St. Luke 17:20-25

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, [Jesus] answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

And he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’ Do not go out or follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.”

1 Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in thee.

The first verse of our hymn on this first Sunday of a brand new Church Year appeals to the one people’d been looking forward to since the first time somebody sinned. Come, Thou long-expected Jesus, it says. They were looking forward to this one who’d been prophesied, who would be the solution to that problem. He would be the one Who sets sinners free.

Without Him they remain in bondage to the one who’d come to own them—God’s enemy, Satan. He was the one who was able to accuse them—to say, this person has to belong to me, because he has transgressed God’s Law; he has made himself unfit to be with God in His eternal kingdom. He has been able to say, God, you have no right to have this person because he has failed to fulfill Your requirements. You can’t lower your standards in order to be accepting of someone who has fallen short. That isn’t something a perfect God can do. So, this person is mine. No wonder the hymn-writer talks about being released from fears and sins. What could make us more afraid than being at Satan’s mercy, without God’s protecting presence? Jesus was expressing it on the cross when He said, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? He was expressing what it is to considered a sinner in the Judgment.

When Jesus drew near to Jerusalem and sent disciples for a certain donkey and its colt, He was coming—the One long-expected, born to set His people free. His welcome by Jerusalemites was complicated. One could wish that God’s eternally-conceived solution for sinners would just be recognized by everyone, and received with joy and thanksgiving. Our text demonstrates that it was not to be. The Pharisees (who were always Jesus’ adversaries) ask, When will this kingdom of God be coming?

John the Baptist had sent his disciples to ask the same sort of question. They’d asked Him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another (Matthew 11:3)?” Jesus’ answer on that occasion had been, Look what I’m doing. It’s what the prophets said the Messiah would do: “…the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them (11:5).” To the Pharisees in our text, Jesus says, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” He means it isn’t something one needs to wait for. It is laid hold of through faith, through believing, through knowing God’s anointed One Who brings His grace to sinners—the one long-expected, the one our Old Testament lesson calls, ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’ The hymn writer says of Him,

2 Israel's strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art

It’s interesting in the text, that in the beginning, when Jesus is talking to Pharisees (who wouldn’t have been believers in Him), He indicates to them, that they should be recognizing God’s kingdom among them even now. But then to His disciples just after (who are believers in Him), He kind of says, don’t let anybody confuse you about what the kingdom is. You already see it because you know Me. There isn’t anything to wait for; you already have it!

St. Paul is talking in the same way to his readers in our epistle lesson. He’s also talking to believers in Jesus. And his message to them is the same sort of thing: they already have the kingdom; they’re citizens of it even now by faith. There isn’t anything to wonder about. Certainly, there is nothing to be afraid of. They know this long-expected Jesus, born to set [His] people free. They aren’t in darkness anymore. Through Jesus, they’re released from their fears and sins; in Him they already have their rest.

His instruction for them, then, is, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on this One Who makes you righteous before God. Put on this One Who has answered all of the devil’s accusations against you, putting them all on Himself as the perfect substitutionary sacrifice. The accusations that had been directed at you came to be directed at Him on a cross, by God’s design. The Father’s forsaking, His removing of His protective presence; it came to be applied to Him instead of you. Our theme for this First Sunday of Advent can be summarized in Paul’s words to the Philippians: And being found in human form, [Christ] humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (2:8). That’s what He was riding into Jerusalem to do.

It’s important that we think about how a person comes to know Jesus, to have this kingdom—to be a citizen of it even now by faith. Jesus is specifically saying in this text, that it isn’t by some sort of amazing sight that someone could show you, someone saying, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’. He tells His disciples, if someone says something like that, Do not go out or follow them.

It was just before our text that Jesus had told the parable about the rich man and poor Lazarus. Remember that the point of view of the rich man (who’d been placed in hell upon his death) had been that he had no interest in God’s kingdom without some sign to prove it. His brothers would be of the same mind. But if there was the sign of a man appearing to them from the dead they would believe. But that isn’t how we lay hold of God’s kingdom. That isn’t how it becomes ours even now, how we come to be citizens of it even during our time in this world. It is through faith.

You are a possessor of this kingdom; you have this faith, either because you were baptized into Christ—the Spirit opening your heart through water and the Word so you came to lay hold of it, or, through the Spirit’s work in the Word itself. Regardless by which means it happened, you came to be one of the ones who perceives God’s kingdom. You don’t wait to see some sign of it before you’ll believe like Pharisees or like the rich man in Jesus’ parable. You know it as having come in the one Who rides into Jerusalem in our Gospel lesson—God’s anointed one, Jesus.

But Jesus doesn’t warn His disciples without any cause, that they not get drawn in to worldly ideas about the kingdom. Paul doesn’t warn his readers without any cause, to wake from sleep, to cast off the works of darkness. They do this because there is danger for those who have come to perceive the kingdom of God. There is danger that what one has today, he might not have tomorrow unless it is protected. The hymn writer implores:

4 By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone

He means, don’t let this world’s ideas cloud what we have already come to possess through the Spirit’s leading. Don’t let us buy into false ideas about God’s kingdom. Don’t let us imagine like Pharisees, that we come to possess the kingdom through righteous things that we do. Don’t let us, like Paul warns, get entrenched in the sinfulness of this world that becomes a sort of sleep for us, an unreadiness for the kingdom. Instead, let this king who comes be the sole ruler in our hearts. Let our attention be on Him. Paul’s and Jesus’ warnings could just as well be called accusations, because Paul’s readers and Jesus’ disciples, and we—have hesitated sometimes to consider God’s Word and Baptism to be all-sufficient in bringing us the kingdom. We have wanted signs and wonders to further convince us. We have even wanted our godly actions to be considered important in bringing us the kingdom (as if anything we could do could outweigh our sins).

Instead, we pray with the hymn writer this morning:

By Thine all-sufficient merit
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Christ’s merit is all-sufficient. What else could we need if we have Him? He has answered our accuser with the merit of His perfect righteousness. He became for you the one who transgressed God’s Law, who made Himself unfit for the kingdom (He took it from you and suffered for it Himself). He made Himself the one God had no right to accept, who’d failed in His requirements, who’d fallen short. It’s true that the perfect God can’t lower His standards; so He punished Him instead of you. With Him standing in your place, for a moment the devil could say of Him, He’s mine. So then, Jesus cries out that He’s been forsaken by the Father. But this One is the Desire of every nation, the Joy of ev’ry longing heart. He rises from death, victorious over it. You are set free. From your fears and sins, you are released. You are raised to His glorious throne. You are no longer considered a sinner in the judgment, made righteous in the blood of Christ. God be praised. Amen.

Jeremiah 33:14-18

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

“For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.”

Romans 13:11-14

You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

St. Matthew 21:1-9

Now when [Jesus and his disciples] drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!