Ad Te Levavi (First Sunday in Advent)

​Rev. Shemwell
Jeremiah 23:5-8
Matthew 21:1-9
12/3/23

Homily for the Ad Te Levavi (First Sunday in Advent)
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your
King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey,
a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Thus once spoke the holy prophet Zachariah
approximately five hundred years before the birth of our blessed Messiah. Dear
brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the liturgical season of
Advent, as you well know, is a season of anticipation. But if you didn’t already know,
the word advent itself comes from the Latin word adventus, meaning “arrival.” The
church year, this new church year so early upon us, begins with this period of
anticipation for Christ’s arrival. It begins today, this first Sunday of the new church
year. And while this time of year in particular is marked by an anticipation for our
Lord’s glorious coming, for His arrival, in truth, all human history has been similarly
marked by this same anticipation for the messianic advent.
Men and women have been waiting for and longingly expecting a savior since
the very beginning. The first man and the first woman were exiled from the garden
with the hope of this precise anticipation. Genesis chapter three verses fourteen and
fifteen: “So the Lord God said to the serpent”—with Adam and Eve in earshot, mind
you!—“‘Because you have deceived My creation, you, serpent, are cursed more than
all the cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and
you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall
bruise His heel.”

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This profound passage has traditionally been called the protoevangelium – the first
gospel – the incipient promise of bad news to the ancient dragon but exceptionally
good news to our primordial parents that salvation would come, would arrive through
the seed of the woman.
Otherwise put, the King was coming from the very beginning. By the time the
initial inclination toward disobedience entered the willing heart of our father, Adam, a
plan was already had for redemption – a plan for salvation through the Son incarnate,
through God made man, salvation through the woman’s eventual seed. In response to
the woeful fall of all mankind into sin, God in His goodness and mercy gave the
promise of deliverance straightaway. And this immediate promise was repeated again
and again down through the ages. This is the promise that was given to Abraham, and
to Isaac and Jacob, for that matter, that their progeny would include the saving seed.
The same promise was subsequently spoken to God’s people through the lips of
Moses himself: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your
midst, from your brethren,” he declared. And despite the consistent failings and
infidelities of God’s chosen people, that promise was safeguarded regardless. They
were forgiven time and again, their sins were removed from them as far as the east is
from the west, mistake after mistake was blotted out, and the promise was renewed in
spite of every last fault, flaw, foible, and shortcoming on the part of the wayward
Israelites. Now the same was true for David, that great and mighty king of theirs, who
was likewise absolved of his many severe sins and was granted through a promise a
place of prominence in his Lord’s own lineage.

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After all, the righteous branch Who reigns as king and deals wisely, as Jeremiah
prophesied in our reading this morning, came ultimately from the loins of the
delinquent David, who was uncommonly repentant and therefore beloved by God.
And of course, all the prophets of all time prophesied about the coming of the
King and the fulfillment of the ancient promise. Isaiah foretold the virgin birth and the
immeasurable suffering of the incarnate servant. All the way down through Zachariah
and even beyond, the mouths of prophets gave new life to the anticipation of the King
and Savior. And finally, the occasion at last arrived, the anticipation of thousands of
years of hopeful waiting was met with the annunciation to that well-chosen maiden.
The archangel Gabriel gave the blessed news to a peasant virgin girl, a descendent of
David, as foreshadowed. She received it in utter humility, singing her magnificent
Magnificat in reply. Her briefly scandalized betrothed heeded the word of the angel of
the Lord instead of his own doubt and with true bravery he proudly took her as his
wife. Then a baby boy was born in a manger in the little town of Bethlehem, Whom
they called Immanuel, “God with us.” And as St. Matthew tells us at the outset of his
gospel, “all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophets.”
The promise of salvation made His home in a virgin womb. The King came in
meekness and weakness, His advent was in the frail flesh of men and within the literal
flesh of a very specific woman for nine months, He condescended to contain Himself
in the abode of her fragile uterus. And while He came in lowliness, He came with
promise and eternal purpose though, having everlasting salvation. From the moment
of His birth nine months on, His eyes were set toward Golgotha, to the place of the
skull, also called Calvary.

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The woman’s seed promised in the garden to crush the head of the serpent had to be
bruised Himself, as was told from the start. To defeat death, to undo the first mistake
and negate the fall from grace, the enfleshed Savior had to endure overwhelming and
extensive hardship in His own body and He had to die the most unjust death. He came
in the flesh to save the flesh itself, but in order to do so, He had to let His own sinless
flesh be tormented and crucified. God became man in order to die for man. The
Incarnation of our Lord was all for the sake of the crucifixion of our Lord. Christmas
always points towards Good Friday. God became a baby boy in order to die a thirty-
three-year-old man, nailed to a cross for the transgressions of the whole world. And so
He was put to death for our iniquities. Every single one of them. He bled out for our
anger, our lust, our greed, our pride, our envy and unbelief. He suffered for the totality
of our sins. He was buried for the perversion of our failures. But on the third day, He
was resurrected whole for the promise of our hope.
And that hope is what this season is really all about. We anticipate the coming
of our Lord at Christmas. We anticipate the joyous opportunity to celebrate the glory
of His Incarnation, His taking on flesh and bone so as to overcome sin, death, and the
devil. But we look beyond that as well. We look forward to that day when He returns
in all His glory, incarnate, in the flesh, to raise our flesh from the sorrowful grave. The
King has already once come, right? So the anticipation is over in some sense. Yet it
another sense, in a more visceral and tenderly present sense, the anticipation only
begins anew. Our Lord came to heal us, and so He has – without any merit or
worthiness on our part.

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However, this side of heaven and indeed this side of His crucifixion, resurrection, and
ascension above, those of us left here below are still faced with sin, death, and the
devil. The struggle continues for now.
The war was won on the cross two thousand years ago. But we are still
confronted with the fallout, with the consequences of God’s wrath in this earthly
existence. Eternally we are free. And yet here in time we remain bound to the
lingering difficulties of this broken world. Nevertheless, we have immense hope, for
we anticipate with the sureness of faith the final fulfillment of God’s promise of
deliverance. Christ, God made man, once said: “Let not your heart be troubled; you
believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it
were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I
am, there you may be also.” Our Lord ascended into the heavens long, long ago.
However, He will come again. He will descend on the clouds just as He once
ascended. And when He arrives, He will deliver us once and for all from this land of
bitterness. The arrival of the incarnate Son with all His angels from the clouds is on
the horizon and it draws ever closer with each passing day. And that, in truth, is what
we anticipate more than anything else this Advent season: the promised Second
Coming of Christ the King.
And while we wait with the patience of God-given faith for that distant day, our
Lord graciously feeds us with the substance of His promise even here and now. He
feeds us with Himself.

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To strengthen you toward the wait for His final advent on the horizon, our Lord comes
to you presently, in this His sacramental advent, He comes to you currently from the
paten and chalice, in, with, and under the form of the grainy host and the red wine, in
body and blood for the forgiveness of every last one of your sins and for the
sanctifying of your body and soul for life without end. The promise was fulfilled
twenty centuries ago. The seed of Eve was born of Mary, only to lay dead in her
heartbroken arms three decades on for the redemption of the world. And the promise
will be fulfilled again when that Redeemer returns in the flesh to put an end to all
pain, to wipe away all tears, and to make all things new. But the promise is further
fulfilled right here, right now, in this room, between our Lord’s resurrection and our
own, when and where the Son of God dwells bodily in the holy bread and wine, when
and where the Messiah arrives on your own eager tongue, a personal advent for you
individually, to bear you through the many burdens of this life and the overlong wait.
So come now, dear children, the table is soon ready. Behold, your King is
coming this day. Though He arrives lowly in this here bread and wine, He comes
nonetheless as One just and having salvation. He once entered the holy city on a colt,
on the foal of a donkey, and was welcomed triumphantly as royalty deserves. But then
that King was betrayed, arrested, beaten, mocked, scourged, scorned, and executed,
what we sinners ourselves had justly deserved. He selflessly took the wrath we
wrought upon His own weakened body. But now He comes to you once more, lowly
but ever just and having much salvation. He comes to you through the blood that once
cascaded forth in a river of crimson from His pierced side.

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That blood still fills the chalice at this altar. God’s pain once poured out on the cross
is still poured out at this rail to alleviate your spiritual pain and to quench your thirst
for eternity.
So as He comes to you now, to save you, to strengthen you, to solidify you in
your faith for your eternal fate, welcome Him rightly, receive Him reverently, as the
denizens of that holy city of Jerusalem once did. Sing to Him as they once sang:
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.
Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna
in the highest.” When we sing this highest hymn of all here in a moment, dear faithful,
sing it like you truly mean it. The ancient promise given at the exile from paradise
was once fulfilled at old Bethlehem in a manger and later outside the city walls of old
Jerusalem on a crucifix. The ancient promise will be fulfilled again in the new
Jerusalem in the consummation of the age. And the ancient promise is right now
fulfilled in the hearts and on the lips of the saints of this new Bethlehem here in East
Tennessee. Therefore, come now and be enlivened by Christ’s advent just for you in
this holy meal. And always keep the hope and anticipation alive in your humble heart,
until He comes again – and soon. In His most holy name. Amen.