Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

New Beginning, New Life

And the crowd that went before Him and that followed Him shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the Highest.”  [Matthew 21.9]

          Today is the first day of a New Year, the New Year found on the historic Western Church Calendar!  If a “Happy New Year” this morning sounds out-of-place, then it probably fits the situation. For it is true that much of the Christian life in Christ's Church seems out-of-place and out-of-step with the world and its thoughts and its ways.  For in Advent, the Bride waits for her Groom, who is Christ, the Lord, and while she waits she is taught to believe that her Lord's coming is not far off. The new Church Year brings with it the message that you, together with all who are bonded to you in the Church, are waiting for a kingdom yet to come. So, while your life is lived fully in this world, your life is not of this world. 

The fullness of our redeemed and renewed life is yet to come, and so our present daily living is but the shadow of that life that comes when Christ returns. Therefore, in the new Church Year that begins this day, the voice of faith cries out, in the Collect of the Day: "Stir up, we beseech Thee, Thy power, O Lord, and come, that by Thy protection, we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Thy mighty deliverance."

I.

With the words of this historic prayer, the Church publicly declares that what you need is something different, and something totally unique, from what the world is seeking.  During Advent, you are led to confess your sins in order to prepare for Christmas.  What you need is not to make a New Year's resolution that you then strive to keep.  What you need is not the emotional feel-goods of the season to get you "in the mood" for Christmas. What you need is not something that is fine-tuned to be all about you and your desires.

What you need is what God's Word in the Season of Advent proclaims in you.  It is the promise of the Blessed One who comes in the name of the Lord Jesus. In response to this promise, the church teaches her faithful children to cry out:  "Oh, Lord Come!"  Come with Thy protection that we may be delivered and rescued from the threatening perils of our sins.

Have you seen this message anywhere in the world's preparations in the days leading up to Christmas?  Of course not! And though you might have seen such messages many years ago in our then openly Christian land, you hear them no more. That is why the Church leads her children through Advent to Christmas! As another year in the Church begins, faith prays, "Come quickly, Lord, so that all that we think and say and do from our sinful hearts, and all that comes from the world that leads us astray, might not consume us. Indeed, such is the kind of consumer that we pray not to be. “From all that threatens our salvation in daily life, by Thy power, O Lord, deliver us."  Yes, during Advent, the focus is on the Lord's Coming.  And, with His arrival comes the protection that you need.  You need this Advent, this coming of our Lord, precisely to save you from the world’s thinking that would tempt you to cling only what seems to make you happy.

II.

On this first Sunday in Advent, you hear of the Lord's coming into Jerusalem in the Holy Gospel.  Today is the appropriate day for the reading of this text, much more so than on the day when you expect to hear it, the day that we call “Palm Sunday.” For in this Holy Gospel for this First Sunday of the New Church Year, you not only are reminded of the Lord who is yet to come on the Last Day, but you are also reminded of the Lord who comes among His people in the meantime, in the here-and-now that precedes the Last Day, just as in Bible times, He comes among His people in the days before He dies for the world of sinners.

In the reading and exposition of this text, you experience the fulfillment of Christ's Words and actions, a fulfillment coming just as you hear and see Him. This function of God's Word is often missed by Christians, namely, that God’s Word DOES what it DESCRIBES, even as it is proclaiming it. Where the church fails to teach this fact, that what God’s Word describes He does,  its very proclamation, and thus where Christ's Real Presence and His true voice is not taught, the reading of today’s Holy Gospel is reduced to that of a history lesson about some event in Jesus' life or some behavior of Jesus that you should try to imitate.

But our churches teach that Christ IS actually present in the hearing and teaching of His Word. The reading and teaching of His Word is not just some echo of the past. When you hear the Gospel of the forgiveness of your sins, this is not a mere historical statement that Jesus once said about the sins of the world.  The Gospel that you hear proclaimed in Christ’s Church today IS the voice of Christ Himself being heard TODAY!  It IS the voice of Jesus that bestows upon you the forgiveness of your sins. It IS the voice of the Blessed One who comes here, even as He rode into Jerusalem two millennia ago.

Jesus comes now as your Savior from all that threatens to steal you away from Him.  The promise of His presence, TODAY, is what you get from God as you hear of Christ moving into the midst of the city of Jerusalem. And, this Gospel which is read on this First Sunday of Advent – the first day of the new Church Year – reminds you also of this: each and every time you gather together in Jesus' name around His Word, and each and every time you receive the Blessed Sacrament, you have the assurance the real Jesus, who was present in Jerusalem according to the text, is now here in your midst – this same Jesus, is now speaking His Holy Word from the lecturn. This same Jesus is now proclaiming His saving grace from the pulpit through your pastor’s feeble words. This same Jesus is feeding you His body and His blood in His Supper! 

With each unique reading of the Holy Gospel, you are transported back in time to the moment of the text, making you present with those in attendance back then. For at this same time, Jesus is present here, with you as you listen to His voice.  And so, today's Gospel takes you back and joins your voices with those Galileans, waving their palm branches in their hands as they surround Jesus, and there, we too, with them, all sing together, as you will continue to do in the Communion Liturgy today, "Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

III.

What you get here, is what those gathered around the Lord Jesus got there. They got His presence then and there, and you have His presence here and now. His presence then and there turned their sorrows into joy and their trembling doubts into certain hope. His presence here and now is precisely promised by Him to you, in order to turn your sorrows into joy and your trembling doubts into certain hope.

Back then, He came to them. By the Spirit working through His very presence, He made believers of them. They now know that THIS man is not just another prophet. He is the Messiah promised of God the Father. He is the Father’s only-begotten Son now in human flesh. He is the One who comes in the name of the Lord. So, they shout out: “Blessed is HE!” And His presence blesses them in the process.

This First Sunday in Advent promises you the same thing, namely, God the Son’s presence with you, blessing to you. Christ is with you. He is not only with you “in spirit,” as we tend to speak about those who are loved by us but absent in person. Christ is not only with you “in spirit,” but He is with you “in person.” You have, here, the real presence of the person of Christ, the person of God the Son, brings blessings to you who recognize His presence. Here, where Christ is truly, really, and personally present to you, your burdens and sorrows are caught up by Him who bears them for you. Your doubts and weaknesses are taken in hand by the One who carries them in your stead. Your sins and rebellions are forgiveness. Your history of broken promises is expunged. Your life of damaged goods is repaired. And you stand at peace with God and with your own soul through the presence in this place of the One who comes personally to you in the name of the Lord. Blessed is He! And by Him, blessed are you!

Well, that’s how the Word of God works, in its intended role and context, read to and heard by the faithful. In it, God does what His Words describe. And so, this lesson is appropriate for this day, the annual renewal of Christ’s coming among His people for this annual renewal of our life together as His people in this place. Christ is here, among you, His people! You are blessed in Him for this New Year’s journey. Blessed, indeed, is He who comes in the name of the Lord!