Matthew 21:1-9/Advent1-07-LATE
Most people do not know the
Bible very well. We can all repent of not knowing it well enough! And if we
know it well, how well do we know its doctrine, what God is teaching us of Christ?
The people of Israel had been
driven into Exile. They’d been helped along by rotten, lazy, stupid shepherds.
Israel’s prophets, priests & kings were often faithless. Like parents who
take little notice of the way their children act, Israel’s leaders only thought
about themselves; how they wanted to enjoy life and make their living more
comfortable. They didn’t worry over Israel, the children God had given them to
keep and watch and raise and lead.
God laments over such poor
stewardship of oversight and responsibility; such poor stewardship of love.
In Jeremiah 23:9, The Righteous One, the Faithful Shepherd of His people
says, “My heart within me is broken
because of the prophets; All my bones shake. I am like
a drunken man, And like a man whom wine has overcome, Because of the LORD, And because
of His holy words.”
Do you know what it’s like to be intoxicated with God’s
Word? To be like a drunken man; a man whom wine has overcome – not because you
are living in works of darkness, gratifying your fleshly desires – but BECAUSE
OF THE LORD? Because of His holy words?
Do you have any clue, you
children of Light?
Please, learn your repentance
today. It’s Advent. It’s time for God’s people to lift up their souls to the
Lord, that He might lead us in His Truth and teach us His paths.
The path of our salvation today
begins with the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem. Does that seem a strange thing to
hear in Advent? It is the PERFECT thing to hear, dear people!
This is the season when men get
drunk on many things. I have already heard one mother – not a member of this
congregation – tell me that her life is getting very busy, getting ready for
the coming season.
But she is not busy enough, not
drunk enough, at least not on the Words and Promises of God in Jesus!
She admits to being a social drinker
when it comes to the Word of God. She won’t become like a man whom wine has
overcome, like a drunken woman, because of God’s Holy words!
What did God mean by that in
Jeremiah’s day?
Jeremiah 23:10-13: “The land
is full of adulterers; because of the curse the land mourns, and the pastures
of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not
right. Both prophet and priest are
ungodly; even in my house I have found their evil, declares the LORD. Therefore their way shall be to them like
slippery paths in the darkness, into which they shall be driven and fall, for I
will bring disaster upon them in the year of their punishment, declares the
LORD. In the prophets of Samaria I saw an unsavory thing: they prophesied by
Baal and led my people Israel astray.”
You do not understand how
consumed by His own Words the Lord is – when it’s for the sake of His people –
do you?
You’ve never been drunk on God’s
Word, though I have not stopped trying to teach you that sort of excess. Too many
of God’s people are tee-totallers and social
drinkers, keeping themselves in complete control when it comes to God’s Word.
How different is the Lord! How completely He is overcome by
what He says and promises! He is like a man overcome with much drink. He is
truly a Man for this season!
You see that this morning as He
rides into Jerusalem. Drinking and driving! But it’s only a donkey. And it’s
for you!
The people are drunk with high
expectations. They want the season to be about SO much more than JESUS.
They want Him to be King. THEIR
kind of King. A King to give them all sorts of earthly excesses.
HE is consumed by God’s Word.
He IS God’s Word made Flesh for our salvation!
What you read of in Jeremiah – about faithless
shepherds – He comes to correct. What you read in Jeremiah – about faithFUL shepherds, after God’s OWN heart – He comes to
fulfill. What you read of Jeremiah, drunk and staggering because of God’s Words,
because the land is so full of sin and he is so full of God’s intent to save – that, you see riding into Jerusalem today.
He is not swept away by the
crowd. The people want a plaything, a parade. He has come to be their Savior!
Who knows if these people want anything close to real repentance and faith. Most don’t. They want some entertaining worship. They
don’t want to get TOO caught up in faith and doctrine and God’s Life through
Word and Sacraments. Don’t condemn us for
adultery! Don’t get in our face over not being drunk on God’s Word, or too
drunk on something else. Just let us roll over and finish our beer – our
pursuit of life’s pleasures.
Dear people, Jesus won’t BE that
kind of Savior! Our Lord is consumed by God’s Word, not men’s passions.
Read Matthew
21 – how Jesus, after riding into Jerusalem, beat people up in the Temple,
running out the moneychangers! His
patience is over. Zeal for the Lord’s House consumes Him!
Read how, when He went to a fig tree, because He
was hungry, and saw that it bore no fruit, He cursed it. Immediately, the tree
withered. He is not playing games. He is a Man consumed by God’s Word, and He
has come to save you – even from wretched, faithless, loveless fruitlessness!
So He sends His two disciples
into Bethphage.
He sends them there to get a colt, the foal of a donkey. He is consumed. He is
blind to any other way but God’s, the way of our Salvation.
He rides into Jerusalem, humble,
lowly, atop a beast of burden on His way to burdening Himself with our sins.
He rides before He staggers,
before He stumbles and falls beneath our load; before His bones are out of
joint.
He is SUCH an easy burden for a
young donkey. Soon, He will have US on His back. He will carry us – our sin,
our death, our filthy, stupid, rotten rutting through this world.
And the crowd is cheering,
waving palms, casting clothing in His way. “Hosanna!”
they shout! “Save us!”
Only, they have no idea what
they’re praying, or how His saving them will be! They call Him “Son of David.” A Shepherd-King.
They shout out, “Blessed it He who comes in the name of the
Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
He hears this through the Word
of God, and answers as we need. The people cannot know what they are saying.
A few drunk slobs this
Wednesday gathered for their mid-week binge with me and heard that none of us
can EVER know the depth of all our sin. That’s a keg you’ll never float! It’s just
too deep.
“This hereditary sin is such a deep corruption . . . that no reason can
understand it. Rather,
it must be believed from the revelation of Scripture.” (Smalcald
Articles, Third Part, Art. I.3)
Read Jeremiah. Read Matthew. Learn the path of
God’s salvation!
Even Christ’s disciples were not drunk enough with
what God says to know the depths He’d have to go to save them!
The Shepherd-King will die alone,
His bones all out of joint. NO one is as consumed as He is, with God’s Word and
our Salvation!
Matthew’s Gospel tells us of the women who were at
the cross. Another Gospel tells us John was there.
John is there to bear witness to the Lord’s
Salvation. Out of Jesus’ side flow blood and water. And the women are there to
claim His body. They are joined by others who will do the same. Joseph of
Arimathea and Nicodemus, whom the Lord instructed in the way of Word and Water
and the Spirit, and who now is fully drunk on God’s salvation. Before, he came
to Jesus like a man who visits a speak-easy; in secret, hiding, not drawing
men’s attention. By the end of John’s Gospel, Nicodemus is a man full out
inebriated on the Word of God, and all men see him clamor for the Flesh and
Blood of Jesus!
Dear people, learn the path of God’s Salvation.
That is what this time is for. There are plenty of things men waste their time
consuming. Be consumed by what God promises in Jesus. Learn to be a proper
drunk and fill yourselves on what God says!
What I mean is, hunger and thirst for what God
gives you here in Jesus. It is the salvation that poured out of Him on Calvary.
Words that breathe out
life and heaven.
Water that pours out God’s forgiveness and fills you with His Spirit.
His Flesh and Blood. The very Body that He set
upon a donkey and then set beneath a cross. The Body that bore such a beastly
burden as your sin and mine, to save us.
That is here, together with the Blood poured out
with water. They are everything to you. Aqua
Vitae! Water and Blood and Flesh and bread and wine of Life! To save you!
Many things will vie for your attention at this
time of year. Here is where the Lord is consumed with saving you. And here is where
He wants you consumed with consuming HIM. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.