The season of Advent is about the arrival of the King to His kingdom. The Church’s Advent season begins today with the arrival of Jesus on a colt, a donkey to the cheers of the crowd.  The rest of the world began an Advent season of sorts, a coming if you will, a few days ago with the arrival of the biggest shopping day of the year, “Black Friday”.  People cheering to the stores opening at 5am. Clothes and branches laid down at the feet of Jesus. Check books and Visa cards laid down at the feet of retailers. Two questions deserving of an answer this day.  One asks, what’s in your wallet? The other asks, what’s in your heart?  The one has done all the clever advertising and offers us just what we want on sale. The other knows us better than we know ourselves and offers us just what we need for free. Two voices reaching out for our attention. The one voice says, Behold, the X-Box 360 and all the other latest and greatest gadgets. The other, Behold, the Lamb of God.

                The church has been observing the season of Advent for many centuries.  But it has never been more important for the Church to carefully observe this season than in this time, when the competition for our attention is at its fiercest.  I urge all of you to be diligent in attending worship and bible study during the season of Advent.  It is through the means of Grace and the learning of God’s Word that He establishes your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
                 So let us fix our eyes on Jesus and watch, as He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Here is the object of your faith. Here is the Savior who comes to save us in answer to our collect for today:

“Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance.”

                God has answered that prayer. God so loved the world that He sent His only Son from down heaven to ride into Jerusalem so that he may die. The prophet Zechariah saw it 500 years beforehand and in perfect Advent style says, “Behold, your king comes to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey.(Zech. 9:9).”

                Not exactly the mighty deliverance we had in mind. Humble and mounted on a donkey.  It might be better for us to see this from heavens perspective to be sure this is really the answer to our prayer.  This is how the book of Revelation describes Jesus Coming: “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which He is called is The Word of God, And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”

                Now that’s more like what we had in mind!  That’s more like what we prayed for, Oh that God would rip open the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at His presence and the entire world would know that He is the one true God.  Have you ever noticed how many of our prayers to God come with instructions? Stir up your power, come that by you protection we may be rescued. Wouldn’t we all love to see the Lord use some of that power of His and punish the wicked and crush the evil doers? Of course there is that little problem of praying for these things while we ourselves are part of the problem and contribute our fair share of evil to the situation.

                Do we really want Him to come to us as He came to Adam who sinned? Or as He came to Cain who had the blood of his brother on his hands? Or as He came to the unrighteous world in the days of Noah or the people who were so proud of their technology at Babel or the sexually immoral at Sodom and Gomorrah?

                The more we think about this, the more we are ready to rejoice and be glad that our King comes to us humble and mounted on a donkey-­Better for us that we watch Him on a donkey rather then a white horse- That we watch Him in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger rather then with eyes aflame with fire and many diadems on His head- That we see Him treading the winepress of the fury of God as He is mocked, flogged and crucified rather then treading the fury against us.  Better for us that he rule over us with those gentle and gracious words that come from His mouth than with that sharp sword.

                 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, as He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Here is the object of your faith, your Savior who comes to save you. Not with power and might but with weakness, humbleness, suffering and death. The glory days will come when He will execute justice and righteousness in the land, you can be sure of that. One day we will see Him in heaven as heaven sees Him. But for now, behold, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey.

                 Behold is a word to wake us up. It’s a word that clears the head of the distractions encircling us.  It demands that we stop and watch!  Behold, means something great, something remarkable has taken place that we have never seen. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord… Behold, a virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son.   Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Behold, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation. He is your righteousness and your salvation.  Trust in the promises the Word of God announces to you.

                Things are never what they seem when it comes to faith. What is a donkey in Jerusalem is a mighty white horse from heaven’s perspective.  He who rides on it seems so lowly but is highly exalted.  For all the world sees the most humble servant but he is really and truly the King of kings and Lord of lords. He rides forth to die and His death is your life.

                  Behold, your king comes to you. You didn’t come to Him. You didn’t make the first move or take the first step nor were you willing to receive Him.   He found you while you were dead in your sins. His Word found you and made its way into your heart through your ears. He breathed His sweet, life giving breath into you while you were still lifeless.  And His Word is enough to wake the dead.  His light shattered your darkness.  You cry in the Divine service, Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!  You say this because of what has been done to you in the waters of baptism; you shout this because you come with the name of the Lord marked on your forehead delivering you from the evil one.  

                 Your faith comes from Him and everything that faith works in you, comes from him; and where He does not come there is no faith and you remain outside; and where there is no Gospel there is no God with righteousness and having salvation, but only sin, death and hell. The greatest curse of God upon the world is if He would withhold His Word and it not be preached or administered in the sacraments. For then, there is no way to be saved.  But he speaks his Word clearly to His Church wanting to feed us with his saving Word and gifts.

                So what do we do from here? The same as what those in the past have done. We spread our cloaks on the road and let Him walk over them. These cloaks are what Isaiah the prophet refers to as the polluted garments of our righteous deeds. We confess our sins and lay them under His feet that He may trample over them. He loves to trample over our sins.  He loves for you to recall your baptism.  He rejoices in the words of Absolution spoken to you.  He is overjoyed in you receiving His meal here today.  He is delighted in the delivering of the forgiveness of sins because He trampled and stamped them out in His holy and bloody passion.  Christ is the gift giver as he comes to you and He has so much to give to you.

     We, at times, can speak the words of confession so superficially, but Christ comes to you so deliberately with His rich word of forgiveness.  We so often profess our faith in the words of the creed like we are ordering from some fast food restaurant drive through.   Expecting them to get our order wrong, but Christ has kept all His promises and gets it all right in those ancient words because He came to save not condemn us. We can sing “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”, not because of how we confess our sins or profess our faith because, heaven knows we would surely perish on such merit.  But our Advent King comes to us forgiving our sins and keeping His promises.  He rides into a receptive crowd now, but the shouts of “crucify Him” will come quickly and for that He moves forward so you can enter eternal life blessed and in the name of the Lord.   Now, watch our King this Advent season as He fulfills all He has promised you.  He delivers to you just what you need to endure to eternal life.