The King first came to save the world

Sermon for Advent 1

Romans 13:11-14  +  Matthew 21:1-9

The King is coming! That was the Advent preaching of all the Old Testament prophets, from the Garden of Eden onward. Christ, the King, Christ, the Seed of the woman, the Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Son of David, is coming! But prophecies are rarely simple and straightforward. The prophecies about the coming Christ were all over the map. Some foretold His humanity, others foretold His divinity, and many foretold both at the same time. Some foretold Him coming in humility, others in glory; some pictured Him being despised and rejected, others pictured Him being loved and worshiped; some pictured Him as a King coming on a donkey, others on a cloud; some foretold that He would come to save, others that He would come to judge; sometimes He’s pictured establishing peace and prosperity on earth, sometimes bringing war and destruction.

Which is it, dear Prophets? It’s all true! But many of the prophecies mix together literal events and spiritual events, literal truth combined with spiritual truth. Many of the prophecies mix together both literal and figurative references to Israel and Judah and Jerusalem. And one of the biggest things we have to understand about the prophecies of Christ’s coming is that they throw all of this information together in a future heap, from the prophets’ perspective. Only after Christ came and suffered and died and rose again and commissioned His apostles and ascended into heaven do we finally grasp this essential truth of Old Testament prophecy: There are two distinct, separate advents of Christ, with different things being done to Him and by Him at each one, and with a long period of time separating His two advents—the time during which His Holy Christian Church is to be built throughout the world.

This morning our Gospel from Matthew 21 points us to a prophecy made through the prophet Zechariah, some 500 years before Jesus was born, a prophecy about a King riding on a donkey. It’s a prophecy that was already fulfilled literally in some ways on Palm Sunday; but other parts of the prophecy are still being and will be fulfilled in other ways figuratively or spiritually. May God grant us His Holy Spirit to teach us to understand this and all prophecies rightly.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is righteous and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.’

If you look up those verses in Zechariah chapter 9, you’ll see that they’re sandwiched between other prophecies about judgment and salvation. But verses 9 and 10 are specifically about the coming Christ, and we have the Holy Spirit’s own interpretation of those verses as applying directly to Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

All this happened in order that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘See, your King comes to you, meek and riding on a donkey, and on a colt the foal of a donkey.’”

God refers to His Old Testament people as “daughter of Zion” and “daughter of Jerusalem.” It’s a tender way for God the Father to refer to His people, as His beloved daughter, as the Bride who is being prepared for His Son, for Christ, the Bridegroom. 500 years before Jesus was born, God spoke through the prophet Zechariah, announcing the coming of His Son, Jerusalem’s King, to Jerusalem, “meek and riding on a donkey.” This prophecy doesn’t include anything about judgment, nor does it include anything about the King’s glory. On the contrary, He’s called “meek.” Nothing is mentioned about war or destruction. A donkey wasn’t an animal fit for war; it was a farming animal, a sign of the King’s humility in this advent.

And that’s exactly how Christ came to Jerusalem at His first advent: meek, lowly, and humble, “righteous and having salvation,” as Zechariah added. Later that week, the Christ would meekly allow Himself to be betrayed, and arrested, and beaten, and judged, and condemned, and tortured, and crucified, with no hint of refusal or of retribution. Zechariah doesn’t mention that in chapter 9, but he does mention it in chapter 11. That’s where we hear about the handsome price of 30 pieces of silver for which the Christ would be sold by one of His disciples. And in chapter 12, where we hear of the Christ’s crucifixion and death.

Why did He come the first time in such humility, to endure shame and suffering and death? Because that was the price of salvation for Jerusalem—and for the world! As Jesus says in John chapter 3, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Mankind’s biggest problem isn’t the injustice in the world, and the violence that men do to one another. Mankind’s biggest problem isn’t the climate. Mankind’s biggest problem isn’t sickness or even death. Our biggest problem is that our sins had alienated us from the God who gives life. And because of that, there was no hope of anything better, even in the future—no hope of fixing the world, no hope of fixing ourselves, no hope of life beyond death. So the Christ had to come, the first time, to take our sins upon Himself and suffer for them and die for them. He had to come, the first time, to call sinners to repentance and faith, to send out His apostles into the world to preach the Gospel, to use this time in between His first and second comings to gather a Church from all the nations, to bring His salvation to the ends of the earth.

That’s what Zechariah was talking about in the rest of his prophecy in chapter 9: I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth. That prophecy, the next verse after the prophecy about Jesus’ Palm Sunday ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, was never fulfilled in a literal way. Never has war been cut off from Jerusalem and from the land of Israel. It has always been a place of fighting and contention. Never has Christ spoken peace to the nations literally. He never even went, in person, to the nations of the world. Never has Christ had earthly, visible, literal dominion over the whole earth. So what is Zechariah talking about?

He’s talking, first and foremost, about the atonement that Christ would make through His death. He’s talking about the proclamation of the Gospel of peace which Christ sent out into all the world, to be preached to all the nations. He’s talking about the dominion, the reign of Christ over the whole earth, that He would carry out, not visibly, but invisibly, as He sits as the right hand of God the Father. Even now, the King continues to bring that message of peace and reconciliation with God to all nations through the preaching of the Gospel, through the work of His Spirit, through the ministry of His Church.

But, as so often is the case with those Old Testament prophecies, there is another fulfillment of it coming further down the line at Christ’s second coming at the end of the age. Then the chariot will be cut off from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be cut off—no longer talking about the literal land of Israel, but about the Church of Christ throughout the world. Then He’ll bring perfect peace to His whole Church, and He will reign over all things in a new heaven and a new earth.

Next Sunday, we’ll focus on Christ’s second coming in glory, and on the signs leading up to that advent. That’s the advent we’re waiting for, preparing ourselves for. But for today, rejoice in the first advent of Christ the King. To those in Israel who had been eagerly waiting for the King to come to Jerusalem, it was a day of fulfillment, a day to wave palm branches and sing, Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! —a quote from Psalm 118, tying Jesus’ arrival together with other prophecies of the coming Christ.

As for us, we live in the age in between advents. The King has already come, and yet He is still coming again. Atonement has already been made for the sins of the world. The Gospel of peace is going out right at this very moment, calling sinners to repentance while there’s still time. The King hasn’t yet come to judge. He hasn’t yet come to destroy. He hasn’t yet come to end our time of grace. Right now, in this moment, there is still time, for anyone and everyone, to be saved. The King first came to save the world, and that is still His desire, that all men should come to repentance, that all should come to Christ’s beloved Christian Church during this time between His advents, and that those who come to His Church should remain in His Church, with a steadfast faith, with purity and works of love, with a readiness to suffer for His name, and always with an eye toward His second coming. The King first came to save the world. The King is coming again to save the Church from the world. So celebrate His first advent, and prepare for His second, so that you may always be found within His Holy Christian Church, prepared to worship the King when He comes. Amen.