Blessed Is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord!

First Sunday of Advent

November 29, 2015

Matthew 21:1-9

Blessed Is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord!

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Often your moment of greatest exaltation is the also the moment when you're under the greatest scrutiny and attack from your enemies.

When a kid hits the go-ahead free throw with one second left to close out his 8^th grade basketball career, it is a moment of great elation. But that kid soon discovers that making that shot made him a lot of enemies. His friends love him even more, but now his enemies give him dirty looks.

Or the story of the shepherd boy who killed an evil giant with a slung stone. While everyone praised and sang this boy's name with joy, the boy's king was sullen and jealous that the boy was getting all the attention. His jealousy led him to try many times to murder this shepherd boy. A moment of great exaltation is also the moment when a lasting hatred is born.

Even so while Jesus experienced elation and exaltation, even then His enemies were silently plotting to kill Him. A very mixed triumph, indeed.

Let's set the scene. Jesus had been conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary 33 years earlier. He had famously been “lost” in Jerusalem 21 years earlier, when He was 12.

And then three years before Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph, things really started happening. He had been baptized. He had gone to a wedding and changed water to wine. Many other miracles followed in these years of traveling and teaching. He had been to Jerusalem many times during His life and ministry but today was special.

The crowds were chanting praises to Him and using His special name, the Son of David. This name designated Him correctly as the Savior of sinners from their stubborn separation from the one true and holy God. The kids were shouting hosanna; many others were laying out their own cloaks and cut palm branches to create a “red carpet” for this Son of David.

The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:6-9)

The Son of David was the special name given by the prophets to describe the Savior's greatness and origins.

There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,

On the throne of David and over his kingdom,

To establish it and to uphold it with justice

and righteousness From then on and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

(Isaiah 9:7)

David was the greatest king Israel had even seen; Jesus is even greater. And Jesus came from the physical family tree of David; Jesus was David's great-grandson born 1,000 years after David was dead and buried.

And there's the most compelling difference between David and the Son of David. David died and is still dead; Jesus died and rose from the dead. David's body is dust and ashes for going on 3,000 years; Jesus, the Son of David, rules with His glorious body this very day.

And so we join the triumph and sing this very day, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Consider when we sing these words. Open your hymnal to the front section and take a look at page 22.

Blessed is He, blessed is He, blessed is He, who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest!

Advent means arrival. So before we receive the advent of Christ's body into our mouths this morning, we join the crowd and use their praises to praise our mutual Savior from sin. What perfectly good timing to praise and confess His advent into our lives!

For all believers wherever they are, the advent, the coming of Christ into our lives, is a triumph that He freely gives to us, that also brings enemies. The worst enemy that plots against us is our own heart. When things don't go as planned, our sinful hearts become sad or upset.

The kid who made the shot to win the game isn't good enough to make the high school freshman team. The shepherd boy now has a target on his back; the king is out to get him. Both these stories happened; one story is small and the other is one of Biblical proportions. But for both believers they perhaps wondered why things turned out the way they did. Why is it so hard?

You might be surprised to learn that no one wondered this more than Christ Himself. A few days after Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem, He was praying to His Father in heaven that He would find another way to save mankind. 

“Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)

And there we hear the greatness of the Son of David, “Not My will, but Your will be done.” Our gracious God's will was for Jesus to come into the world in the name of the Lord, come to the cross, and then three days later come out of the grave. He now comes to us this very day to bring us the forgiveness of our sin. And He is coming back in triumph that will leave no more enemies to haunt us, not even our own sinful hearts. When Jesus comes in triumph the last time, hopefully today, all believers will shout with joy, no one more than the boy who made the free throw, no one more than David himself.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21