Advent and Palm Sunday – What Does This Mean?

Dear saints, we begin Advent as we begin Holy Week: with our Lord’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. This helps to focus our hearts and minds. Advent is the first season of the church year and the first part of the Time of Christmas. But it is not a celebratory season. The purple paraments give us a clue to this. Purple is the royal color of the coming king, a color of repentance. The color fits well both Advent and Lent, but the character of the seasons are different. Symbols depicting the two seasons are quite different. Candles and angels are common for one, crosses and crowns of thorns for the other. Only the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God, overlaps.

Advent, like Lent, builds to a climax which is only realized when the next season begins. For Lent the climax is the Resurrection; for Advent, the climax is the Nativity of Our Lord. The themes and lessons of each season help focus us to, for lack of a better word, experience this climax.

Advent begins with our Lord’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem a week before his death. This helps show that Advent is not pre-Christmas. If it were, we would expect lessons like the Annunciation. We would expect to hear of Gabriel’s visit to Mary. About John leading in the womb of Elizabeth when he hears the voice of Mary.

But this is not what we are doing in Advent. We are not getting ready for a Jesus who is about to be born. He is born and we will soon commemorate and celebrate that great event. Instead, we focus on getting ready for the End. Advent is eschatological, that is, it focuses on death, judgment, and eternity. Advent is, therefore, a call to repentance.

The word ‘advent’ is from a Latin word that means ‘coming.’ We spent the last three weeks contemplating our Lord’s Second Coming when He comes in Glory. Advent culminates with the celebration of Christmas when He was born in Bethlehem. For that reason, we see in Christmas why Jesus comes. He comes to be the Savior. He comes to die. And He will come again in glory at the End of the Age.

Advent, then, is also a time of preparation. We ready ourselves for the end. This is what we heard from St. Paul: For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of the darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime…. In the Introit and Collect we ask that God would protect us, rescue us, deliver us, and not let us be put to shame. We cry out for our redemption.

Let us, then, look at our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem as He prepares to ascend His throne on the cross. Jesus and those with Him draw near Jerusalem. They arrive in Bethphage, where the Mount of Olives is located. Two of the disciples are sent into the village to retrieve a donkey and her colt. They go and retrieve the animals. They put their outer cloaks on the colt and Jesus mounts it, riding into Jerusalem.

This accomplishes biblical prophecy: “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” He rides into Jerusalem just as another son of David, Solomon, did. And like Solomon, the people line the streets and receive Jesus. They spread their cloaks and freshly cut branches and line the road as Jesus enters. And they sing, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna!”

Our Lord has come. He comes from the Father to the virgin and makes Himself the sacrifice for the sins of the world. The world that rebelled and caused all the horrible and miserable things which we continue to endure. And then he lays down his life so that we would be rescued and spared. He becomes our sin. He suffers the consequences of all our crimes, petty or otherwise. He is betrayed and abandoned by those He loved. In all that was done to Him, and everything that continues to be done shows exactly how unworthy we are of Him. He knew all of this before he came, and he came anyway. He was driven by an intense love for His creation. And that love compels Him to show mercy, compassion, and charity.

The amazing thing about the message of Christmas is that our Lord does all of this knowing what will happen. It is good to decorate and have various ceremonies and festivities. It is right to rejoice in our Lord’s birth. A birth which came about so that the virgin-born God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, would die as a sacrifice for our sins.

But we are not there yet. When we get there, it will be great. We will rightfully celebrate and rejoice. But our fathers in the faith bid us not to rush to Christmas as children rush through their presents on Christmas morning. The church would have us pause and prepare for this mysterious and exciting day. We prepare through repentance. Before we jump to the joy of Christmas, we fast through Advent. Such fasting may be a literal fast where you abstain from certain foods or activities, or it could be simply that parts of our liturgy are not sung as we await the day when we sing it again with gusto. Before we hear of our Lord in the manger and in His mother’s arms, we hear St. John calling his hearers to repent and to behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Yet there is a third coming that we celebrate in Advent. This coming is one that is ongoing and lasts throughout the whole year. That coming is how our Lord comes to us continually in his Word and Sacrament. He does this and aids us in our preparation for His Second Coming. As shepherds hear the declaration of the angels, we gather to hear the Word through the Scripture and his angels, which means messenger, of today: his pastors. As wise men bow and lay down gifts before Him, we bow and kneel before His altar to receive forgiveness and salvation through the gift of His Body and Blood.

We stand at the beginning of a new Church Year. It does not begin with Jesus in Bethlehem. It begins with Jesus riding toward the cross. Advent is not getting us ready for Christmas or Easter. It is getting us ready for the Lord’s coming in glory and judgment. We get ready for that by receiving Him now as He comes to us in Word and Sacrament.

Our Lord will return. And on that Last Day, He will come in terrors. He will come to judge the nations. But it will not be a terror to you. Instead, it will be a joy and delight. For He is your righteousness. He has died to make you His. He has substituted Himself for you and declared you righteous as He is righteous. He comes on that day as He came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and today: driven by His love and desire to have you. That is why we pray, “Hosanna, Lord save us,” and “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.” Amen.

Rev. Brent Keller
Peace Lutheran Church
Alcester, SD