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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Please be seated.
After that Gospel reading, you may be thinking to yourself, Is this Palm Sunday? Did I go into some sort of time warp and completely miss Lent? Which would sadden most Lutherans, I think, to miss Lent. No, it’s not Palm Sunday. It’s the first Sunday in Advent, as I said before. The word “Advent,” the definition means arrival, appearance, emergence. But my favorite definition of the word, the one I like the most, is coming to. And that’s what that first Palm Sunday was—a king coming to the people. The entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem.
It was a special day. An exciting day. You can almost feel the electricity in the air as the people lined the streets and took off their coats and cut palm branches and put them in the street. It was a parade. The whole city, it says, was stirred up at this event because the prophesied king was coming to them. But coming to them in a way that they weren’t expecting. He’s on a donkey. Kings don’t ride donkeys. Where’s his horse? Kings are supposed to ride on a horse. But this king is humble. This king lowers himself. This king uses common means. It’s not supposed to be that way. The king doesn’t come to people. The people are supposed to dare to even approach the king. People are supposed to go to the king in seeking an audience in his royal palace with fine and expensive things. But this king is humble. This king lowers himself. This king uses common means.
Now the people celebrated Jesus’ coming to them on that first Palm Sunday. But in days after that, Jesus would be humble again and lower himself to be conspired against, betrayed, arrested, falsely accused, tried unfairly, beaten, spit on, and mocked. And then another parade was going to happen where this humble King Jesus was not carried by even a donkey, but he carried a cross. Amen. And then he lowered himself to be nailed to that cross and to suffer on it and experience the most common of all human means—death. Jesus, the King, would be humble and lowly and die.
In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul really sums this up nicely when he says, “‘Have this mind about Jesus Christ.'” Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself. By taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
On that first Palm Sunday, Jesus comes into Jerusalem and the people say, “Look, here’s our King. Here He comes. Our King is coming to us.” But lowly and humble and using common means. And then He would be humbled again and lowering Himself again, even to death, submitting to even the most common of human means—our death. Yet Jesus came to them, but not in a way that they expected. But he was going to come to them again in another way that they weren’t expecting when he rose from the dead and got up from that grave and coming to them as a mighty, conquering king, victorious over death and that grave, victorious over sin—totally unexpected way for him to come to them.
And Jesus comes to us. Our king comes to us but not in ways that we expect. And in the season of Advent, we celebrate the promise of King Jesus coming to us. Coming to us in the common means of humanity, in flesh and blood, as a real person. At Advent, we longingly say, “Look, here comes your King.” Amen. And at Christmas, we celebrate His coming to us, born of Mary, born in that flesh and blood, born as a real person. And the prophecy of, “Look, here comes your King,” has been fulfilled because Jesus is here. The King is here. The King has come to you.
And like the people of that first Palm Sunday, we too celebrate Jesus’ humble coming to us, coming to us today, in his humble death and victorious resurrection. Because that death and resurrection are the King coming to us with grace in the forgiveness of our sins—the forgiveness of your sins. Jesus, our King, coming to us in the form of God. Coming in such a humble and lowly way. Coming to us in the taking on of the common means of human flesh and blood.
To Christians, that is such a wonderful and joyous thing. But to other religions, it’s unthinkable and even detestable that God would do such a humble, lowly thing like that. The idea that God would become a human being, that God would lower himself to something like that, would be so humble. It’s again, the best word is detestable. God would never do that. The king would never come to people in such a way. But to followers of Jesus, it’s one of the greatest blessings of our religion. Why? Because we have a God who loves us. It’s simply that. We have a God who loves us and would dare to come to us.
To come into our world. Loves us so much to be humbled and lowly and use common means. Means that we understand and can relate to. God loves us so much to come into our world and to live with us, suffer like us, and then die for us to forgive us. And then rise from the dead to give us eternal life. To us, there’s nothing detestable about that. That is one of the cornerstones and greatest blessings of our faith.
But there’s more. It gets even better because our King still comes to us. He comes to you, but not in ways that you might expect. Jesus comes in common means. He comes in common means. Jesus comes to you in the common means of words that proclaim His humble birth and death and victorious resurrection for you. Words that say to you, “Your sins are forgiven.” And he comes in the common means of water in baptism where you’re connected with his humble death and victorious resurrection and where you die to sin and are raised to newness of life.
And we got to see it today. We got to see Aurelia say, “Look, your king comes to you in this water and the promise of these words that your sins are forgiven and you’re now a child of God.” And if you’ve been baptized, you can always look back on that day and that time when the king came to you and made you one of his. And your King comes to you in Holy Communion, in the Lord’s Supper, where in the common means of bread and wine, you’re given the body and blood of Jesus, which are given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.
Yeah, it’s here that Jesus gives to you. He comes to you with the very thing that forgives your sins—His body and blood that He gave on the cross for you. So yeah, your king still comes to you and still in humble, lowly, common means. But there’s even more. Yeah, it gets even better because Jesus, our king, is going to come yet again. Our king is coming to us again someday, but in no humble, lowly way. On that day, on the last day of this earth, all the followers of Jesus will see their King coming to them.
And they’ll hit their knees and bow down and say, “Look, our King comes to us. Here comes our King,” not humbly, but coming in victory to rule forever and to raise the dead, restoring our bodies and taking us to be with Him in His heavenly kingdom. That’s what we celebrate during Advent. We consider the coming of our King that He came 2,000 years ago, that He comes to us now, and that He’s coming again. And Advent’s a good time to consider those things.
We consider the coming of our King, but it can also be a good time to consider those things that may try to be king in our lives. Things that may try to rule our time or our energy. Things like your job, your career, your hobbies, sports, maybe worries about money, worries about your future, maybe some sins from your past. They burden you and can even seem to rule over your thoughts. And especially this past year, we might need to ask ourselves, okay, who’s my king? Is it a politician? Is it politics in general? Is it government? What’s my king?
No, those things, any of these things that I just listed, they don’t come to you with what Jesus gives. They don’t come to you humble and lowly. They don’t forgive your sins and promise you eternal life. None of these things love you.
And when we think about this past year, we may find ourselves saying, “Man, I need something really good to come to me.” Our whole nation, we need something good to come to us. And He has. Your King comes to you today. We look at Jesus and say, “Look, there’s my King. Look, my King comes to us. Look, our King is coming to us.” Look up and know you’re ruled by something much more than this world. You’re ruled by something much more than your past sins. You’re ruled by something much more than your worries about the future.
Look here and now, your King comes to you. He came 2,000 years ago. He comes to you now, and He’s coming again. Look to those things. Look to your King. May it be that in these days of Advent, but also every day, that you look to Jesus and say, “Look, here comes my King. There He is. That’s the One who’s come to me. That’s the One who died for me. That’s the One who forgives me. That’s the One who loves me.” Not anything else in this world.
May you always look to the one who’s come to you humbly and lowly and in love for you. Amen. May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
