Waiting and Arriving: A Meditation on Matthew 21 for the First Sunday in Advent

Then the multitude who went before

 and those who followed cried out, saying,

"Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is He

Who comes in the Name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the Highest!"

And when He had come into Jerusalem,

All the city was moved, saying, "Who is this?"

So the multitude said,

"This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee."

Waiting and arriving are themes that run throughout the Scripture, and one of those pivotal moments occurs in our Gospel text for this first Sunday in Advent.  The people of God had waited a long time for Him to come and deliver them, and the Hebrews kept record of God's Law and Promises, Wisdom and Prophecies, in the Holy Scriptures which we Christians now call the Old Testament.  There in those pages of holy writ, is the record of God's people hearing his voice through the Prophets, waiting in faith upon His promises, and His visitations to deliver them.  Though Moses wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit somewhere around 1500 BC, he set down the record of Adam and Eve's first encounter with their Creator, and His preservation of them even in their Fall; of Noah's salvation through the Flood; and of Abraham who received God's promise, presence, and salvation 500 years before Moses' time.  After Moses, with God's visitation to save His people in Egypt, that Old Testament continued to bare witness to Kings and Prophets for another thousand years, until several hundred years before Jesus came.  And while the Hebrew people trusted and waited upon God for His intercession in the struggles of their daily lives, they also looked forward in hope to His final coming which would save them all from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil forever.  Without trying to calculate the ancient pre-history of the Hebrews, Scripture and archeology both show us that since the time of Abraham around 2000 BC, the Hebrew people waited in faith and hope for what happened in the Gospel text we read today:  God's Savior arriving in Jerusalem to save His people, according to His promise.

Now 2000 years later in our own time, the people of God look back on that pivotal arrival with Thanksgiving and great joy.  Jesus, foretold intimately and intricately by the prophets for thousands of years before His Virgin birth in Bethlehem and His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, presented Himself as the Lamb of God to be sacrificed for sins of the whole world-- a Vicarious Atonement which would save His people, exchanging their death and condemnation for His life and glory.  Having conquered death and hell forever, Jesus rose the third day, and sent His disciples out with a new message of hope and joy that was far wider reaching than just the Hebrews through whom it had come.  This was a Gospel of reconciliation, forgiveness, and eternal life to all who would believe and trust in Him, no matter what their tribe, tongue, nation or social standing might be.  And even as Jesus promised to be with His disciples through His Word and Holy Spirit to the very end of the age, He also told them that He would return once more at the end of days to restore both them and the whole creation-- the day of the final resurrection, the final putting away of all evil, death, and suffering, and the final victory of love, peace, joy, and life.  In this testimony the Church has now labored for 2000 years, carrying forward the Old and New Testaments which continually point all people to salvation in Jesus.

But as the people of God have done since the beginning, we wait not in despair, but in hope, having already received in our own time His promises made to us, and trusting in Him to fulfill them.  It is not a blind or ignorant hope, but one strengthened by the testimony of countless generations who heard the Word of the Lord, trusted in Him by faith, turned from the ways of death and embraced His forgiveness, life, and salvation through His manifold gifts of grace.  We carry the testimony of thousands of years of saints and martyrs, Prophets and Apostles, and yet we carry in our own bosom the testimony of that same Holy Spirit who moved all people before us, and all who will come after us, to a saving faith in God's Messiah.  We wait, even while we work, knowing that the promise of God is more enduring than the stars of heaven or the earth under our feet.  We trust His promise at the dawn of life while in our youth we understand so little of what lies before us; in the heat of life's day, where our labors combine with a little wisdom and understanding, and yet suffering tempts us to doubt; and at the end of life, when our work is done and we've learned what we will, and yet stand on the precipice of eternity with nothing to cling to but the saving Word of Christ.

Advent reminds us that the faith which saves and secures us in His love and grace, is a faith that actively waits in and upon His Word.  This faith hears the promises of God fulfilled across all time and place, receives the Gospel of forgiveness in the present moment, and moves forward in love of God and neighbor toward that last day of Jesus' return.  We are a people marked by waiting upon the Lord through His Word of promise, and a people marked by His coming to save and restore all things.  We are a people who remember the saving love of our Lord, and reflect that love into a dark and dying world, until the time of our earthly work is complete.  We are a people who live with one eye upon the world as it is, and one eye upon the eternity of what the world shall be, when the Lord of Glory comes to visit His people once again.  Hear the testimony of the ages, the witness of the Spirit through His Word to you now, and the promise of all that is to come.  Turn from the sullen darkness of a fallen world and all the emptiness of its continuously broken promises, that you may be bathed in the light and loving warmth of God's never failing promise to you in His Son, Jesus Christ.  Hear Him, believe, and live.  Amen.