Ad Te Levai, the First Sunday in Advent
Romans 13.11-14 + Matthew 21.1-9
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” These words from the prophet Zechariah, and Christ’s fulfillment of them on Palm Sunday, perfectly teaches His first advent in two ways. First, the King comes to you. We do not come to Him; and second, He does not come to you as earthly kings do, collecting taxes and tribute, demanding service and homage. He comes lowly and humble, not to take but give.
Your King comes to you because you cannot come to Him by your own reason, strength, or willpower. You are descendants of Adam and Eve, who disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, corrupted themselves with sin, and passed their sin and its guilt to every single one of their descendants born in the natural way, that is, born of a man and woman. Your sinful nature does the same thing theirs did once they corrupted themselves. Feeling shame at their nakedness, they attempted to cover that shame by covering their private parts with fig leaves sewn together. This is what we do when we become aware of our sin, when we feel shame over who we are or what we have done. We try to cover our shame by sewing excuses together and clothe ourselves in them. And like our first parents, we flee at the sound of God’s voice. They heard God calling for them and they hid themselves. They did not want to come to God, and neither does the sinful nature we inherited from them. The sinful nature only wants to flee from God, and it’s understanding is darkened so much that it imagines it can flee and successfully hide from God. Like Adam and Eve, we, sharing their corrupted nature, cannot come to God, nor do we want to.
Nor, when He arrives, can you offer him anything. There is nothing you have that He needs. He says in Psalm 50:12, “The world is Mine, and all its fullness.” Nor do you possess anything in yourself that is worthy of Him. You are not so good that you can offer Him your goodness. You are not so righteous that you can give Him any of your righteousness. In fact, the inspired prophet laments in Isaiah 64:6, “We are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.” Not only do we have nothing to offer God, we deserve nothing but condemnation from Him.
This is why Jesus—the King—comes to you. He comes to you because you cannot, of yourselves, come to God. This is why Jesus—the King—comes to you lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. He becomes flesh and comes to you in lowliness so that He might call you to Himself. He does not come in condemnation, wrath, and judgment, though we deserve it. He comes in the flesh to take your deserved condemnation upon Himself, so that all who believe in Him might not perish but have eternal life. When James and John want to call down fire from haven to consume a town of Samaritans that rejected Jesus, Jesus tells them, “For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them” (Lk 9:56). He says in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Jesus the Christ—the King—comes to you, lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey, so that you might know Him chiefly as your King who comes to you to give you rest, to take your burden—the guilt of your sin—and replace it with His burden, which is the gospel, by forgiving your sins, giving you His perfect righteousness, and promising everlasting life to all endure unto the end in faith.
This doesn’t mean that Jesus never condemned sin during His first advent. Jesus showed many how they fell short of God’s standard in the Law. He condemned the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, the unbelief of the Sadducees, and called all people to repent of their sins. That must be done. In order to call people to believe in the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’ sake, people must first believe they are sinners in need of forgiveness. Just as sick men won’t seek medicine if their illness isn’t diagnosed, so Christ diagnoses sin in those who hear Him so that they might seek from Him, the Good Physician, the medicine of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and salvation. Nor does the fact that Jesus came to save and not destroy mean that there is no judgment at all. Jesus says in John 12[:47-48], “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him — the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” The day will come when Christ returns to judge those who have rejected Him and refused to believe His teaching. But during His first advent He came to seek and save that which was lost by calling sinners to repentance.
What Jesus did during His earthly ministry continues today and will continue until the day He returns to judge the quick and the dead. It is still His first advent, after all. His second advent—His second coming in glory—is not yet. Although He is ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, and fills all things so that all things are present to Him, His ministry continues through the Holy Ministry, which He established to preach the gospel. He continues to call sinners to repentance so that their sins might escape the wrath to come when He returns in glory. He continues to offer rest to the soul who labors under the heavy burden of sin and guilt and wants to be free of them. He gives you His Holy Spirit to create faith in your heart, so that by faith He might replace your guilty burden with His gospel burden as often and just as quickly as you repent of your sins. He gives you His Holy Spirit to renew your heart and mind, so that you no longer flee from God, or sew together excuses to cover your sins, but receive Him and the gifts He comes to bring to all who truly repent.
And having received Christ and His forgiveness—which is His rest for your soul—by faith, the Holy Spirit then moves you to do as the people did on Palm Sunday who received the King in faith. They spread their clothes on the road to prepare a highway for Jesus. The clothing you lay before Him is the Old Man, your sinful nature with its passions and desires. You lay down the sinful nature so that Jesus may trample it underfoot and provide you with a new garment, the robe of His righteousness. St. Paul exhorts you to this each day, especially as your salvation—that is, Christ’s return in glory—grows nearer with each passing day. He says, “Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” Because your King comes to you, lowly and gently, offering you the forgiveness of your sins each day and His Holy Spirit, cast off your sins whenever you feel them in your flesh, and put on Christ as an armor against them, to protect you from their guilt and so that you make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.
Others in the crowd on Palm Sunday cut down palm branches others cut down palm branches—the ancient symbol of victory—and spread them in Jesus’ path. The palm branches you set before the Lord are your praises for the victory that He has won for us on the cross, but also for the victory over your sins He works in you each day as you grow in holiness. As often as there is victory over temptation, no matter how little it may seem, we lay that victory before Christ in thanksgiving, recognizing that it came, not from your own strength, but from His working in you by His word. For His victory for you and His victory in you, offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name (Heb 13:15), even as the crowd that received its King in faith shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD! Hosanna in the highest!” It is still the first advent of your King. He still comes to you, lowly and gently in His Word, to woo you with His blessings and invite you into the rest He provides for your souls. Lay down the garment of your flesh at Christ’s feet, put on Christ, and praise Him until His second advent. Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
