This sermon was preached at St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (11am) and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Bairnsdale (3pm).
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text (Mt 21:1-9)
This took place to fulfil 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, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.
Cu mɛmɛ tuɔɔk, kɛ ɣöö bi mëë ca lar ɛ gök a thuɔ̱k, mëë ɛ jɛn i̱, "La̱rɛ jɛ nya Dha-yɔn i̱, 'Nɛnɛ kuääru min di̱i̱t a bëë kä ji̱ ni, kɔ̱c lɔcdɛ, kä ko̱tdɛ jɔk muɔ̱l, kɛnɛ ruathdɛ.'"
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
In Genesis 41, we read about how Joseph was in prison, and the Pharoah, the king of Egypt sent for him because he was having bad dreams: nightmares, if you like. Joseph was well known as someone who was able to interpret dreams, so Pharoah sent for him and told him his dreams. He says:
“In my dream I was standing on the banks of the Nile. Seven cows, plump and attractive, came up out of the Nile and fed in the reed grass. Seven other cows came up after them, poor and very ugly cows ate up the first seven plump cows, but when they had eaten them no one would have known that they had eaten them, for they were still as ugly as at the beginning. Then I awoke. I also saw in my dream seven ears growing on one stalk, full and good. Seven ears, withered, thin, and blighted by the east wind, sprouted after them, and the thin ears swallowed up the seven good ears. And I told it to the magicians, but there was no one who could explain it to me.”
Then Joseph said, “The dreams of Pharoah are one; God has revealed to Pharoah what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years; the dreams are one. The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty ears blighted by the east wind are also seven years of famine. It is as I told Pharoah; God has shown to Pharoah what he is about to do. There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt, but after them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land, and the plenty will be unknown in the land by reason of the famine that will follow, for it will be very severe. And the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about.
Did you miss that last sentence? Let me read it to you again.
The doubling of Pharoah’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about.
God does things in twos. He gives two dreams. And he does this so that Pharoah will be doubly sure, so that he will have no reason to doubt that the thing is fixed, it is sure, it is certain, it stands. Two dreams – one message – doubly sure.
And it’s a mysterious thing how all throughout the bible, God does things in twos. He has an Old and a New Testament. We have prophets and evangelists. And we have two messages in Christianity, one word which kills you, one word which uncovers your sin and lays you bare, and another word which makes you alive, and forgives your sin. We call this the “law” and the “gospel.”
And today in our reading we have two animals: a donkey and a colt.
We read in the gospel for today:
Now when they 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 has need of them,’ and he will send them at once.”
Two animals: a donkey and its colt. A mother donkey and a baby donkey.
Jesus does things in twos!
Now you may be thinking at this point in the sermon, what far-fetched connection am I trying to make with this donkey and its baby? Are these two animals really so important?
Of course they are! They’re almost the most important part of this passage! (Apart from Jesus himself, of course!...) Because Matthew writes in his gospel: “All this took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet.”
Yes, folks! All of it! All of these little details took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet. And what did the prophet say?
Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt!”
(By the way, this is where the word “Advent” comes from. Advent means “coming”. Behold, your king is coming to you…)
Now Jesus could have said to the disciples that in a certain village there’s a donkey – but maybe there were all sorts of donkeys around the place. Donkeys would have been reasonably common in those times. But we read that the disciples were to go and find a donkey with a colt: a mother donkey and a baby donkey.
Because Jesus wanted the disciples to be doubly sure!
First of all, look how Jesus knew ahead of time that there was in fact a donkey there. And he told them ahead of time that if they said to anyone, “The Lord needs them”, then they would give the donkeys to them.
And not only was there a single donkey, but two donkeys: a mother and a baby, because Jesus wanted them to be absolutely positive, crystal clear, doubly sure that Yes! He is fulfilling the words of the prophet right now! He is the king of kings and the Lord of Lords who is making his entrance into Jerusalem right now! He is the true king of Israel! He is the true King of the Jews!
Behold! Your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey – (and to make you doubly sure!) – and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”
And now, as we prepare for a new church year, on this First Sunday of Advent (the first Sunday of the Church Year) we are going to notice that Jesus is going to do things in twos.
He is going to show you that he is true God and true man.
He is going to send a star to the wise men and angels to the shepherds.
He is going to die on a cross for you because he loves his Father and because he loves the whole world.
He is going to convict you of your sin and he is going to forgive you for it.
He is going to wound and he is going to heal the brokenhearted.
He is going to speak to his people on the earth and they will say “Amen.”
It’s serious business as we start a new church year: a church year where God wants you to be doubly sure of his promises to you.
But also he comes into Jerusalem on a donkey and colt to make you doubly sure of what sort of a king he is. The prophet also tells us this:
Behold, your king is coming to you, humble…
Humble! He doesn’t come with force. He doesn’t come with a great army. He comes on a donkey with a baby donkey following close behind.
Think about Jesus humility. Think for a moment about how Jesus is humble.
He could have just come into the world and fixed everything straight away, but if he did that he would have to force everyone to follow him.
Instead he invites people. “Follow me”, he says to people.
There’s no force, there’s no coercion. It’s all invitation, it’s all humble, it’s all gentle.
He truly and earnestly desires that all people be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, as it says in 1 Timothy.
And if he’s going to do that, he has to be humble, to be gentle, so that he can win us over.
Think about it: we have about 30 years of Jesus’ life, where we don’t even know what he was doing all that much. He was growing up into a man, learning a trade, and waiting. There was no rush, no force. Only humility.
And for us sinners, we always want everything right here and now. But that’s not what Jesus commands us.
We want our works to be perfect now. But Jesus says, “No—in the mean time I will forgive you, but you have to wait until you will be free from sin.”
We want the church to be bigger and better. And Jesus says, “My church is already bigger than you can even imagine, and I want to you be faithful in me.”
We want suffering to end. We want wars to end. We want disease to end.
And Jesus says, “I want you to pray. I don’t want prayer to end.”
There was a great Lutheran pastor in the 20th century by the name of Hermann Sasse who once wrote: “The sect cannot wait; it must have everything at once, for it has no future. The church can wait, for it does have a future. We Lutherans should think of that.”
Everything in you which is impatient, mean, envious, boastful, arrogant and rude, everything in you which wants to have its own way, everything in you that is irritable and resentful, your king comes to you, and he condemns.
And if we are honest, we all stand under the judgment of our king who comes to us.
And he does come to us, and this is a frightening thing – a scary thing, when we know who it is who has come to us, who it is in whose presence we are standing, who it is who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, and who it is who at the first Christmas was born as the tiniest of babies in a stable in Bethlehem.
And so we read those beautiful words: Behold, your king comes to you, humble! Gentle! Riding on a donkey and a colt.
Take notice how Jesus is working in twos.
He rides on a donkey and a colt.
The Holy Spirit inspired the prophet Zechariah to speak this prophecy, and Jesus comes now and fulfils it.
He speaks his holy word to you into your ears and he lets you see his sacraments (these modern day miracles) before your eyes.
When he baptises you, he speaks his words and he washes you in water.
He uses bread and wine. He gives you his body and his blood.
And in these things there is no force, no judgment, only grace, only a humble king, only pure love which is patient and kind, and which bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
And as he comes into the midst of his church we sing just as the crowd did, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
And Jesus, the Lamb of God, who endures all things, and bears all things, including the sin of the whole world, and your sin, did go to Jerusalem those many years ago. He did fulfill the words of the prophet, and he did die on the cross for you and rise from the dead for you.
And at Christmas time, he did come as a humble king, born in Bethelehem, the king’s city, King David’s own city, as a tiny baby.
And he does send you the Holy Spirit through his own words in the Holy Scriptures (the Bible) spoken and preached in this church today. He does in fact breathe upon you the forgiveness of your sins, and gives you every good and perfect gift which you need in your everyday lives. And at the end of the world he will raise you from the dead and he will bless you with eternal life, which he has already begun to give to you now. He will open the book of life and find your name written in it.
All this takes place Sunday after Sunday to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king comes to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”
Amen.
Lord God, heavenly Father, we thank you for the coming of your Son into the world, and we thank you for the blessing of this new church year, and this Advent season. Send us your Holy Spirit, so that we may be strengthened as citizens of Jesus Christ’s own heavenly kingdom, and may prepare to celebrate his birth on earth as a baby at Christmas this year. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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