Sermon 12-3-23

Guest Pastor, Anthony Giordano

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

Based on the Gospel Lesson for the First Sunday in Advent, Mark 11:1-10

Have We Been Stood Up?

The book of Malachi was written around 420 BC and John the Baptist appeared around 30 AD. This leaves approximately 400 years in between. This is known as the “intertestamental period” or the time in between the events of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Malachi was one of the minor prophets. He wrote about Israel’s declining faithfulness to God. In his book, he reminds the Jews that God will have a day of judgment. And then there’s 400 years of silence. 

400 years. Imagine being a Jew waiting for the Messiah and there are no more prophets. Where is God? Why haven’t we heard from Him? Maybe you haven’t experienced 400 years, but there have been times in my life where I’ve been praying and praying with no answer. The Jews have been waiting thousands of years for the Messiah. It’s like being a Mets fan. Waiting thousands of years for the next world championship!

And then the birth of Jesus, which isn’t what the Jews were looking for. They expected the Gospel text from today. They expected Palm Sunday. The triumphal entry. The political and military leader to kill the Romans and force them out. To establish Israel. But Jesus always comes to us in unexpected ways.

It’s fitting that this is the text for the first Sunday of Advent. The shepherds are told the king is born and they go to worship. The Magi show up looking for the king. On Palm Sunday, that king arrived in the capital city of Jerusalem.

But He isn’t riding a war horse, he’s riding a little donkey. He isn’t coming to bring war, but peace. He doesn’t even come as an adult. He comes as a baby. Defenseless. He gets rid of the weapons of war. He commands peace. He ushers in a Kingdom that will not just cover Jerusalem, but the whole Earth.

Herod, the Roman-appointed king, hears news of a new king. He comes to Jerusalem during Passover and both Herod and Pontius Pilate are worried. During Passover, Jerusalem’s Jewish population swelled. It normally had around 250,000 Jews. But Passover brought up to an additional 2,000,000 more. 

The Romans were worried about an uprising during Passover. It made sense. That many Jews gathered in one place could overwhelm the soldiers. For the most part, the Romans weren’t kind to the people they conquered. Jesus talked about being told to carry a pack and being slapped on the cheek. Those were real-life examples that Jews could relate to.

Pilate, the governor must be in Jerusalem to represent Caesar. He entered the city from the West, riding on a war horse with 1,000 troops. It’s a show of force to intimidate any troublemakers. 

On the same day, Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem from the East, from the other side. His parade is a man on a donkey with a bunch of people laying down palm branches. Jesus always comes to us in unexpected ways. 

In a sense, what Jesus did could be viewed as a mockery of what the Romans would do in their processions. On the surface, it makes sense to be part of Pilate’s parade. That’s the successful parade. That’s the parade with the noise and the light and the puffed-up importance of the governor.

Zechariah prophesied that the Messiah would arrive in humility on a donkey. And here we are in Advent, waiting on the Messiah and he’s coming to us in humility. If we are honest with ourselves, we want the glorious parade. The imposing military parade. Because we live in a culture that pushes us to the margins. We want desperately to announce our relevance. We want to push back.

But Advent is not our advertising campaign. Just as Jesus comes to us in unexpected ways, we need to act in unexpected ways. Advent is about waiting. Advent is about poverty. Poverty means we lack something. We are waiting for that something to fill our need. Our poverty is not something we want to display. It’s like a woman sitting in a restaurant at a table for two. She’s waiting for her date and telling the waiter “Yes, I’m still waiting. He isn’t here yet.”

The Good News of Advent is that we have nothing to be ashamed of. Those who wait in Advent, the holy sacred waiting of Advent, will see the revelation of God. And whatever it is that God is doing is revealed to be better and bigger than we ever could have imagined. Isaiah tells us that God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

Do you remember Zechariah and Elizabeth? Luke Chapter 1. Their poverty was that they didn’t have any children. They were waiting in that poverty. I don’t know if they had completely given up, because the angel Gabriel says that Zechariah’s prayer has been heard. Was this the prayer from decades ago? Was it his prayer that morning?

I don’t know that for sure. But I do know that when the angel Gabriel told him that Elizabeth would be pregnant with John, he didn’t believe it. If it was Zechariah’s prayer from a long time ago, God decided to fulfill it in an unexpected way. When they were old. And he gave them not a regular child, but a prophet. Zechariah and Elizabeth were not stood up. 

They kept sitting at the table in the restaurant saying to the waiter “don’t give up, He’s coming.”

Our Advent is a time of waiting. My fiancé and I try to pick good music for our car rides. She wants that Christmas music. She’s been waiting for it all year! And I keep saying that Christmas music is for Christmas! Wait for the 12 Days of Christmas! But I’m engaged to an elf. She wants to feel that Christmas love and joy of the birth of Christ. And who can blame her?

The Good News is that we are in this holy season of waiting. And we are waiting for the arrival of the King Messiah. And as David writes in Psalm 25, all who wait on God will not be put to shame! Jesus is coming. He will be coming from the opposite direction of what we expect. He will be riding on a donkey not a horse. He will be born in a manger, not a palace. Jesus comes to us in unexpected ways. 

The world is looking at us in the restaurant sitting at the table set for two. It looks like we’ve been stood up by God. They think our date is never going to come. But we know better. 

We know God will come. We’re not ashamed to wait. Because when Jesus comes, He raises the dead, He heals the sick, He comforts those who have lost, and He brings the salvation that we all need. Amen.