sundays of Advent, and in our midweek series on Luke.

Our Lord excels at doing things in His own time and in His own way. Our Gospel lesson points us to this. He enters Jerusalem on a donkey as the King of the Jews, only to die just a few short days later. But He enters nonetheless, knowing the great things that His Father had in store for His beloved children. His coming was just right. As St. Paul wrote in our epistle, your salvation now is nearer than you first imagined.

Christ our Lord comes to us in His time and in His way, not in the way of our choosing. But come to us He does. He came first of all as a lowly infant king, He comes now through Word and Meal, and He will come again in glory, when we will see Him as He truly is, full of justice and truth.

So we must ask the question with the crowds, “Who is this?” Who is this king who comes riding into His city on a donkey? Who is this man who claims to be God in the flesh? Who is this one who comes “in the name of the Lord?” And maybe even the more important question, why? Why did God have to become man? Why didn’t He just erase the past, why didn’t he have to enter into our world as one of us?

The answer, of course, is love. Saint Paul writes that love is the fulfillment of the Law. If God is love, then God’s very nature is that He must fulfill His Law for us. Love that comes down to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. We are helpless, hopeless and without a future. In this season of Advent, we should all be about loving, and serving and helping our neighbor. Yet it is in this very season that we are the most selfish and cruel to others. But love comes down nonetheless. As the hymn writer said:

Love caused your incarnation; Love brought you down to me.

Your thirst for my salvation Procured my liberty.

Oh love beyond all telling, That let you to embrace

In love, all love excelling, Our lost and fallen race. (LW 19:4)

God’s love for you in Christ Jesus urged Him to send His Son Jesus Christ into the world as one of us. God thirsts, He longs to draw you into His loving embrace. His love for you is so great that He was willing to set aside His majesty and divinity. He was willing to clothe himself in frail flesh, so that He might draw us to Himself.

This is why Jeremiah says that the name of the Coming One is THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. He is the Lord; He is God in the flesh. But He is not the Lord who demands homage and obedience like a harsh taskmaster. No, He is the Lord our righteousness. This is God in the flesh that gives His very flesh to us. By clothing Himself in our humanity, Jesus draws you into the very love of God.

This is a great mystery. It is the mystery of the ages. God becomes man. The Lord our righteousness taking on our flesh for the salvation of the whole world. This is what we prepare for. It is such an amazing gift that it cannot be given just once. With all of the gifts and presents of the world we receive, sooner or later they break, or we get tired of them, or something else comes into fashion, but not this gift. Not the Lord our righteousness. His gifts redefine us and bring hope where there is hopelessness, certainty in a world of chaos, and peace where there is hate.

But this gift doesn’t come like other gifts. It is a gift that comes wrapped and clothed. It’s a gift that we may overlook or ignore entirely. Our sinfulness and pride often makes it so that we don’t even want the gift. It’s too ordinary looking. The gift of salvation just seems kind of plain compared to what the world has to offer. Imagine if you will judging all of your presents on the basis of their wrapping and size and weight. You can’t do it, because the whole point of a gift is that its true nature is hidden until just the right moment. That is God working through Word and Sacraments. He gives you Jesus Himself, God in the flesh, but He clothes this gift so that only those who look by faith can see their true nature.

Christ our Lord keeps giving Himself. Gently, compassionately, He continues to give His life-blood for the salvation of the world. As a king riding in on a beast of burden, He clothes Himself in water and word, bread and wine, and by clothing Himself in these humble gifts, He reveals His nature as the greatest gift of all.

So this Advent season, what may we do to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord our Righteousness? For the Christian, the only thing we may do is repent of our sins and look for the Coming King. Even that work is God’s, of course. For God is the one who turns you away from yourself and turns you toward Him in faith. But the great miracle is that He does it. Again and again He gives you that gift of faith. He strengthens you. He blesses you. He gives you the Lord our Righteousness for your salvation.

So this Advent season, repent and rejoice! Behold, your King is coming to you. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.