“THE SON OF DAVID LOOSES YOU IN HIS PRESENT COMING”
Saint Matthew 21: 1-9
Ad Te Levavi: 29 November Anno Domini 2020
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
The Introit for today, your Psalm entrance into the presence of The Living Lord, has you singing “unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul, O my God I trust in Thee.” Do you? “Let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.” Are you ashamed of being a Christian, especially since being a follower of The Lamb means you are meek (“Blessed are the meek”) and you receive another sharp blow to your face when you turn your other cheek? Maybe this year is different though, do you think?
The Church, yes, The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, IS the New Jerusalem as Saint John the Divine informs you. Its parishes and congregations wherever they are scattered in this universal Kingdom of Grace, (Augsburg too) is the New Jerusalem. You have “been drawn nigh” this morning to His city/people of Peace.
From the Bethphages of your dwellings you too have entered here, wearing white garments of wedding invitation, by way of the mount of Olives. The oil of gladness and refreshment was placed upon your forehead and breast sealing your watery + rebirth at holy font.
The ass and colt, the two testaments of God, have carried His Word made Flesh, the very Messiah, to you.
The Old Covenant and its Exodus laden Ten Commandments you have not kept. He rides to torture, hideous pain, suffocation, shock, hell, passion, and suffering as He becomes sin in place of you. The New Testament of His Body and Blood, given and shed on Calvary, will be instituted on the very Thursday following His entrance into David’s city, into Solomon’s Temple rebuilt.
Those two animals, beast of burden, in Christ, are also the two keys of His Holy Ministry. The two-natured, God/Man, the One Savior has given His flock under-shepherds like James, Peter, and John; and others, to “loose” you from your trespasses. Do you confess that you might be absolved in His great flood of forgiveness?
Yes. By the Spirit’s power, by your new creation, by the Paraclete’s indwelling, and by the Presence of Christ, you do confess, repent, and pray: “stir up…Thy power, O Lord, and come, that by Thy protection + we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Thy mighty deliverance!”
Christ delivers. Jesus delivers you back then and now, today. His deliverance, yes, in Jerusalem. He had much to do during Holy Week—He was in The Temple teaching, preaching, Law obeying. But it would be on the “place of the skull,” on a hillock of Jerusalem outside its gates that He would deliver you and all the world from sin.
So, His triumphant arrival “for you” is not so much a march into Jerusalem AD 30 as it is His coming to you Sunday morning 29 November AD 2020.
All that was done then, and this morning, was and is done “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet (Zecharias), saying, ‘tell ye the daughter of Sion, behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.’”
The Lord does not come to you in a Transfigured glory of blinding light—which with the bright cloud terrified even the Disciples. He comes not in the power of nature water-walking Creator visage that also frightened the 12 that night on the Sea of Galilee. His awesomeness, His awe-fullness, this day is in Preachment and recitation of His Words; in bread and wine, and the Holy Sign of your Baptisms.
This day Jesus does not sit on the clothes of His followers but rather reminds you of Whose clothes you have been dressed in; What skin you wear and Whose blood is coursing through your spiritual veins after drinking The very Blood of The Lamb.
You need cut no branches this morning. He allows His Spirit and Law, from the Lord and Giver of Life, to cut your heart in word-worked repentance that it may be covered with His own pierced palms of love and peace.
You, my fellow members of His “multitudes” are the New Jerusalem throng. You’re not there, 2,000 years ago. He has brought you here, right now! The exact same Jesus only now fully in use of His Divinity all the time. He has given you the faith by His Grace to join with John the Baptist to proclaim Him as The Messiah. He has rescued you that you might escape from the wrath to be revealed when He cometh again in glory. And a foretaste of that final Advent is This Sacrament on the First Sunday of our Adventide. You will in minutes raise your voices and join those faithful Galilean and Judean pilgrims in Eucharistic Thanksgiving. You join your tongues with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven saying: “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest; Blessed is He, Blessed is He, Blessed is He that cometh in The Name of The Lord.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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