Text:  Mark 11:1-10                                                                                                  1 Advent

Receiving the King

            In the name of our coming King, dear brothers and sisters in Christ:  You are aware that I took the liberty of changing the Gospel reading for this morning from the one printed on the back of the bulletin. That one, the reading I didn’t use, has to do with watchfulness.  It’s a real good text for this Sunday because it connects the last part of the preceding church year, with its themes of the end times and preparing for Christ’s future coming in glory, to the beginning of Advent and the new church year, with its message of preparing for Christ’s coming at Christmas.  In both cases the idea is the same:  Christ is coming; we need be watching and preparing so that we’re ready for him when he gets here.

            So you may be wondering why I switched from that text which fits so well to use one that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with either the end times or Advent.  I’m sure most of you recognize this morning’s Gospel reading (the one I used) as describing the events of Palm Sunday – which we will celebrate about five months from now, the week before Easter Sunday.  So, What’s the deal?  Are we jumping the gun, or is the pastor confused, or is he just trying to confuse us?

Well, it may surprise you to discover that the text I switched to is really the more traditional reading for the first week of Advent; has been for centuries – so if there’s a mistake, I’m in good company.  And though it may not seem to fit in terms of the timeline (putting Easter before Christmas), with a little imagination you can see that it fits today’s theme very well.  Yes, our King is coming; and we need to be watchful and prepared.  But this reading has to do with the King’s arrival.  It tells us something about how he comes and how we are to receive him. Let me explain:

The story itself is quite simple.  It’s the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and now he is coming to the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish capital.  This city is the center of life for God’s people.  This is the place of the holy temple, the nexus of all prophetic and priestly activity.  This is the place from which the great Kings David and Solomon ruled, and from which, according to the ancient prophecies, another far greater King would arise and rule over God’s people forever.  And now, we know, that King has come.

But notice how he comes:  no marching bands and trumpet fanfares; he’s not riding a war chariot, or sitting astride a white stallion leading and column of heavily armed soldiers. There are no banners unfurled.  He wears no kingly robe or crown.  Instead, he is dressed in peasant’s clothes, and is riding a borrowed donkey.  He doesn’t look like much of a King.  His “army” consists of a dozen common men – Galilean fishermen and a few others from other walks of life.  The cheering crowd that turns out to meet the long-expected King is relatively small, and is made up of peasants and street people.  Most of the people in the city take little or no notice of his coming. The religious leaders, those you might expect should be most alert and enthusiastic about his arrival, are openly hostile.  They are plotting to kill him.  It’s not at all unlike the reception he got at his birth.  No royal palace, no highly trained nurses to attend him, no lacey bassinet in which to sleep, no crowds gathering to rejoice at the good news; instead we get a peasant family in a barn, a manger for a crib, and a few tired, smelly shepherds to welcome him.  And when the authorities find out he’s been born, they try to kill him.

There’s a message here for us:  this King does not come like we would expect a king to come.  No, he comes in lowliness and humility.  He comes in an unobtrusive way.  You might say he is hidden in plain sight.  When he comes, he is noticed by very few – and very often not by the people you would expect.  And when he comes, there is controversy because some perceive him as a threat.

This is important for us because until he comes in glory and every eye beholds him and every knee bends, this is the way he comes to us now. He comes today to his new Jerusalem, his Church – this the center of life for God’s people.  This is where the holy temple is built with living stones—I’m speaking of faithful people, not a building.  This Church is where his people welcome him as their King.  But most, even in here the Church, do not notice his coming.  That’s because he comes in humility and lowliness, hidden in plain sight.  He comes to us chiefly through his Word – that’s how he enters his Church.  And most of us think, “Eh, just another Bible reading.”  Wrong.  That’s Christ coming to us.  A few moments ago we saw the King come in here hidden in a few of handfuls of simple water – and most people in the Church missed it—maybe not in here, but I speak of the whole of Christendom:  most do not understand that Christ the King comes to us in Baptism. In a short while we see him come to us again in the Holy Supper he gave us; and again, most people in his new Jerusalem are completely oblivious to it.  Comparatively speaking, in the whole Christian Church only a handful ever see and welcome the King as he comes to them under the humble form of bread and wine. The rest, like the majority of those living in ancient Jerusalem, peek out their windows to see what all the commotion is and say, “Humph; sure doesn’t look like a king to me!” and they go about their business without ever recognizing the day of his visitation. Others, some of who have devoted their lives to reading and studying the Scriptures, become openly hostile at the suggestion that this is the King coming into our midst in the Word, in Baptism, and in the Supper.

But by God’s grace, you do see how our King comes in here in these lowly ways. You are among those who join in the little procession that welcomes the King as he enters Jerusalem.  But this passage tells us not so much about recognizing as it does about receiving the King when you do see him.  And the message is communicated in various symbols and symbolic actions present in the story.

The first symbol is the donkey colt.  You know that donkeys have a reputation for being among the most stubborn and obstinate of creatures – even when well trained.  They just don’t want to do what you want them to.  And here we have one that hasn’t even been trained.  You can well imagine his resistance to any kind of external control – which is why we find him securely tied up.  In him we have a perfect representation of mankind’s sinful nature:  headstrong, independent, unbending.  And if you know anything about the history of God’s people, you know this donkey is a walking portrait of the citizens of Jerusalem.  Throughout their history the Lord tried both the carrot and the stick more times than you can count to get them to be his faithful, obedient people; but nothing worked.  In the end, the Lord left them tied up – tied up with his Law, that is.  Because they refused to understand or receive his words of grace, he allowed them to become tied up with tight restrictions about what to eat, how to dress, how to worship, and how to do just about everything you can think of.  He literally bound them up with the law.  And this is the condition of anyone who rejects God’s grace and thinks he can earn his own salvation:  he becomes preoccupied with rules.  “Surely if I obey all the rules, the Lord will be happy with me.”  But God’s Law is like one of those Chinese finger traps: the more force you apply … the harder you try to obey it – because you’re convinced you have to do it on your own – the more tightly it holds you.

But look what happens:  Christ sends two of his disciples to untie the colt.  He even tells them exactly what to say—he puts his own words in their mouths.  And they go and say his words.  They untie the donkey and bring it to Jesus.  And it doesn’t fight and kick and bray like you would expect.  Instead, it gladly submits itself to Jesus who truly set it free.  Now, here’s a picture of the ideal reception of the King.  Christ sends his messengers to free us with his Word.  They untie us from the Law and the delusion that we can save ourselves.  They bring us to Him who keeps the Law for us and who forgives our sin.  Then, changed inside by his love, we gladly and willingly serve him.  That’s the ideal picture; the trouble is that we aren’t ideal subjects.

We are more like these people in the crowd.  Their outward actions and the words they speak are symbolically right on target; but unfortunately there is a disconnect between their outward actions and their inward intent.  Take, for example, the stripping off of their outer garments.  They intend it as act of homage.  The idea was to create a sort of a makeshift “red carpet” to honor Jesus, as was sometimes done in the ancient world to welcome a conquering hero.  Because clothes were very expensive in those days, this was a tremendous act of sacrifice. And the message they intended to communicate by this action is, “Hey Jesus, look at what I am willing to do for you. And if I’m willing to do this, you can be sure that you can count on me for anything.  I’m your faithful servant.  I’ll follow you anywhere.”  Now, on the surface that sounds fine and dandy; but it’s exactly the wrong attitude to have when receiving this King.  Why?  Because it’s all about me again.  It’s all about “what I will do for you, O Lord.”  These people were looking for a king to lead them: to order them, and tell them what they could do.  That’s just the bondage of the Law all over again.

The irony is that symbolically, stripping off their outer garments and laying them at Jesus’ feet carries another message.  In biblical metaphor, clothes represent human achievements and our inflated sense of self-worth.  They are the façade people present to the world that hide who we really are underneath. In the same sense that we conceal our dark thoughts and evil desires, clothing covers up our naked sin and shame, as it were.  And so, removing an outer garment is a gesture of repentance.  I let the façade fall to reveal what I really am:  sinful, naked, helpless, and ashamed.  It’s a confession of not having any worth or ability to save oneself.  So, the symbolic picture here is God’s people repenting, recognizing the futility of their trophies and achievements, and throwing them down before Jesus to let him trample them.  That’s the proper way to receive this King:  not as one who will enlist my help and lead me to victory; but rather as one who will save me because I am helpless to save myself.

This is reinforced by what the people say.  They cry out, “Hosanna!”  That’s an interesting word because it’s one that is usually misused. It’s often thought to be an expression of joy, or praise and adoration.  In fact, at the time of Christ, that’s how most people used it. Certainly that’s what the people in this crowd meant by it.  When they said it, they were thinking, “Yee haw!  Jesus, you really are a great guy.”  And it’s funny, because that’s more or less what most people today think it means.  And so it’s very much like the clothing mistake.  Crying out, “Hosanna!” is intended to say, “Look at me Jesus!  I’m recognizing you as my Lord!  See how devoted to you I am?”

But that isn’t what Hosanna means at all.  It is in fact a prayer of deep need and desperation.  Literally it means, “Oh, please save us now!”  It’s the kind of thing you say when you are utterly helpless and need someone to rescue you.

And here’s my point: these people all recognize the King coming to them.  They do the right actions and they say the right things, but they do not intend their words and actions in the correct way.  They are just going through the motions.  They are not properly receiving the King.  They want someone to reaffirm them to lead them to victory just the way they are. They want a King to give them orders to obey so that they can carry them out for him.  They want to be proud of what they are able to do for their King. But Jesus can’t use followers who are proud sinners seeking to please him.  He wants believers who are broken sinners who are looking for a King to save them.  But this crowd doesn’t want a King like that.  They want more Law, not God’s grace.  And you know how the story goes:  later this same week when they find out that he is not the kind of King that they had hoped for, they will reject him, and they will join the crowd that demands his death.

And what about us?  As we enter the season of Advent, we begin again to prepare to receive our King. The decorations will go up, we’ll retell the beloved Christmas story, we’ll sing the familiar carols, we will recognize his coming to us in his Holy Word and Sacraments … we will go through all the proper motions and say all the right things.  But what’s going on inside?  Will it all be empty ritual and a lot of nostalgic nonsense?  Are we seeking a king to lead us to glory, someone to lead us up to live a life of victory over sin?  Are we asking, “What can I do for Jesus?”  If so, we won’t truly receive the King when he comes.

No, this King does not call us to live for him—he calls us to die with him. He calls us to recognize our weakness and need.  He calls us to realize that our greatest achievements and trophies are filthy rags fit only to be thrown out and stepped on by him.  Then, and only then, can we follow our King to the cross and recognize that there, when he is crowned with thorns and bearing our shame, is he the kind of King that we need.  Then we can see what we are – what we deserve from God – and truly repent.  Then we can renounce ourselves, and follow him downward to death so that he can untie us from our sinful nature, and raise us up again with him to a new life.  Then, filled with his Spirit and transformed by his love, we can be his faithful and willing servants. 

That’s how to we are to receive this King. And that’s important to know because today he comes to you.  This Advent Season, and in those that follow, may the Lord grant us all the repentant hearts that will receive him properly.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!