The Peace to Wait
Text: Luke 19:28-40
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Like a naughty child sneaking down in the middle of the night to open their presents under the Christmas tree early, the world simply cannot wait for Christmas to actually arrive. Why? Because the world has to have everything now. It can’t wait. It needs to have all presents unwrapped, all feasts served, all parties scheduled and attended right now because it’s not so sure what tomorrow is going to look like. The world, simply put, has no future—it only has the past, which it recalls only when it wants; and the present. But the future is no guarantee for the unbelieving world—not for any person or group. And because of this, there will always be an uneasiness in the world, leading it to constantly grasp and collect and use and consume. It has no lasting, deep peace, and so it has to wring out every drop it can get now.
But for the Church, this season—Advent—is different. We know that we have a future. Things may look different from how we plan them, but we do know that there is always a future for us. We will not end. We’ve heard our Lord’s promise that we have eternity, and so time is an unlimited resource for us. Have you ever stopped to think about that? Jesus has given you eternal life—that means that you have limitless time. And because of that, the Church can wait. We can sit and appreciate a moment for what it is. We can let a season simply be that season. And because we know what the whole point of Christmas is about—that the long-awaited Savior has now entered our world—we can sit and wait with our ancestors in the faith. We have unlimited time, after all, so what is it to sit and wait for four weeks with Adam and Eve, with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, with King David and Isaiah and Micah and Malachi? The whole point of this season is not just a quick serotonin or dopamine hit. It’s not just warm fuzzies. The whole point of it is our reading today, the beginning of what saints before us and after us are waiting for: the triumphal entry of Jesus to be among His people as their Savior.
It may seem a bit of a surprise this week, the start of the Advent season, to have this reading from the adult life of Jesus—so close to His death in Jerusalem, in fact. The rest of the world is obsessing over the holiday celebrating His birth (even though that part is all too often ignored in that marshmallow world), but we know that the whole point of why we’re gathered here today during this time is to recognize His arrival; or, as we say in the older term, His advent. More specifically, we’re here to celebrate all His advents, all His arrivals. So we hear about Him entering lowly and seated on the foal of a donkey so that we can celebrate all the ways He’s entered into the lives of the people He’s come to save, whether it’s in His birth in Bethlehem, or this triumphal entry, or His public debut at His baptism in the Jordan River, or in the Lord’s Supper, or the proclamation of sins forgiven. We celebrate His arrivals in all these ways because they’re all going to lead us to the same place: His cross, where the entire point of His advent is on full display. And so today, we hear about His advent in Jerusalem, at the beginning of Holy Week.
This is not to throw a bucket of cold water on a warm, celebratory season. The Church is no stick in the mud when it comes to celebrating holy days. We invented it after all. It’s not to scold anyone for putting up the decorations or listening to Christmas music. Nor is it morbid or morose to think about Jesus’ cross being the whole point of Advent and Christmas. Rather, it’s to simply help us set our focus. It’s for the very good and salutary reason that the people in our reading today are celebrating Jesus’ arrival, His advent, and we join along with them during this holy season. They’re celebrating what Jesus brings when He arrives. They sing of peace. “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Now if that song in Jerusalem sounds familiar, good. It should. You’ve been singing it week after week—although not this week, and not for the next three. The song that the people sing as Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt is very similar to the song that the angels sing at His birth in the Gloria in Excelsis: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” It’s no coincidence that these songs are so similar at His birth and His death. St. Luke records this for us very intentionally. The reason is this: Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ death are connected by this song of peace.
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. This peace in heaven, this peace with God that soars above any kind of peace that the world could engineer, that’s the echo of Jesus’ cradlesong sung by the angels. But now as Jesus rides into Jerusalem that song is in the mouths of mortals. Angels and humans are now united in singing the same song about peace between heaven and earth. And this is significant, because it wasn’t always so. There had long been division and separation between earth and heaven. Ever since the tempter came, the devil, whose name means “the one who divides”, earth and heaven have been at odds. Humans have wanted what was not theirs to grasp and have kept the long battle going. There’s been warfare ever since humanity’s fall into sin, that ages-deep division. That division is seen in the sharpest, most painful example of death, where soul and body are separated—a division that God had never wanted for humanity, the crown of His creation.
But now, the song of angels and men—peace in heaven, glory in the highest—tells us that it’s all been reversed, starting with Jesus’ arrival as an embryo, His birth, His life, His death. All that He’s done has been to bring about that peace between heaven and earth, between God and us. Every time He forgives, it’s establishing peace. Every healing recorded in Scripture, and those given now in answer to the prayers of His people, it’s peace between the Giver of Life and His creatures. Every demon driven out, peace in the ongoing war of good and evil. His death on the cross, peace in heaven, given to those with whom He is pleased, those made His children in Baptism, those who look to Him for rescue and grace. And here, at the beginning of a new Church year, this scene is given to us again to show that this is the whole point: peace between God and man, found in Jesus’ arrival, His birth, His death, His resurrection, and everything in between.
In that peace, the Church can wait. We can enjoy the subtle, softer joys of Advent without the need to go full bore, full schedule, full exhaustion of a month of holiday-ing. Let Advent be Advent—contemplative, slow, intentionally waiting for the fullness of Christmas to come. Set aside time to read Scripture, to pray, to really think about your Savior’s arrival and what it means. And yes, take time to sing. This season for our midweek services we’ll be looking at the songs of Advent, sung by the saints before us in the Bible, looking at what they rejoiced in as they were waiting for the birth of their Messiah. You can sing with them. You can wait because you have peace. You have hope. And when the day of celebration arrives, we can all break forth in full celebration and song together, filled with peace, hope, faith, and joy. In the name of Jesus, who is coming. Amen.
