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Advent 1 2024
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Hamilton, Ohio
Pastor Kevin Jud
December 1, 2024
Jeremiah 33:14–16, 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Luke 19:28-40
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Today is December 1. You are at the starting line of a very busy month. There are just so many things to get done before the 25th. If December was a pot of soup it would be overflowing onto the stovetop. So many ingredients get added to this December advent soup. So many different things get mixed together that there is a danger of losing the flavor of the main ingredient.
This is a busy time in the church and in life in general. Retailers try to make big money before December 25th so they try to start the Christmas season earlier and earlier each year to get people to buy more and more.
Christmas decorations seem to go up sooner each year. Now, just after Halloween, many folks begin the celebration of this season of lights by draping houses and bushes with hundreds…thousands of twinkling lights and yards are full of Christmas inflatables. Christmas trees are decorated and wreaths are hung. A Cincinnati Christian music radio station started to play Christmas music on Reformation Day. There is a tremendous wave of early Christmas cheer that is difficult to resist, but I do wonder if we are a little premature in our celebrations. Advent is, after all, a season of waiting…of anticipation.
A lot of this early celebrating is a fairly recent phenomenon. It was not that long ago that Christmas trees did not go up until Christmas Eve.
Now, retailers want to make more money so they start earlier and earlier, but I wonder if there is something else behind society’s desire to extend the Christmas season. I wonder if folks are trying to find meaning and joy in the lights and the decorations and presents and traditions and memories rather than finding joy and meaning in Jesus coming to be Immanuel; God with us. Is it possible that people have made Christmas celebrations so complex and extravagant that Christ gets obscured and forgotten? All of the busyness of Christmas preparations can be overwhelming as we skip over the anticipation of Advent and try to celebrate Christmas for the whole month of December.
For adults, December can seem like the shortest month of the year with all the preparations; cookies to bake, presents to buy, parties to attend, cards to write and on and on. The joyful anticipation can be tarnished by fatigue and guilt that their Christmas celebration won’t be just perfect.
For children, December can seem like the longest month as they await Christmas day and the presents. School days just drag on. Joyful anticipation of Jesus’ birth can get tainted by a case of the “I wants” and the “Gimmes”.
As we add so many ingredients to the mix, this season of Advent becomes a complex soup. So many things blended together; so many ingredients competing for your attention. This first Sunday in Advent I encourage you…keep Jesus as the main ingredient.
The word, Advent, means the coming or arrival of something awaited and momentous. Advent is a season of anticipation of the arrival of Jesus Christ. Advent isn’t easy. We are an impatient people and Advent is a season of waiting. Advent is a season of waiting and waiting is hard.
December can be so exhausting that by the time we get to the 25th, we are already tired of Christmas. This year, let us all set aside some time each day to rediscover the sense of Advent waiting and anticipation of the arrival of Jesus Christ. Let us keep Jesus as the main ingredient in our advent soup with thoughts of Jesus first arrival 2,000 years ago and looking forward to Jesus’ second coming. If you are able, gather each Wednesday at 6:15 PM for some homemade advent soup before our Evening Prayer service. Pick up an advent devotional booklet to read as a family each day. Maybe read the 24 chapters of the Gospel of Luke one per day in the days of Advent. Keep Jesus and His first arrival and His promise to return the focus of your advent.
During this time of year look forward to the celebration of Jesus, the son of God, breaking in on the world and coming in flesh as a baby born to Mary in Bethlehem. That baby is God in flesh, God with us; Immanuel. Look forward to the celebration of the incarnation; God becoming flesh and dwelling among us as the Lamb of God come to take away the sins of the world.
Also ponder Jesus coming again in glory on the last day; the judgment day. Look forward to the day when he will break through into our world in overwhelming glory and power and destroy evil and restore peace and righteousness.
Christmas images can seem sweet and heartwarming as you picture baby Jesus asleep on the hay, while Jesus’ return in glory and judgment can be more troubling. Jesus’ return comes with a sense of anxiety and fear. You struggle with sin, and for sinners, Jesus’ return is unsettling. “What if I’m not ready? What if I am caught in the midst of some sin?” As a poor, miserable sinner, it is hard to look forward to Jesus’ return. So, the season of Advent is also a penitential season; a time of the year, much like Lent, of self-examination when you sorrow over your sins and look for salvation in Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb, born in Bethlehem, the city of David.
The Christmas story can seem to be all sweet and wonderful, but Jesus’ first arrival as the baby in Bethlehem is actually full of hints of what is to come for Jesus. Jesus comes as the sacrifice for sin. The baby swaddled in a stone manger foreshadows a crucified Jesus wrapped in a shroud lying in a stone tomb. There is a gift of myrrh -- a burial spice. There is Herod the Great trying to kill Jesus. Herod’s successor, Pilate, accomplishes the task. Jesus comes to be the once-for-all sacrifice for sins; your sin and mine. Advent is a time to reflect on our sin and heed John the Baptist’s call to, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
Advent indeed is a complex season. It is a mix of memories and decorations and sadness and generosity and joy and anticipation. As all the elements of the season mix together keep Jesus as the main ingredient.
During the reading of the lessons you may have wondered, “we are in Advent, why the Palm Sunday reading?” This is a traditional reading for the first Sunday in Advent. The events of Palm Sunday help us consider Jesus’ arrival. The folks in Jerusalem that day look forward to Jesus entering the city. They hear he is coming and they get ready. They gather and wait; they have been waiting a long time for the Messiah and he is almost here. They can see him coming down the Mount of Olives. The king is coming!
The people cry out, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in Heaven and glory.” From the Gospel of Matthew we know they also shouted, “Hosanna in the highest!”
The Lord Jesus is right there with them riding on His donkey and they cry out to him, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Lord is right there with them.
You sing the same words. You will sing them today in the Sanctus. “Blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord!” And why do you sing these Palm Sunday words? You sing them because Jesus is right here with you today in sacrament of Holy Communion. Jesus said, “This is my body, this is my blood.” He comes to you in these veiled forms to strengthen and preserve you until the time when he comes again. As you sing out with those lining the streets of Jerusalem you know Jesus is present with you today and you look forward to Jesus coming again in victory.
That Palm Sunday Jesus rides the donkey colt down the Mount of Olives. Forty-seven days later he will be back up on the Mount and ascend into heaven with his disciples watching. After He ascends, angels of the Lord appear and tell the disciples, Acts 1:11 (ESV) 11 … “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Jesus will return. Not like he came the first time as a humble infant wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. He will return. Not in humility riding a donkey of peace. He will return. Not veiled under bread and wine, water and the Word. He will return in full glory and he will conquer evil once and for all.
So now you wait. You wait for Christmas when you celebrate Jesus’ first coming, and you wait for Jesus to come again to restore all things. This advent season is a time of waiting. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Amen