FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
1 December 2013
Readings:
Key Verses:
Rom. 13:11b-12: “Salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far gone, and the day is near. Let’s therefore throw off the deeds of darkness, and let’s put on the armor of light.”
Matt. 21:5, quoting Zec. 9:9: “Tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey…”
Reflection
When putting together the lectionary for this blog, I resisted starting off the Christian year, as it does today with the First Sunday of Advent, with the story of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. I thought to myself “Palm Sunday”? In December? Where did this come from? It didn’t make any sense, and yet the most ancient lectionaries of the West, such as St. Jerome’s lectionary from the fifth century(!), begin with this story. As prone to allegorical readings as the ancient Church was, surely there was a reason for starting off here.
And “here” is where Jesus prepares to face his death head-on during, of all things, the festival of Passover! What is it like to celebrate “independence day” under foreign guard? Jewish reaction to Roman rule ranged from retreat to bargaining with the status quo. But tales of Jewish warriors like Judas Maccabee, who fought the ruling pagans and won back the holy Temple (cf. Hanukkah), no doubt inspired others to more active resistance. At least one of Jesus’ disciples may have been in this last camp. When Jesus foretells his death, Peter rebukes him: “Far be it from you, Lord! This will never be done to you.” How can the Messiah be killed at the hands of evildoers? No, the Messiah has to fight, he has to win back our freedom, our land, our faith by force!
And yet Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, a regal symbol of peace. We may never know how ordinary Jews of the time saw this, especially those who had heard of his miracles, his healings and exorcisms, and his power. Is he now really saying that everything is okay? That I can celebrate Passover while oppressed under the Roman standard? That this is the future that God wants for his chosen people? Looking at it this way explains something that’s always confused me about Holy Week. The crowds hail Jesus as the Son of David on Palm Sunday, and then completely abandon him a few days later. Perhaps they thought he’d enter like Judas Maccabee, with an army ready to retake Jerusalem by the sword. But they were wrong.
Two thousand years later, it’s easy for us to pity or blame these people for getting the wrong hopes up. Surely they should’ve understood that God's Kingdom comes through peace, not violence. But the beauty and magic of the Christian year is that it has placed us in exactly the same position of these first-century Jews. These past few weeks we’ve journeyed through the End Times up to the Last Judgment; the earthquakes, wars, famines, total chaos and destruction; the rapture of the faithful still living, the glorification of the righteous and the casting of Satan, hell, and all the wicked into the lake of fire. We may be left feeling hopeful, but confused or uneasy, or we may even await this violent pandemonium with a kind of morbid fascination. Either way, it means the Lord will finally make things right when he comes back in power and glory. And just how does he come back?
Well, in less than a month, he will come back as the helpless and vulnerable infant born in Bethlehem. And just like that, Jesus has taught us a lesson once again.
I think I see now why the Church Fathers chose to start the church year with “Palm Sunday in Advent”. The life of faith no longer lives in linear time; it has no beginning or ending, just experience. So too the life of a Christian does not begin with Genesis and end in Revelation. No, it begins and ends with Jesus—because all it experiences is Jesus. He comes back—again and again—into our hearts, never by force, but always in humility. And wherever our faith journey takes us this year, he who leads us on it still has more unexpected things to teach us.
Prayer of the Day
Almighty God, give us grace
that we may cast away the works of darkness,
and put upon us the armor of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to visit us in great humility,
so that in the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to immortal life;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
—traditional collect for the First Sunday of Advent, adapted from the Book of Common Prayer.
(Words: Georg Weissel, 1590-1635; translated from German by Catherine Winkworth, 1827-1878; adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2013
Tune: ‘Truro’, Psalmodia Evangelica Part II, 1789; harmony by Lowell Mason, 1792-1872)
Lift up your heads, you mighty gates!
Behold, the King of glory waits!
The King of kings is drawing near,
The Savior of the world is here.
O blest the land, the city blest,
Where Christ the ruler is confessed!
O happy hearts and happy homes
To whom this King of triumph comes!
Fling wide the doors of your own heart,
Make it a temple set apart
From earthly use, for heav’n’s employ,
Adorned with prayer and love and joy.
Redeemer, come! I open wide
My heart to you; here, Lord, abide!
Let me within your presence feel,
Your grace and love in me reveal.
My Sovereign Lord, now enter in!
Let new and nobler life begin;
Your Holy Spirit guide us on
Until the glorious crown is won.
Amen.
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