Advent Waiting - Mark 11:1-11
Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The word advent means “to come.”
We pray for Jesus’ advent – His coming – often; so often, in fact, that we
probably lose that we are even saying it. Do you know it’s in the Lord’s
Prayer? “Thy kingdom come” – perhaps the Latin makes it clearer: “adveniat voluntus tuum.” “Come Lord Jesus, be
our guest and let thy gifts to us be blessed,” is prayed at many of our tables.
In the season of Advent, our hymnody will pick up the cry as well. “O Come, o
come, Emmanuel,” will be the focus of our midweek Advent series this year as we
join the church of ancient days in this prayer. In fact, the very last sentence
in the Bible is, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.”
You pray this daily, sometimes a
couple times a day, asking Jesus to come. Do you believe that he will? I think
so. After all, we don’t just pray it, but we also say it in the Creeds, that we
believe He will come to judge the living and the dead. We should believe this,
because it was Jesus’ own promise: “Behold, I am coming soon!” (Rev. 22:7) To
make sure we know and believe this, He repeats himself “Behold, I am coming
soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I
am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end,”
(Re. 22:12-13).
But, do you expect it? Do you
expect Jesus to return “soon”? I’m not splitting hairs, here, as to what
“soon,” means so let’s keep it simple: do you expect Jesus to return today,
this week, this month? I think the answer is “probably not.” At best, we’ve
been lulled into ambivalence by Jesus’ long delay; at worst, the world has duped
us into almost not caring. While we believe Jesus is coming, we have lost the
sense of expectation, urgency, and even desire. We’re so busy enjoying this
life that we are forgetting about the life of the world to come when He returns.
This morning’s Gospel lesson is
most commonly known as the Palm Sunday reading, also known as the Passion of
our Lord. You may have been wondering if I had the right Gospel lesson, even –
after all, that is supposed to be read in the spring, a week before Easter.
True. But the early Church chose this text as the first Sunday of Advent to refocus
our eyes and our minds on the news that Jesus comes.
St. Mark tells us that at the
beginning of Holy Week, with all of it’s own astounding events, Jesus enters
Jerusalem to the shouts of the crowds. Shouts of “Hosanna!” and “Blessed is the
name of the Lord!” echo down the streets while others soften the donkey’s
footsteps with their cloaks and palm branches. It was the entry celebration
worthy of a king, a man of noble birth, and the welcome arrival of a conqueror
and liberator.
After all, they had seen Jesus
power over illness: He had restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf,
power to dead limbs and breath to dead bodies. He drove evil spirits out of
people and into swine. He calmed storms that threatened to sink ships. And he
fed thousands of people with only a boy’s lunch. History tells us that at this
point in time, Israel – and especially Jerusalem as the capitol city – was prime
for a revolution. Zealots hated the Roman army and government being in their
city. Surely, this is the kind of King who could make Israel great again! Lower
corporate taxes, get rid of government oversight, reduce public debt, separate church
and state and bring dignity back to the palace, just as David had done long
ago. Why, this Jesus might be just the guy to back – and maybe he can set us
free.
Wait…were those the wants of Ancient
Jerusalem, or are those the wants of so many Christians today? Is it perhaps
true that we aren’t so different than those ancient Jersualem dwellers, where
we expect our own socio-political messiah in our own idea of what Jesus should
be like? Perhaps we should rethink blaming
the people of Jerusalem for making such a mistake, such a misunderstanding.
After all, if we are honest, we make similar mistakes of what we expect of
Jesus’ coming as well. What kind of Jesus are you waiting for? A Jesus who will
make you rich and eliminate your debt? A Jesus who can tighten skin wrinkles,
rejuvenate hair growth, and burn cellulite? A Jesus who will bring your spouse
back? A Jesus who will make your children love you again? A Jesus who will get
you the corner office, or the starting lineup, or admission to the perfect
college? A Jesus who will make loved ones walk and remember? A few years ago,
there was a movie starring Will Farrell where he played a race car driver who
was completely brainwashed by fame and fortune. As he and his family sat down
to eat, he began to say grace. He said something like this, “Dear sweet little
baby Jesus…” His wife interrupted and said, “You know, that baby Jesus grew up
and became a man; why do you keep praying to baby Jesus? He said something
like, “I don’t like that kind of Jesus… I like the baby Christmas Jesus best,”
and resumed praying “Dear Lord, 8 pound six ounce baby Jesus…”
The prayer was a terribly sad
commentary on our culture: we pick and chose the kind of Jesus we want. Too
often, the world has wanted a political Messiah, one who could put a loaf on
every plate and a donkey in every garage. Then, and today, people lose sight of
what God’s Messiah is to be: not a socio-political leader of the rebellion, a
Jedi from Judah, if you will, who would use God’s power for righting wrongs and
putting bad people back in their places. No…God’s Messiah would do those things
– yes, but not the way it was expected.
Jesus wasn’t coming to establish
a throne; His throne had been established before eternity ever began. He wasn’t
coming to overthrow Rome or any political party; He put government in authority
as His representative in the first place. He wasn’t coming to make sure no stomach
was left behind; He comes to give the Bread of Life to hungry souls. He wasn’t
coming to wipe out sickness and disease; He comes to rescue a fallen world from
the effects of the fall of sin. He wasn’t coming to fight for land and
territory; He comes to rescue His own world. He wasn’t coming to do battle with
an army of soldiers; He was coming to defeat Satan once and for all. But the
way of this wasn’t power and prestige. It was the way of the cross.
The cross stands as our Advent
reminder. Advent: remember, it means coming. Advent is a season of preparation.
It is not yet Christmas. While the world around us has had Christmas trees and
lights up since October, the church is still waiting. Don’t get me wrong: you
absolutely can say “Merry Christmas,” send and receive Christmas cards, and play
your favorite Bing Crosby, Pentatonix, or Barry Manilow Christmas CD. You can
put up your tree and deck the halls and start sampling the Christmas fruitcake
and eggnog. Nothing wrong with that. But the Church…well, we’re waiting. So,
you aren’t going to hear too many Christmas hymns; the readings don’t take us
to Bethlehem where this thing has come to pass; we won’t hear of angels and
shepherds for a few more weeks. No…the Church waits. We wait in expectation to
celebrate Christ’s Nativity because it also serves to help us wait in expectation
for Christ’s return.
Waiting is hard work. So, to
strengthen us in our waiting, Jesus comes now. In the Lord’s Supper, Christ
comes to us in this sacramental way, feeding us on His very body and blood for
the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith in Him as we
wait. Christ, truly present, comes to us in this meal.
I said the world has already
moved to Christmas and the church waits, and yet you see the tree and the
lights. Yeah…even Christian churches have allowed a taste of Christmas to sneak
in. That’s OK. Because what remains, always before us, is the cross. The Cross leads
us into Advent. Remember: the reason Jesus entered into time in the Nativity by
taking on flesh and blood was to be our Savior from sin. “You shall call his
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins,” the angel told Joseph.
From manger to Cross: Behold: Your Advent king comes.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come.
Amen.
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