Advent 1
Today, with this first Sunday in Advent, we begin a brand new Church Year. The Church Year is different from the calendar year. When we began 2020, who would ever have guessed that it would have turned out the way it has so far? Yes, we knew about the elections and all that it brings about. But who would have guessed about our pandemic and all the results of that? And personally, who knew everything that would happen to them—all the twists and turns their life would take in 2020?
How different that is from the Church Year! We know exactly what will happen in the Church Year. In this new Church Year, the same thing will happen as happened last Church Year and all the previous Church Years—Jesus will come to us in His holy Word and Sacrament with His grace, forgiveness, life, peace, and every heavenly blessing. It will again be a year of His grace! There will be no horrible surprises lurking around the corner. Our dear Lord Jesus will again be with us and as we gather around His holy word and sacraments He will again be giving us His gifts and graces.
The Church has for centuries used as today’s Gospel, the account of Palm Sunday as the Gospel for the beginning of the new Church Year. It sets us right at the heart of the Christian message—Jesus, our Divine King, coming to suffer and die for our sins. It shows Him coming in humility—as He still does to us today in His holy word and Sacrament. The joy of the crowd is our joy as we welcome Him—and we literally do this in the communion liturgy, in the Sanctus, as we welcome Jesus as He is physically/ bodily present in the bread and wine of the Sacrament: Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!... Hosanna in the highest!
On this first Sunday of the Church Year, we are also greeted by the blessing of St. Paul in the epistle: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This, too, is what we will again experience all throughout this new Church Year—God’s grace and peace! May we see and use it as a time of grace, a time of peace.
St. Paul writes: I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus. St. Paul thanks God that He brought these Christians to faith. Our faith—that we have been brought to faith and that others have been brought to faith—is a great grace of God. God’s grace is His favor and good will; it is His free favor and forgiveness to us undeserving people. In His grace God brought us to faith in Jesus our Savior and saved us. For through this faith in Jesus we receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
The very fact that we are Christians is all because of God’s grace to us first. Left to ourselves, there’s no way that we could gain heaven; left to ourselves, there’s no way that we would rightly know God and so fear, love and trust in Him. Left to ourselves, we would continue on the way of sin and so come to hell and damnation. But God had mercy on us! He sent His Son, Christ Jesus, into this world to become also true man, to obey His holy Law for us, to take our sins upon Himself and to go to the cross to suffer and die for our sins and so reconcile us sinners to the holy God. God’s compassion and Jesus’ merit are closely bound.
In His mercy He saved us from the well-earned, deserved consequences of our sin; in His grace, God brought us to faith in Jesus, faith which saves us. And notice: this is all apart from our works. We didn’t earn/ deserve all that God has done for us. In fact, it’s just the opposite—precisely because of our works: our sin, our rebellion against God and His law/ will—we need God to have mercy on us. We need His grace, His favor and good will to us in/ on account of Jesus and His saving work. We don’t earn heaven and salvation by our works. Instead, it is all by God’s grace, for Jesus’ sake. And God richly pours out this grace upon us again this new Church Year in His holy word and Sacrament. That’s why we will want to be faithfully here in Church hearing and receiving that word and sacrament because through them, God is giving us/ showering upon us His grace.
Our text: in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge…so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His grace, God has given us gifts so that in every way we were made rich in Him. Our good and gracious Lord has given us a share in His wealth—that is, we now, because of His grace and the merit of Christ, have a heavenly inheritance. A glorious eternity in heaven awaits us; the kingdom of heaven is opened to us.
But those blessings are not just future blessings; they are His blessings and gifts of grace for us right now! Our text: in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge. We were taught the word, and by the work of the Holy Spirit we have a right understanding of it. Again, this is all the grace of God. As we learned to know the way to eternal life, as we were filled with the certainty of God’s grace, as by the Holy Spirit we grow richly in our understanding and insight into doctrine—and especially in the wisdom of the cross—these riches from God’s grace satisfy our heart—and these are the only things that can truly fill the longings and emptiness of the human heart. Here we are, already now, truly rich in the Lord. We don’t need any other revelation or doctrine. We don’t need anything else. By God’s grace He gives us a share in these riches and it is precisely these riches that we will again hear and receive this new Church Year as God pours them out to us in His holy word and Sacraments.
So, dear Christian, let us regard this new Church Year as the true treasure that it is—a time when God’s grace and peace coming to us once again. That’s why we will want to be faithfully and regularly in church for worship to receive the gifts of His grace. Here God gives us of the fullness of His gifts and graces in Christ. These gifts of God’s grace are precious and valuable. They bring us from spiritual death to life. Dear Christian, if we value our Lord’s grace, if we value these gifts, we will be regularly and faithfully here in church around His holy word and Sacrament so that we do not fall into unbelief and rejection of the rich blessings our Lord gives us. Our Lord, in grace, wants this to be a good new Church Year for us—full of the richness of His graces and blessings. He wants to make us rich in Him.
Our text: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only does St. Paul’s greeting remind us of God’s grace to us again this new Church Year, it also reminds us of the peace that God gives us. God’s grace and peace are the greatest gifts because by them we are assured that in Jesus we are reconciled and at peace with God and that now, once again in this new Church Year, we can only expect goodness and blessing from the Lord. Even if our lives are filled with all sorts of trouble, trial, or chaos—even if we lack that “feeling” of inner peace—we are still in that state of peace with God/ we are still in a peaceful relationship with God through Jesus. And that’s what our Lord gives to us and wants to assure us of this new Church Year. In Jesus, things are right between us and God—our sins are forgiven us. Forgiven our sins, our consciences are at peace before the Lord; and as we have been forgiven our sin by God, we then forgive the sin others do against us. We then have that glorious peace and reconciliation with God and each other.
God in His grace wants us to be certain of that peace! Our text: even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you. That’s why He has given us the Holy Spirit—so that our hearts become fixed and remain steadfast in the truth; so that our hearts are certain of this reality of God’s grace and the peace that results. And that’s why we want to be regular and faithful in our Lord’s house again this new Church Year—the Holy Spirit works through the word and Sacrament that we receive here and confirms and seals that faith; He makes us all the more sure of it; with that faith, we then have and enjoy that great peace with God.
And we need that grace and peace. St. Paul writes, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. The new Church Year marks a new year of waiting for Jesus’ return. And the season of Advent that now begins the Church Year, also has the theme of Jesus’ return on the Last Day. The Christian longs for Jesus to return. Especially as we look at all the suffering, evil and shenanigans going on in the world, it’s very easy to long for and cry out for Jesus to come already in the Judgment and put an end to it. We pray the words from our OT reading: Oh that You would rend the heavens and come down. Really, that’s one of the good things that God works through the evil that He allows in the world—it turns our gaze toward heaven and to long for Jesus’ return. As we live our lives reminded of our Lord’s return and eternity, we are not so engrossed in the cares and, for that matter, the joys of the world. We keep the main thing the main thing and throughout it all live for the Lord, for eternity, not wanting to lose all His gifts and blessings He gives us in Jesus.
And the wonderful thing is that we can wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ because on that Last Day in the Judgment we will be guiltless; we will be guiltless because Jesus is our righteousness; His righteousness is imputed/ credited to us. That’s the peace that we now have—the forgiveness of sins and things are right between us and God. Although we sin often, greatly and even grievously God’s grace is supreme, the forgiveness of sins in Christ is there and the holiness of Christ is given us. As repentant sinners/ as our Lord’s dear Christians, God will pronounce us in the judgment: guiltless.
Now is the time for us to be faithful. Yes, our sins are totally and fully forgiven us but we dare never think we can live any way we want, not worry about sin, etc. Instead, we strive by the Holy Spirit to live a blameless life, a life more and more free from sin, a life in which we delight in doing the Lord’s will and strive to work with the Holy Spirit in living a life of faith and in accord with the holy Ten Commandments. Our prayer now is a prayer for faithfulness—that we remain steadfast in faith, love and knowledge. This is why we rejoice on this first Sunday in the new Church Year—Jesus is coming to us in it to strengthen our faith and give us His good gifts and favor.
The thing is—as we live our lives waiting for our Lord’s return, we need not distress and think about our own sin and weakness; instead, let us look to the Lord. It is our Lord—and now in this new Church Year—who will sustain [us] to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. And as St. Paul concludes our text: God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The hope of our final salvation is God’s faithfulness—His promise and gifts, His grace to us. Even when we are weak and fall, God will preserve us. The wonderful thing is that we have been called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We are united with Jesus. That’s what baptism did—it united us with Jesus; that’s what faith does now; and in a wonderful way we are united with Jesus as in the Blessed Sacrament He comes bodily to us and we eat His body and drink His blood. United with Jesus by faith and sacramentally, there is our certainty that our salvation is secure in His hand. What a glorious message the new Church Year again brings to us: our Lord comes in grace giving us all His gifts and blessings, giving us His peace and He will work faithfully this year to keep us in it. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. INJ Amen