Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I do not know how familiar any of you are with the 19-70s era rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar”, but I can hardly hear today’s Gospel Reading without thinking of how one of the rock opera’s songs paraphrases Jesus’s words that come at the end of the Reading. After the complaint about what Jesus’s disciples are singing, songwriters Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice have their Jesus character sing, “Why waste your breath moaning at the crowd? / Nothing can be done to stop the shouting / If every tongue were stilled the noise would still continue / The rocks and stones themselves would start to sing”. And, if you talk about stones singing, well, the Rolling Stones come to mind, and we do not want to “go” there! Instead we will reflect on the Gospel Reading under a theme phrased with the English Standard Version’s wording: “The Coming King and Crying Stones”. “The Coming King and Crying Stones.”
Admittedly, no matter how many times I do it, starting a new Church Year with a First Sunday in Advent Gospel Reading about the events of Palm Sunday always strikes me as odd. Yet, one or another of the Gospel accounts’ Palm Sunday narratives has long been so appointed, and so here we have it again today, in this case from St. Luke’s Gospel account, as our Gospel Readings will mostly be this year. We understand today’s Reading “not chronologically (and therefore out of sequence) but symbolically and eschatologically” (having to do with the end times): “[Jesus’s] long-expected first coming”, including His birth in Bethlehem and His entry into Jerusalem, “is the promise and guarantee of [His final coming]” (Pfatteicher, Commentary, 207).
As St. Luke narrates, Jesus had been journeying to Jerusalem for quite a while, over the course of some ten chapters (see Luke 9:51). Right before today’s Gospel Reading, St. Luke tells us that Jesus was near to Jerusalem and that the people expected the Kingdom of God to appear immediately (Luke 19:11), so Jesus told a parable about a nobleman who went to receive a kingdom and how those who opposed the nobleman’s becoming king were slaughtered (Luke 19:12-27). At that point, today’s Gospel Reading picks up the narrative, with Jesus going up to Jerusalem “as a king going to His coronation” (TLSB, 1757). Likely singing responsively, the whole multitude of Jesus’s disciples rejoiced and praised God: “Blessed is the King who comes in the Name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” When some of the Pharisees in the crowd, for whatever reason (see Marshall, 716), told Jesus to rebuke His disciples, Jesus answered in the words St. Luke uniquely reports, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” The Coming King Himself refers to the crying stones.
Bible commentators differ on precisely what Jesus means about the stones crying out, for example, whether their crying out would be either to offer praise or to speak judgment on those who asked for the disciples to be silent. There are some good Biblical reasons for both of those views (see Habakuk 2:11; Luke 19:44; 21:5-6), but maybe in the end they depend on a distinction without a difference, as words of true praise arguably can be used as a basis for judgment. And, as it happened, the disciples were not silent, and the very stones did not cry out, at least not literally.
At least not literally. Although, the Bible does speak of creation worshipping God (for example, Psalms 96, 97, 98) and groaning on account of sin (Romans 8:19-22; confer TLSB, 1757). Still, we might better think of ourselves, and how by nature we are hard‑hearted, stiff-necked, and willing neitherto worship God nor groan on account of sin. Like the stones, to which Jesus no doubt pointed, apart from God we truly are unable to speak words pleasing to Him, much less do things that are pleasing in His sight. When, like the Pharisees in the Gospel Reading, those who govern us try to limit our free exercise of religion to some freedom to worship, behind closed doors if at all, even we who believe might still be glad to not have to suffer ridicule or worse for blessing the King Who comes in the Name of the Lord.
Yet, that King comes in the Name of the Lord precisely because of our fallen state, because on account of our sinful nature and all our sin we deserve nothing but death now in time and eternal torment in hell. With His words to the Pharisees, Jesus affirms His disciples’ confessing Him as the promised Messiah. No silencing of the disciples—then or now—can change Who Jesus is and why He has come (confer Just, 748). In the God-man Jesus Christ God fulfills the promises He made to the House of Israel and the House of Judah, as we heard Him in today’s Old Testament Reading promise to do (Jeremiah 33:14-16). In the words of Zechariah used in today’s Gradual (Zechariah 9:9), behold, Your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation. Our Coming King has salvation because He not only was born in Bethlehem and entered into Jerusalem but also died on the cross and rose from the grave—for you, me, and all people. When Jesus was born, the angels, likely responsively, sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace” (Luke 2:14 ESV). When Jesus entered Jerusalem, His disciples sang, “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest”. There is no contradiction: the peace Jesus effected with His death for our sins is between heaven and earth, and so it can be said to be both on earth and in heaven. When we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God forgives our sin. We have that peace. In the words of today’s Psalm (Psalm 25:1-10; antiphon: v.6), the Lord remembers not the sins of our youth or our transgressions but remembers His mercy and steadfast love, which have been from of old.
Jesus’s words to the Pharisees in today’s Gospel Reading recall John the Baptizer’s words to the crowds that are recorded earlier in St. Luke’s Gospel account, which we will hear as our Gospel Reading next week. John the Baptizer said, “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Luke 3:8). As God had done with seemingly‑lifeless Abraham and Sarah (Isaiah 51:1-2), so God continues to do today. In Holy Baptism, God, from hard‑hearted sinners, raises up spiritual children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7-9). At the Baptismal Font, God removes our hearts of stone and gives us a heart of flesh, putting within us a new spirit (Ezekiel 11:19; 26:26). That new spirit leads us to confess privately to our pastors the sins that trouble us most, for the sake of receiving individual Holy Absolution, forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself. And, that new spirit leads us, so absolved, to come to this Rail, where we receive from this Altar, in Holy Communion, both bread that is Christ’s Body, given for you and for me, and wine that is Christ’s Blood, shed for you and for me—for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The historic Christian liturgy connects Jesus’s past entrance into Jerusalem with His present coming to us this very day by having us sing, Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord.
I recognize that not everyone may yet or ever appreciate the liturgical music of Lutheran Service Book Divine Service, Setting Two, but the texts lead us faithfully to receive God’s gifts, and that is most important (we would never use the music or texts from “Jesus Christ Superstar). By the estimation of some, our crying out to our Coming King may be “brutish”, but it is also “instinctive” (ESL #2896 at #5823). We living stones offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5), Who, at His final coming, as today’s Epistle Reading (1 Thessalonians 3:9-13) reminded us, establishes our hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +