Advent 1 2024

The first week of Advent: Our one-year anniversary. I remember standing up to preach that first Sunday with almost nothing to say. I was so busy getting the space ready, getting music ready, getting a quick mental count of the people who had decided to join us I did not really have much time to spend thinking about the sermon.

A mistake I promised myself I would not repeat. So this week amidst the hubbub of Thanksgiving I sat down and got to spend some time with the sermon Woot.

Very interestingly the the world is ready to start talking about the Baby in the manger. They want to skip advent and make the next four weeks about Christmas,

Yet are reading is about Jesus arrival to Jerusalem a week before his passion and resurrection.

Jesus is a full adult, he has the crowds celerating his ministry, how are we supposed to square the circle that this is how the prayer book invites us to start thinking about Christmas. Lets see if the text will allow for it.

Main Point: We must understand Advent as a waiting for the True Temple, Jesus.

1So they are outside Jerusalem preparing to enter. Let me cast you mind to the theme of the temple. Let me see if I can convince you to ponder this. The place where heaven and earth meet is called a temple. So the space that God inhabits is a Temple, and Jerusalem was the city of the great temple. So what we are preparing for is the God of the universe in the person of Jesus Christ is getting ready to enter the great city. 2 He sends his disciples ahead to find a colt for him to ride. Not a Horse, not an animal of war, but an agrarian animal, a beast of burden 3 4 And in securing the animal and riding it in Jesus fulfills a great prophecy 5 This is Zechariah 9:9. If you take a few minutes to read it you would see that it is about the arrival of a righteous king that will restore the fortunes of Jerusalem. The theme of the Royal messiah being bubbled to the surface. We are waiting to arrive at the church calenders Royal Kings birth, God entering the human scene. Jerusalem in our text today awaiting the arrivel of the King, God on a donkey coming to the city. 6 Verses 6 and 7 tell us that the things Jesus had requested are then done and fulfilled 7 8 And so the people show a sign of royal devotion and patriotism. They are devoted and the spread out there clokes and patriotic in that they wave Palm Frons 9 They then declare Jesus as the saving one, of the line of David, the messenger of the Lord that will rescue Israel from its oppression. They see the physical oppression of the Romans but Jesus is coming for a far greater oppression, the oppression of sin over the sons of Adam. 10 The Gospel of Luke identifies the Pharisees as the ones asking who is this, and trying to get the people away from devotion to Jesus. 11 The people correctly identify Jesus and at the same time incorrectly think of him as only a prophet 12 Finally, Jesus cleanses the temple. He purifies it. Both by his chasing out sinners, but also be being present in it. The truest temple…the Godman, is in the temporary version, a building cleansing it by his very presence. 13 Main Point: We must understand Advent as a waiting for the True Temple, Jesus.

So what are the ways we bring this into our own spiritual journey?

Advent is not the time to focus that the king has already arrived, but on the kinds of preparations we would make while waiting.

This is a season of fasting. 6 days a week we say no to something as an act of devotion, and on Sundays, we feast as a foretaste.

Advent is a time to remember what kind of king we wait for. Not a marshal or military king. But a king on an agrarian symbol. Jesus is not here to violently take his place but to plant a church that will grow to encompass the whole world

Thinking our call is to react violently in his name misses this point.

Jesus cleanses the spaces he is in. If Jesus is living within you he desires to cleanse that space and make a temple of your heart. The reading today in the book of Romans reminds us of the difference between living in sin and living in virtue.

8 Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. -- Romans 13:8-10 (CSB)

Main Point: We must understand Advent as a waiting for the True Temple, Jesus.

When God inhabits something that thing becomes a temple. When the Holy Spirit began his work in you either in the waters of baptism, or the work that was sealed in your adult baptism, you are now seen by the world as a temple.

Advent should remind us all the journey we are on toward that final and full expression of God's work in us.

Simultaneously, that the Holy Spirit comes to reside in the bread and wine of our communion feast also reminds us that this space is also a temple.

Let us remember that if it were up to us, there would be no worthy cleansing of this space. But Jesus cleanses the spaces he is in. He washes us by his blood on the cross. What would be unworthy sinful men are not make clean by the worthy sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

Let us together start today to have a holy and worthy advent. Let us prepare for the arrival of the king in both our fasting in the week and our feasting on Sundays.