In the Name of the Father, and of the +
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No one man, not even a group of men, sat down and created
the Church Year, or the liturgy. It has developed over hundreds, even thousands
of years. Because of this slow development, handed down over generations, there
are some parts of the Church Year that don’t seem to make sense. This slow
development has also led to many insights that one man alone could not
conceive. The beginning of the Church Year occurring with Advent and the choice
of the Triumphal Entry as the first Gospel reading of the year are just such
magnificent insights.
The word “advent” means “coming.” Thus, in the season of
Advent, we celebrate three times our Lord comes to man. First, He came in the
flesh, born of a Virgin in Bethlehem. Second, He comes to us by grace, wherever
His Word is spoken, and His sacraments received. Finally, He will come in power
and might to judge the living and the dead.
The season of Advent is then the perfect bridge to bring us
from the end of the Church Year to its beginning. We end the Church Year
hearing our Lord’s teachings and warnings about His return. We heard of the
division of the Sheep and the Goats, where many who believe they are Christians
by their outward works will be condemned and those whose faith has taken hold
in their hearts will be saved.[1]
We heard also of the wise and foolish virgins, in which our Lord calls His
beloved Church to vigilance, for we know not the day or the hour of His return.[2]
After this focus on Christ’s return in judgment, we hear of
our Lord entering Jerusalem for the last time. He comes humbly, seated on a
donkey, and rides into the city to die. He is coming to fulfill His ministry.
He is coming to fulfill your salvation. He is coming to die that He would rise
and conquer death. This text is heard in the context of Advent, the season
immediately before Christmas, when we celebrate His coming in the flesh, the
Incarnation. The Son of God must have taken on flesh so that He could die in
your place. Therefore, we begin the Church Year by encompassing the two
greatest feasts on our calendar: the Incarnation at Christmas, and the death
and resurrection at Holy Week and Easter.
Christ’s entry into Jerusalem has another aspect that directly affects you today. The crowds that gather to hail our Lord proclaim, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”[3] You sing these words every Sunday, as you hail the coming of your Lord in and under the Bread and Wine. You sing them in the Sanctus.
When the crowd proclaims them, they are reciting at least a
portion of Psalm 118, if not the entire psalm. What is far more interesting is
that they change the psalm. The twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth verses of Psalm
118 read, “Save now [or hosanna], I pray, O Lord; O Lord, I
pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We have blessed you from the house
of the Lord.”[4]
The crowd replaces the divine name, “O Lord”
with “the Son of David.” This is a Messianic title. They are saying that
Yahweh, the Lord God Almighty, is the Messiah, the Savior, the One who comes to
save them. What’s more is that they are saying that this Jesus is that Messiah.
Jesus is the Messiah who is the Lord God Almighty and has come to save them
from sin, death, and the devil.
There is a problem, however. This same crowd, when asked
about the identity of this man, will call Jesus nothing more than a prophet
from Nazareth.[5]
It is almost certain that a portion, if not the entirety, of this crowd will
also be present days later when they cry out, “Crucify Him!” These subsequent
actions force us to ask, “Did they know what they were saying on Palm Sunday?
Did they know they were heralding the coming of the Son of God in the flesh?”
Scripture is silent as to their understanding and so we
cannot answer this question. There were certainly some within the crowd who had
faith and knew Jesus to be the Messiah. Even some of these likely got caught up
in their own sin and joined in with the cries to crucify their Messiah.
A more fruitful answer to the question of just what the
crowd understood is this, “Do you know what you are saying?” The danger of a
set liturgy is it can become rote, memorized and repeated without thinking. How
often do you find yourself reading from the page, responding from memory, or even
forgetting to respond without thinking? How often do you look up from your
morning devotion and not remember a single word you have read? How often have
you not cared about what you say, chant, sing, or read?
These are truly dangers to your soul. Such sloth is
dangerous because it is treating the Holy Word of God as less than common. If
you can recite the stats of players from the Chiefs but not a psalm, then shame
on you. If you know the words to the top 10 hits of any decade but cannot sing
a hymn from memory, then shame on you. This is not from lack of access nor
opportunity. It is from lack of desire.
It is true that memory is difficult and becomes far more difficult with age. The shame of which I speak does not come from the failure of your memory but from your misplaced priorities. The desire to know the Scriptures, to know what God says to you is part and parcel of faith. If only we recognized the multitude of gifts God has given us each day, we would shout with joy, “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever!”[6] Instead, we grumble when trouble arises. We grumble with fear when facing a situation that seems hopeless. We accuse God of being unjust because we don’t get what we want. We sound like spoiled children.
Nothing we sing, speak, read, or pray in the Church that
just fills the silence. Drawn from Scripture, the Liturgy is God’s Word coming
to you in manifold and rich ways. No one can be expected to know and understand
every insight of the liturgy, but all are expected to receive it. All can sit
in quiet contemplation of the Word of God. All can search the Word of God for
the understanding of why we sing what we sing or say what we say. You may not
find the answer to your specific question, but you will be enriched by the
journey.
Lest we fall into the trap of moving from slothful ignorance
of God’s Word to purely satisfying intellectual curiosity, remember that it is
in the Word of God and His Holy sacraments that Christ comes to you today. He
comes to you in that very Word which we sing, chant, speak, and read. He comes
to you humbly, seated in Bread and Wine. He comes to you in grace, not on
account of your preparations or worthiness, but on account of His love and
mercy. He has descended into your flesh so that you would be elevated to be
with Him in eternity.
Today, and at every celebration of the Lord’s Supper, when
you sing the words of the Sanctus, remember that you stand with the crowds. You
stand with them both as they hail the coming of their Lord and cry out for His
death. You stand with them because you are prone to fall into sin. You stand
with them as you hail the coming of your Savior. You also stand with them as
you await the final coming of Christ, when He will descend not upon a donkey or
a paten, but upon a cloud. You stand with the crowd in the shame of your sins
and cry out to the one who has come to relieve you of those sins. You stand and
sing because the Lord is good, for His mercy endures forever.
In + Jesus’
name. Amen.
