Sermon for Advent I
Matthew 21:1-9
Advent I
November 29, 2009
There is a wonderful sequence in the film version of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons in which Sir Thomas More and his wife are informed- with no notice at all, really- that King Henry VIII has decided on a whim to stop by on the way home for a visit.
A royal visit was not something one dared take lightly. Immediately the More household was flung into a frenzy of preparation. From somewhere, a huge banquet literally fit for a king was laid out. No trouble or expense was spared. The king, of course, would protest that no trouble was necessary, especially when the visit was on such short notice. But that, of course, was nonsense. Not to be prepared to receive the king would have been an insult to him, and insulting the king was not a good idea. And More knew this king in particular well enough to realize that for all his protests that elaborate preparations were unnecessary, it was a good thing for More and his family that they’d been able to prepare in time
Royal visits were an enormous hardship, and only the wealthiest of subjects could afford to have the king do him the honor of dropping by. But on the whole, they felt about it pretty much the way the man Abraham Lincoln told about felt about being tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a rail- that if it weren’t for the honor of the thing, he would just as soon have walked. A royal visit could easily bankrupt a man. It had happened more than once.
And so, the royal barge pulled up to Thomas More’s dock. Sir Thomas and his family made a great show of being surprised. The king chatted with More for few moments, tested More’s daughter, Meg, on her Latin- and after a few minutes left again, with even less warning than he’d given that he was coming, and not having tasted a bite of the huge and expensive feast that More had laid out for him.
The King is coming to us, to. That visit is far more of an unmixed blessing. He came in poverty and lowliness that first Christmas, and made his bed with the cattle. He walked the length and breadth of the Holy Land staying where He could and eating what was offered. He Himself had nowhere to lay His head.
He suffered. He died. He rose. He ascended. And all of that royal visit was more than simply an act of condescension. Where the visit of an earthly king might bankrupt a man, the visit of the King of Kings bought the greatest of all treasures for those to whom He came: forgiveness, life and salvation, purchased at the cost of His blood.
He comes again each Sunday in the Divine Service- again, as before, not to be served, but to serve; not so much to receive our homage as to give us that without which we cannot live. He is present in His Word and in His sacramental body and blood to nourish and sustain us. He is present in His body, the Church, and supports us in the trials and tribulations of this life by sharing them with us in the person of our Christian brother and sister , and helps us to bear our burdens.
No, it is no surprise that the King is coming. December brings Christmas every year, and late every November Advent comes again to bid us make ready. The King is coming. But how do we prepare for such a King? How do we greet Him?
For two thousand years wise and holy men have written of the spiritual preparations it is fitting for us to make. The Great Lakes could easily be filled with the ink that has been spilled on the subject. Sometimes we read a book or two, or undertake some special discipline to prepare our souls to meet the coming King. Lent is a penitential season; traditionally it’s a time to prepare by struggling extra hard against our own besetting sins. But if the truth be told, we’re generally so harried and harassed by the preparations we have to make for the giving and receiving of gifts, the throwing of parties, and the other social aspects of the Christmas season to spend nearly as much time as we should getting ready for the coming of the King.
Scripture tells us that when Jesus comes again in judgment, it will be like the lightning flashing from the east to the west. From that passage, the tradition developed of building churches in such a way that the altar was in the east, and the congregation worshipped facing the direction from which the Lord was expected to return. Inside a church, the compass ceases to count; whatever part of the church the altar is in is the east.
I’ve always been a little amused, though, by a pattern that held at Bethany in Webster Groves, Missouri when I was pastor there, and in both St. Paul’s in Kellogg and St. Andrew’s in. Sully. It’s repeated itself here at Saint Mary. Nobody planned it, of course, and it doesn’t really mean anything. But I get a chuckle every Christmas eve out of the symbolism of the fact that we worship that night facing a direction from which somebody else is expected momentarily: the north! It’s almost as if we’ve been given as a Christmas present an additional reminder of just how easy it us even at Christmas to forget that the Lord is coming.
Christmas comes every year. Whatever direction we face on Christmas Eve, a far more important question persists: how do we orient our souls so as to meet the coming King? Orient. There’s that business about direction again. The word “orient,” when used as a verb, means to align ourselves, or to get our bearings. But when used as a noun or an adjective, it’s a synonym for the word “east.” It entered the English language as a reminder of the importance of being prepared to meet the One Who is expected from that direction.
So how do we orient ourselves? How do we prepare ourselves for the visit of a King far greater than any earthly ruler, and due far more reverence? If the visit of an earthly king is a big deal, how much more important is the coming of the King of Kings?
And once again, how do we meet Him? The people of Jerusalem met Him with palm branches, and called on Him to save them. And perhaps we can take a hint from that as to how we might prepare.
We use purple paraments here at Saint Mary. Purple is the color of penitence- and penitence is surely a fitting way to meet the King. But in recent years it’s become a common practice for Lutheran churches (bearing in mind the fact that Lent, the greatest of penitential seasons, is not so very far away) to make a different choice. In order to suggest the difference between Advent and Lent, and to summon us to prepare for the coming of the King in the way that is most fitting, these churches use paraments of blue- the color of hope.
And hope is what Advent is all about. The enslaved people of Jerusalem, groaning under the Roman yoke, called upon Jesus to save them. And perhaps the most powerful Advent banner I’ve ever seen- the one that comes the closest to the real meaning of this season- is one we displayed every year at a church I once belonged to in Chicago, Park View Lutheran.
It was simply two hands, shackled at the wrists, raised imploringly upward. Above was that marvelous Syriac word, Maranatha- a word which means at the very same time “The Lord will come,” “the Lord is coming,” “The Lord has come,” and the special prayer of all of us who are in bondage to sin and to doubt and to worry and to all the other things which metaphorically shackle our hands as we lift them heavenward, and cry
out, “Come, O Lord!”
And come He does, to heal our infirmities, to free us from bondage, to forgive our sins, and to raise what is dead and dying within us to life. Our King comes to us as He came to the children of Israel that first Palm Sunday. He came as a liberator- that much, at least, they understood, even if they weren’t quite clear about what they needed to be saved from.
And perhaps we aren’t, either. Perhaps that’s a part of our own, personal bondage. But whatever form our bondage may take, he comes to us as a liberator, to strike the fetters from our wrists as we lift our hands to reach out and touch Him.
And that, I think, is the answer to the question of how one best prepares to meet the coming King. Unlike Thomas More, we need not go into debt to meet him; He comes to bestow His riches upon us, instead. He does not come to demand special disciplines or spiritual exercises. What pleases Him most is not so much our own weak and sorry struggles to free ourselves, but rather that we reach our hands out to him, showing Him our chains, and calling out, “Maranatha!-“ “Come, O Lord!-“ and “Hosanna-“ “Save us!-“ to the King Who comes to set us free.
Well do we sing this Advent the words of the great Paul Gerhardt,
I lay in fetters, groaning,
Thou com'st to set me free;
I stood, my shame bemoaning,
Thou com'st to honor me;
A glory Thou dost give me,
A treasure safe on high,
That will not fail or leave me
As earthly riches fly.
Love caused Thy incarnation,
Love brought Thee down to me;
Thy thirst for my salvation
Procured my liberty.
O love beyond all telling,
That led Thee to embrace,
In love all loves excelling
Our lost and fallen race!
Rejoice, then, ye sad-hearted,
Who sit in deepest gloom,
Who mourn o’er joys departed
And tremble at your doom.
Despair not; He is near you,
Yea, standing at the door
Who best can help and cheer you
And bids you weep no more.
May the peace of God, that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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