Sings the old rhyme, Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat... After consuming the fat turkey last week, we have another big bird to feast upon. The good only gets better. We have a good and rich future ahead of us – not to mention the fact that Santa is coming as well to fill us with more good things than we thought possible. It is all good, right? Or maybe not.
Holidays come for something, for time off, for family gathering, for rich food, and for loving memories. Jesus is not coming for a holiday or for a break from work or for some new memories to make with family and friends. Jesus is not coming with a bag of toys on His shoulder. Jesus is coming to suffer and to die. That is how we begin Advent. Somebody is coming and why He is coming.
I cannot say for certain if the crowds in Jerusalem knew who Jesus was or why He had come or not. Perhaps they were acting on behalf of reports that had whispered about the things Jesus had said and done. Perhaps they were a people who had grown so very tired of the troubles and trials of this mortal life and were looking for a little good news, a diversion, or a distraction. Or, and this is where I come down, perhaps they were looking exactly for Jesus. Not for another holiday or a plate full of rich food or toys more than you could imagine but for a real need and a real transformation of this life. Perhaps they meant what they said. “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
But we are not that crowd of old. Sure, we hear rumors about the end of the world and we are tired of all the burdens of this mortal life and our mortal bodies. Sure, we would love a little good news in our world of bad news. These are the temptations. But we stand on a little different soil than the crowds of old. We come to Advent already fully informed as who it is that is coming and why. Though, I will admit, we do get this wrong from time to time.
We are not looking for a baby to cuddle or a child to lie in the manger or a boy to grow into manhood or a Savior to suffer and die for us. These are complete. We are looking for something, however. We are looking for a new heaven and a new earth, and most of all, for new hope for old trials. So when we cry out this Advent: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” We are asking for God something specific.
We are not so much asking God to do something new as we are asking God to help us live in the newness of the Christ who was born in flesh to save sinners who had only death ahead of them. We are asking God to send us not another patriarch to lead nor a prophet to reveal to us what we do not know. We are asking God to give us the only One worth waiting for – the One who comes in the Lord’s Name with forgiveness and salvation as His gifts.
None of us will meet Jesus in the manger anymore. But all of us will meet Jesus. It matters then how we meet Him. Will we meet Him as His own beloved sons and daughters for whom He became incarnate, lived, suffered, died and rose again or will we be satisfied for a momentary distraction or glint of goodness? Will we meet Him as Savior before He summons us before His judgment? It is not a big roasted bird in our future but a King who comes as Lord and Judge of all. It is not Santa will carries on his back what the world needs but Jesus who bears the full weight of our sin so that we might relieved of sin’s weight forevermore.
The Gradual for today hits the nail on the head. “None who wait for you shall be put to shame.” So who are you waiting for? Your Christmas goose or the Savior who rescues your cooked goose from sin and your shame from exposure to the world? We need something more than a distraction or a diversion, we need Him who has the strength to stare into the face of sin and its death and to march on through for the sake of us sinners. We need more than a big fat bird on a platter; we need to eat Jesus and by this feasting upon His flesh and drinking of His blood to be stripped of our sin and clothed in righteousness. We need a King who comes to bear the full weight of our death upon Himself and who can deliver to us the life that has no end. We need Jesus. That’s how Advent begins: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Sadly, too many of us would settle for a big fat bird and all the trimmings or for a fat man in a suit with a few toys – only to go back to the same old lives lived in the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus is come to give us more than a momentary meal or a diversion from our troubles. He is come to face them all so that He might bestow on us grace more than we desire and mercy more than we would dare ask. He has come to give us Himself. That is why we take up the chant of old and say it anew in our own age: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” So then let us live, fleeing the darkness of sin to live in holiness in the light of our Savior King.
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