Passage: This Week's Second Reading

"How Shall You Meet Jesus?"

The whole church year either moves toward Good Friday and Easter, or it flows out of the cross and resurrection of Christ. We see this movement started already in our Gospel lesson this morning, the first Sunday in Advent. Here, on the first Sunday of the church year, we begin with the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And of course, the first Palm Sunday was just 5 days before Jesus would die on the cross.

The whole season of Advent has to do with the Lord’s coming, and for centuries, the church has designated the Palm Sunday narrative as the reading for the day. This is hardly a case of a misplaced pericope. Although we are preparing to celebrate his birth, the Lord who comes to save us will do so by dying.

Advent is more than a preparation for Christmas. It is the time of the Christian year that presses the question of Paul Gerhardt’s hymn home to each of us. We didn’t sing it this morning, but before the season ends, we will certainly sing "O Lord, how shall I meet You, How welcome You aright?"

How shall we meet Him and welcome Him aright – this Lord who comes to us? It is not a convenient season, tucked in between the busyness of Thanksgiving preparations and Christmas shopping, there is little time – it seems – to remember what this time of year is all about. We are acutely aware of the busyness of the season as these few weeks speed ever so quickly away, and we find that we have not accomplished all that we had planned.

With preparations for holiday celebrations, the pace of an already hectic life accelerates as we rush from one thing to the next. There are projects to complete, appointments to keep, and commitments to honor. There are parties to plan, gifts to buy, and cards to send. We need Advent as something of a liturgical speed bump to slow us down so we don’t neglect the question, "O Lord, how shall I meet You, how welcome You aright?"

To welcome Jesus, you have to recognize the interruption his Palm Sunday arrival in Jerusalem brought. This was the annual remembrance of God’s act of deliverance of his chosen people from Egypt. The streets, the whole town would have been swollen with people there for the holiday. The day that they would slaughter the Passover lambs was

fast approaching. People were anticipating the delight of being with family for the Passover feast.

But when King Jesus comes into Jerusalem, it interrupts the celebration that the people were expecting. This was a new twist to the Passover celebration. Spreading cloaks and leafy branches on the road was not a normal part of the festivities. The people welcomed a King who came in humility and meekness on a borrowed donkey.

Jesus came into Jerusalem, the city of the temple, the place where they did the ritual sacrifices, to suffer and die as God’s ultimate Passover Lamb. His sacrifice interrupts the monotonous routines of sin and death. Here is a King like no other, for this King came not in royal splendor or with military might, but in the humility of a Servant, who would embrace the cross for you.

To welcome Jesus aright, acclaim Him as the Blessed One who brings us the kingdom. That was the way the people in Jerusalem did it. With acclamations on their lips and branches in their hands, they greeted Jesus as the Blessed One. Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name on the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!

With the words of Psalm 118, the crowds confess Jesus as Lord, even as they cry out for him with their glad hosannas, imploring him to "save now." Hosanna, by the way, is a Hebrew word that means "please save’, or "save now." The salvation for which they yearn comes only with Jesus and the shedding of his blood.

He is the Blessed One, for in his saving death he brings the blessings of heaven – the blessings of forgiveness of sins and peace with God – down to earth. No wonder that during Advent we hear so much that this Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.

Where the King comes, there his kingdom comes. Jesus’ kingdom is not something that we can earn or attain. It is pure gift. Luther wrote in his Small Catechism that "The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself, without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also."

Religions of the Law presume that man can come to God. In his classic book The Quest for Holiness, Adolph Köberle says that human beings attempt to come to God in one of three ways. Some try to access God by means of their morality – by living lives that are committed to doing good and refraining from doing evil.

Others think they can grasp God by reason. They construct for themselves a religion that conforms to their definition of logic. Yet others believe that union with God can be achieved through emotional experiences. These are what Martin Luther would identify as ladder theologies.

But the whole message of Advent reverses the direction. Salvation is not something human beings ascend to through morality, rationality, or some mystical experience. Advent announces a Savior who comes to us, righteous and having salvation.

The salvation that is ours through faith came at a price. This salvation not only shows us God’s mercy, it shows us his anger at sin. It took the death of God’s Son, Jesus Christ to pay the price for our sins. That sin was so ugly, that when it was all laid on Christ’s shoulders as he hung on the cross that God the Father could not bear to look at his Son.

While Christ hung there, dying on the cross, he could no longer feel His Father’s love and presence, causing him to cry out; "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

But through his innocent death, Christ earned for all who believe, his perfect righteousness. God the Father, in His mercy, declared that Christ’s righteousness is ours simply by faith. Christ comes to us, righteous and having salvation. God not only comes to those who believe through the Word, He comes to us through the waters of Baptism, which also joins us with Christ in his resurrection. He comes to us through the bread and wine which bear his body and blood.

The Holy Spirit comes to us and works through the Means of Grace to increase our faith, creating in our hearts gratitude and love of God. We can have an attitude of "We love Him because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19). We are empowered then, to lead lives that show the evidence of our faith.

So how shall we meet our Lord and welcome him aright? We receive him by our Holy Spirit worked faith, trusting in his merciful words of pardon and promise. See, your King comes to you, no longer on a borrowed donkey, but with his Word and with his body and blood in, with, and under the bread and wine.

He comes to claim you as his very own. He comes to take away your shame and restore to you the joy of salvation. "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Amen.