Bible Passage: Luke 19:28-40
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: December 1, 2024

Bulletin December 1, 2024

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

I will confess at the outset, this feels a bit strange to me.  Preaching on this text today.  Did it strike you as odd?  This reading is historically read on Palm Sunday.  This is the account of Jesus entering Jerusalem for the final time.  This is a Holy Week text!  And yet, here we are.  It is the appointed reading for today, the first Sunday of Advent.  We are beginning a new church year today!  We have decorated for Christmas!  We are thinking about Jesus’ birth and his coming into this world to be our Savior!  We are thinking ahead to when Jesus will come again on Judgment Day!  This is what Advent is supposed to be about!

But when you think about it, this text fits.  The word “advent” means “coming to” or an “arrival.”  This text is the story of an “advent.”  It is the story of Jesus “coming to” Jerusalem.  It is the story of his arrival to complete the work for which he was born.  Our text today will help us appreciate the Advent we begin today.  And so this morning we will go back to Palm Sunday and we will Find Advent in an Unlikely Place.

The first unlikely thing about the advent of our text is described in the first verses of our text.  As Jesus gets close to Jerusalem, he instructs two of his disciples to go to the village ahead and fetch a donkey’s colt and bring it back.  They do as the Lord instructed them and return with the colt.  They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. (v. 35)  What an unlikely place for Jesus to be when he arrives in Jerusalem!  Here is God’s Son atop a little donkey!  I bet King Herod never rode around Jerusalem sitting a little donkey!  That would look silly!  Indeed, arriving on a donkey is an unlikely advent for God’s Son.

But it pleased Jesus to have these humble advents.  Think of the advent we will celebrate in a few weeks.  Think of how Jesus arrived in this world.  God could have opened the sky and created a stairway of pure gold for his Son to walk down.  But what do we see instead? God comes into the world through a birth canal!  What an unlikely place to find the Advent of Jesus!

Jesus still delights to come to us in humble ways.  Think of how Jesus comes to us.  He comes to us through words, the Word of God.  Spoken words.  Written words.  A book!  Ink on paper.  Words spoken into the air.  Sound waves that strike and vibrate our eardrums.  But through that Word, Christ comes to us.  He comes in the water of Holy Baptism.  He comes with his cross and his empty tomb.  Through water and Word he works death and life, crucifixion and resurrection.  Through water and Word!  What an unlikely place to find the Advent of Jesus.  Or look at the altar.  A little plate of thin wafers.  Trays of little plastic cups, each with a sip of wine.  Yet Jesus comes to us in, with, under the bread and wine.  He gives us himself.  He gives us forgiveness.  He does not come to us in bars of gold, but in bread and wine.  What an unlikely place to find the advent of Jesus!

Here we might mention one more unlikely place to find Jesus coming.  Jesus says that on the last day all nations will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. (Matthew 24:30)  That’s right.  The Jesus who arrived on Palm Sunday on a donkey will next be seen on the clouds of the sky with power and glory!  Riding on water vapor in the sky!  What an unlikely place to find the Advent of Jesus!

Returning to our text, we see another unlikely feature of Jesus’ advent on Palm Sunday.  If we look at the reception Jesus gets we notice he arrives to a mixed reaction.  There are some who welcome with shouts of joy and praise.  But we can’t help but notice the negative reaction of some of the others.  Some Pharisees tell Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples!  Not just be quiet.  “Rebuke them!”  Scold them!  Tell them they are wrong for welcoming Jesus this way!

What is so unlikely about Jesus coming to this?  Isn’t that different than what we see so often?  Political leaders or wanna-be’s surround themselves with yes-men and yes-women who flatter them.  Candidates go to rallies that are pre-populated with friendlies.  They don’t want to be seen being booed or heckled.  Jesus comes to a city, to people, who “boo” and “heckle” him and want him dead.

That is what makes the coming of God’s Son into this world so astounding.  He came into a world hostile to him!  As John begins his gospel, he says this about Jesus, He came to that which was his own but his own did not receive him (John 1:11)   Later in John’s gospel, Jesus says to his disciples, The world cannot hate you, but it hates me. (John 7:7)   Jesus came to a world that hates him!  What an unlikely place to find the Advent of Jesus!

We still see this today, don’t we?  We see in our world a hostility to celebrating Jesus coming into this world.  We are rebuked.  We are told we must not talk of Christ at Christmas!  Don’t call it a “Christmas tree”!  It is a “holiday tree.”  Don’t wish people a “Merry Christmas”!  Say “Happy Holidays.”  Don’t put a nativity set up in your yard for decoration!  That might offend somebody who hates Jesus.  Yet this is the world Jesus “advented” to!

It is all so unlikely!  It is more than just “unlikely.”  It is all so undeserved.  That is why it is a story of grace.  His birth.  His life.  His death for sin.  His rising again.  His ascension to heaven.  His return one day to take you home.  Grace, all of it.  Jesus “advents” when anyone else would “exit”!  Praise God for the wonderful, unlikely “advents” of Jesus!  He came to bear our sin, he comes in Word and Sacrament, and he will come again to take you home!  Amen.