12.1.24 Sunday Drive to Church

[00:00:00] Good morning St. Paul Lutheran Church, and Happy New Year. It's a Sunday drive to Church for December 1, 2024. Although today begins the year of the New Testament, 1991, this is the new church year, which starts always on the first Sunday in Advent, as we have four Sundays of getting ready for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we enter now into the new church year, into the season of Advent, into the new series of readings. All sorts. Things are begun anew today. And how wonderful that we hear. You'll see it on the bulletin art as well that we hear on the first Sunday of the church year of the triumphal entry of our Lord Jesus into Jerusalem. [00:00:46] It's a really marvelous thing that that Palm Sunday lesson is also Advent one lesson. [00:00:55] And this is because what Jesus did on, on Palm Sunday, riding lowly, humbly into Jerusalem, is what he does every Sunday when he comes in humility and unfolds his heart to us. That heart which is lowly, meek, gentle and lowly of heart. [00:01:20] He unfolds that gentle, lowly heart to us as he comes to us riding not on a donkey, but on his words and on the bread and the wine, bringing his body and blood to us to bless us and to rescue us and to redeem us. And so we thank the Lord that this is who he is and this is what he does. We'll note a couple of things about the church here first and then look at the collect and then talk briefly about each of the lessons, thinking about the church here. The first Sunday of Advent is always the Sunday that's closest to the feast of St. Andrew, which is November 20th 30th. November 30th. So it just so happens that whenever you calculate back the four Sundays before Christmas, it's always going to be Sunday closest to November 30, the feast of St Andrew, which is a really. Andrew is a really interesting guy to think about. In the Scriptures, Andrew was one of the disciples of John the Baptist. Andrew heard John say, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and pointing to Jesus. So Andrew goes and finds his brother Peter, who becomes the chief of the apostles and brings him to Jesus. It's an amazing, amazing story. Andrew takes second place then to his brother Peter and never seemingly complains about it. He goes and he preaches. And tradition says that he died in Acacia, southern Greece, was crucified on the X cross. So rather than the T cross, the X cross, the Chi cross. And so if you look on the windows surrounding our Lord Jesus in The front stained glass window, you'll see the X cross. That's the cross of St Andrew, indicating by what death he died. So it's always the Sunday closest to St. Andrew's Day that we have the first Sunday of the church here, advent one. And we'll also remember that the church here has two major. Oh, you can think of them like road marks or road signs or mountaintops. That is Christmas and Holy Week. So Christmas, the Incarnation and birth of our Lord, Holy Week, the suffering, death, burial, resurrection of our Lord. [00:03:38] And both of those two events have a time of repentance beforehand, a time of fasting before, and a time of feasting and celebration afterwards. So for Holy Week, we have the time of preparation. Repentance and fasting is Lent. And then the time of celebration is Easter and Ascension and fasting. For Christmas we have four weeks of repentance and preparation. That's Advent. And then we have the season of joy and feasting. That's specifically the 12 days of Christmas. And then the season of epiphany, which follows. So we enter now into this preparatory season of Advent, the season of waiting, the season of repentance. [00:04:23] And maybe different than Lent, even though both Advent and Lent have both of those preparatory repentant feels to them, Advent has more of the sense of waiting and longing and looking for the deliverance that's going to be brought about when the Lord comes for us. [00:04:43] Repentance has more of that introspection and self reflection and repenting of our own sins, purging out the old leaven kind of sense to it. In the ancient church, both Advent and Lent were the same color. They were both purple or violet or whatever that liturgical color is that's purplish. [00:05:04] But it was Vatican II that made the change and changed the color of Advent to blue to bring in that sense of waiting and hope. [00:05:14] The problem is the change to blue might undermine the idea that it's a season of repentance, it's a season of fasting. I used to think it was funny that the two times during the year that we get together and have meals together every week are the seasons of Advent and Lent, the seasons of fasting, or when we schedule our meals. But then I realized that the old Lutherans had a piety about that, that you get together not for supper, but for soup supper. So soup is a form of fasting. That's kind of the Lutheran fast. We're not going to eat big chunks of me, we're just going to have some soup, a light meal, remembering that we're still on pilgrimage here below while we wait for the Lord's return. Now, Advent one not only starts the season of Advent, but in a really profound way, it also starts the entire church year. And I think this is why we have the triumphal entry of Jesus. I mentioned this before, but this idea that it's not just the season of Advent that we think about how the Lord comes to us, but it is the entire year, this is the whole point of the church of the New Testament, is that Jesus comes into our midst to bless us and to serve us and to deal gently with us. There's one place in the entirety of the Bible where Jesus tells us about his heart. [00:06:39] It's in Matthew chapter 11, where he says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest, for I am gentle and lowly of heart. [00:06:50] So that Jesus, when he just. He gives us a glimpse into who he is, how his heart is. And he doesn't say that he's glorious of heart or angry of heart, or even holy of heart. He says he's lowly of heart. And that same word, lowly, is the word that Zechariah uses to describe the triumphal entry of Jesus that's quoted in our Gospel lesson. He comes to you lowly, riding on a donkey. So Jesus shows himself to us as the one who is lowly, who is humble, who does not come in terror as the King of Kings, but kind and good with healing in his wings. That's who he is all year. [00:07:37] When we hone into the specific theme of Advent, we see that it speaks of the coming of Jesus to us in a threefold manner. [00:07:47] First, how Jesus came in the incarnation and in his life and ministry, death, resurrection and ascension, his first coming. The second is how he continues to come to us in our midst in his word and sacrament, how he's with us, how he'll never leave us or forsake us. And third, we pick up on the coming in glory that we've been thinking about for the last few weeks. At the end of the church year, he's coming again in glory to judge both the living and the dead. We also have that in Advent. In fact, in the historic one year, it was really amazing how you would go from the parable of the 10 virgins to the triumphal entry of Jesus, to the account of Jesus coming again in glory from the Gospel of Luke, so that you couldn't even tell this transition from the end of the church year to the beginning. It's talking about how the Lord was going to come again in glory. Now it's important for us to remember. I remember when I first started paying attention to the church year and I saw how the seasons emphasized different aspects of the ministry of our Lord, of His person and work. [00:08:56] I almost saw it as this unfolding drama. So that Advent was like Old Testament times. We have to go back and imagine what it was like to be longing for the coming of the Messiah. And we're singing, oh, come O come Emmanuel and ransom, captive Israel. It's like we imagine that we're in the Old Testament listening to the prophets, promised Jesus and that he hasn't come yet. And then in Lent, it was as if we were going with Jesus into the garden and onto the crucifixion. And then Holy Saturday was this time of wondering. And then Easter Sunday, oh, look, he has arisen. It was almost as if we were trying to get into the mindset of the people who were going through those things. And in a way, that exercise can be helpful. But I want to caution us against it too much, because the church here is not play acting. We do not pretend like we don't know if or how the prophecies of the Old Testament are going to be fulfilled. They have been fulfilled. We're not waiting for them anymore. They have been accomplished. We don't go through Holy Week wondering if Jesus is going to be raised from the dead or trying to pretend like we don't know. We know that he's risen from the dead. And so the church here is not for us to kind of relive that drama of the particular time, but it is to try to capture that wisdom for our own day. So just as the people in the Old Testament were waiting for the Lord to come in humility to be born in Bethlehem, now we are waiting for him to come in glory to redeem us. And we thank him that he comes in lowliness to forgive our sins every Sunday. So it's not a pretending, but it is a celebrating and a rejoicing and a teaching and believing that the Lord Jesus has done all of these things. Now, one more thing before we get into the scriptures. Boy, we're 10 minutes in. We gotta get moving. The collect for the first Sunday in Advent. Well, the collects for Advent are very unique and very interesting. [00:11:01] Remember the collect, which is that prayer that gathers everything together. [00:11:06] The collect normally begins with an address, so to the particular person of the Holy Trinity to whom you're praying, and then a rationale, an attribute or act, or a particular piece of wisdom from the Scripture that's going to inform the petition to follow, and then the petition and then the doxology and the conclusion. So it starts with this address and rationale and then petition. And you can normally hear that change when the collect is chanted. So Almighty God, you hate nothing you have made look with grace upon your people. Something like that. In other words, the rationale is high and then the petition is low. But these collects in Advent are straight into the petition stir up. In fact, sometimes they're called the stir up Collects because three of the four of the collects in Advent begin that way. 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. For you live and reign with the Father and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. In fact, there's not even an address in this particular collect. We don't even know to whom we are praying until it gets to the end and says to you with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And we're like. And we realize there. Oh, that we were praying the whole time to Jesus the Son. It's an amazing thing. Stir up your power, O Lord, and come. In fact, almost all of the colics are addressed to God the Father, then the Son and Holy Spirit. There's maybe one or two that are addressed to all three persons. Almost all are addressed to God the Father. Three of the four collects of Advent are addressed to Jesus, and three of the four collects are stirrup the colic. Stir up your power. Stir up your. I can't remember the other ones. Stir up, O Lord, and come. [00:12:58] Now, the three stirrup colics and the three addressed to Jesus are not the same. So there's one addressed to Jesus that's not a stirrup and one stirrup that's addressed to the Father. But I'll let you guys sort out that. But it's an amazing thing is that. Well, I remember this specifically from seminary because they teach you the form of the collect and how to chant the collect and how to understand the collect and how to read the collect. And then you open the hymnal to the very first collect and it blows all of the rules right out of the water. Doesn't follow any of the rules. [00:13:26] And it's kind of the very first one is the exception to all of them. But it's beautiful and it's this prayer of urgency that captures this idea that if the Lord doesn't come to us to rescue us and deliver us, then we're doomed. So we'll pray together. [00:13:42] 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. For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Our psalm is Psalm 100 or, sorry, Psalm 25, 1:10, Psalm 25. If you were looking for a psalm to memorize, Psalm 25 would be one of them. In fact, I was thinking about trying to put a couple of verses with a picture for a calendar for the year of our Lord 2025, because every single word of this psalm is absolutely precious. It's an amazing prayer of praise and request for deliverance. So just get a couple of the verses here. To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul, O my God, and you I trust. Let me not be put to shame. Let not my enemies exult over me. Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame. They shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. Make me to know your ways, O Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. For you I wait all the day long. [00:14:56] How beautiful. He leads the humble in what is right and teaches the humble his way. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. Absolutely beautiful. That's a good one. In fact, we just do the first 10 verses. I'd encourage you to take a look at all the verses of Psalm 25 sometime this week. I think Psalm 25 is the most used psalm in the liturgy. If you just go and look at the historic introits and look at what psalm is being used there, I think that Psalm 25, it's up there, if not the most used. It's close, but I think Psalm 25 is the most used liturgical psalm in the whole Psalter. [00:15:43] Our Old Testament lesson to run through these a little bit quicker is from Jeremiah 33. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah in those days. And at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, Jerusalem will dwell securely, and this is the name by which it will be called. The Lord is our righteousness. In fact, that word is is not in the original Hebrew. It's just simply the Lord our Righteousness. So this is capturing on two things. First of all, Jeremiah is picking up on the preaching of Isaiah. Remember how the Lord describes his people in the Old Testament as a tree? And the problem. And the branch is going to be. The Messiah is going to be one of the branches of the tree. The problem is that the people took that promise and abused it and said, well, we can do whatever we want because the Lord can't chop us down because the Messiah will be born from us. And so Isaiah, the Lord preaches to Isaiah, well, you know what? [00:16:52] The Messiah is going to be a shoot from the stump, which is. That's the great Christmas promise. The shoot from the stump of Jesse. [00:17:01] And we think. [00:17:03] I don't know if we think of what the picture means, but if you get a shoot out of the stump, it's because you chop down the tree. And the Lord is saying, look, I can cause the Messiah to be born from you and also cut you down. [00:17:22] So be not so wantonly proud, humble yourself, or the Lord is going to chop you down. Well, here Jeremiah, who was the. Remember, Isaiah was the. [00:17:35] Isaiah was the prophet in Jerusalem when the north was being destroyed. 7:22 Jeremiah is the prophet in Jerusalem when it is being destroyed. 586, right around there, when Nebuchadnezzar is coming to destroy Jerusalem, the next generation. And so Jeremiah is saying, this promise of Isaiah is being fulfilled. But you have hope. But the hope. Look, the hope is not in yourself. It's never in yourself. This is what Jeremiah is trying to impress on us. The hope is never on yourself. Your hope is only in the Lord. And that's why Luther loved this passage. It comes up a couple of times in Jeremiah, this phrase, for the Lord Jesus, the Lord, our righteousness. Because we normally think our works are righteousness, our deeds are righteousness, our efforts, our righteousness, our life, our righteousness. No, the Lord, our righteousness. This is the doctrine of justification, of the alien righteousness of Christ, of the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus, that we are not our own righteousness, but that righteousness is delivered to us. It's an alien external outside of us, righteousness that's applied to us. [00:18:45] So if we want to be righteous, we have to be found in the Lord. It's beautiful. [00:18:53] The epistle is from 1 Thessalonians, chapter three. It's right in the heart and the middle of 1 Thessalonians. It's a. [00:19:00] Remember, 1 Thessalonians is probably the first book of the New Testament written by Paul on his Second missionary journey, and he's talking about Thanksgiving. So it's really appropriate to follow up on this week of celebration. What thanksgiving can we return to God for you? For all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what's lacking in your faith now. May our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. So that by love we dwell in hope, waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And notice this affection that Paul has for the Thessalonians. And no doubt that's reciprocated from the Thessalonians toward Paul, that the Lord Jesus is working in us a deep affection and love for one another. [00:20:15] So that as we were celebrating the gifts and love that we have with our family and friends at Thanksgiving, that this is also being cultivated in the Lord's church. So you're driving to church and you will sit down amongst people who love you and amongst people that you are called to love and to grow in that love and to grow in that affection. [00:20:39] This is important for us to, I think, more and more as the days get darker and as people become more and more isolated and lonely, and as the devil tries to drive people away from each other, and as most people have fewer and fewer friends, all these things are happening that we have to. You know, it's good to just think about this before we walk into church and say, I'm here to be loved and to love. I remember someone was talking about this. They were. [00:21:07] It was someone talking about they weren't even a Christian, but they were going to church. [00:21:11] Someone said, why are you going to church? He says, well, this is the only place in the world where the people there are required to love me. [00:21:18] And that's right. That's how it should be. Whenever anybody shows up, we are required to love you and also to be loved by you. [00:21:28] How beautiful. Okay, I mentioned already that the Gospel lesson is Luke 19, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. So it takes us back to. To the Sunday before the Resurrection, the first day of Holy Week. And Jesus is staying in Bethany, on the other side of the Mount of Olives. So if you think about it, the Mount of Olives and Mount Zion are Two mountains that are east and west of each other. [00:21:59] The Mount of Olives is east of Jerusalem. So when you sit on the top of the Mount of Olives, you're looking west over Jerusalem. The sun sets behind it. Bethany is on the east side of the Mount of of Olives, and that's where Jesus is staying. So he comes from Bethany on the eastern slope up to the top of the Mount of Olives, and he gets the donkey and he rides down the Mount of Olives through the Kidron Valley, and then up into Jerusalem for Holy Week. At the same time, King Herod was coming probably from the northwest side and making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem as well. So there was these competing triumphal entries. And here Jesus is coming, and they're all singing, hosanna, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord. That's Psalm 118, verse 22, verse 2. Maybe not verse 22. Psalm 118. [00:22:52] Peace in heaven, glory in the highest. And the Pharisees say to him, rebuke your disciples for singing this. [00:22:59] And Jesus says, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out that his praise will be sung in all the world and will do it, or the Lord will choose the rocks to sing for him as well. [00:23:17] I used to have a rock that I picked up from the Mount of Olives on the side of the path going down into Jerusalem. And I thought, this is one of the stones that would have sung out if the disciples and all the children wouldn't have been singing it. But here's the thing that we contrasted the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem with Herod coming into Jerusalem. Herod comes in power. Jesus comes lowly, lowly. This is the key there. His humble, lowly heart, that he comes not to destroy, but in fact to be destroyed. And in his being destroyed, to overthrow sin, death and the devil. That's marvelous. [00:24:04] Our hymn of the week is Savior of the Nations. Come. This is an amazing hymn. It's from St. Ambrose of Milan, who died around 400. Right before 400. So he was Ambrose and St. Augustine. They were contemporaries. [00:24:24] His great church. Father Ambrose, he's one of the first church fathers quoted in the Lutheran Confessions. [00:24:30] He wrote this hymn, and it was translated from Latin into German by Martin Luther, who also loved this hymn. He didn't translate many hymns. I mean, he was translating, but he didn't translate that many. But he translated this one. And our version, if I have this track downright, our version is actually not the translation of Ambrose's Latin, which is normally what you'd do, but rather it's a translation of Luther's German. [00:24:57] So it's a double translation. And that's pretty amazing that Luther's German becomes the source for this hymn, because he captures it so well. [00:25:11] It's a beautiful Advent hymn and it sneaks into Christmas as well, that talks about how the Lord is with us because of his incarnation. Savior of the nations, Come, virgin son, make here your home. Marvel now, O heaven and earth, that the Lord chose such a birth not by human flesh and blood, by the Spirit of our God was the word of God made flesh, woman's offspring, pure and fresh. [00:25:40] Here a maid, the Virgin Mary. Here a maid was found with child virgin, yet remained a virgin mild in her womb. The truth was shown, God was there upon his throne. This is an ancient picture and imagery of the Church that Jesus is still enthroned even in the womb. He's still the King of all the universe even in the womb. Then stepped forth the Lord of all from his pure and kingly hall. God of God yet fully man, his heroic course began. This is the. [00:26:11] This idea that the Lord in his incarnation is sent. [00:26:18] It's a completely biblical picture, but it's oftentimes lost. [00:26:22] I'll admit that I sometimes lose it in my own framework of my imagination, is that we think of the Incarnation as the beginning of the Lord Jesus. Now, the Incarnation is the moment when he assumes the humanity into the union of his person, when the Son of God becomes man, when he takes up our flesh and blood, and yet he always was from eternity. So that Jesus is coming forth from God. He's sent from God, and he's sent from heaven to earth. [00:27:02] And this hymn, maybe more than any other, I mean the Te Deum and all these ancient hymns of the Incarnation capture this, that the Incarnation is not beginning, but it's the Lord Jesus stepping forth from glory into this humility. God the Father was a source back to God. He ran his course into hell. His road went down back then to his throne and crown, and then him changes to address Jesus. For you are the Father's Son, who in flesh the victory won by your mighty power make whole all our ills of flesh and soul from the manger newborn light shines in glory through the night darkness There no more resides in this light Faith now abides. And then, as is the custom of the Latin hymns, it ends in a doxological stanza. Glory to the Father Sing Glory to the Son, our King. Glory to the Spirit Be now and Through Eternity. Absolutely wonderful and beautiful hymn that we'll sing. And again, it's a. It's kind of like Okamo Come Emmanuel. It's one of those Advent hymns that reminds us of Christmas, which is pretty good because we try to hold off on singing all of our Christmas hymns until we really get into the Christmas season. But it's nice that we have a few of these kind of. We should think of a name for them. They're kind of our Christmassy Advent hymns. And this is one of those beautiful ones. [00:28:31] All right, Hope you're driving safe and that we'll see you soon. We're going to do hopefully stepping over into Hebrew. Yes, I think we are into Hebrews 13 in Sunday school, so don't miss that. There's voters meeting after the late service today. Hope you can stay for that because that's a big one for elections and for budget for the next year, which really sets the priorities for our congregation. So hope you can be there for that as well. We have old fashioned Christmas, which is coming up next week, December, whatever next week is. I think that's when that is happening. [00:29:02] So put that on your calendar as well and we'll see you soon. God's peace be with you. Oh, and happy New Year.