Text: Luke 19:38
Date: Advent I + 12/2/12
Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! So is the shout of faith and hope with which we begin this new Church Year. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! This King is blessed. For we have come to proclaim and to worship not an earthly king or sovereign, but the King of the universe. He is King because “all things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:2-3). Though we rebelled and sin has separated us from Him, nevertheless, out of pure love this King of all creation “came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man.” “Though he was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself” (Phil 2:5-8). Still the King nevertheless His kingdom was not and is not of this world (John 18:36). For us and for our salvation He divested Himself for a little while so that, as a man, He could fight the battle we could never win, the battle that has meant death for all mankind. It was a strange and dreadful sight to see Him who was King taking the sin of the world to the cross there to atone for it by spilling His own holy and sacred blood. Yet our strong King, having destroyed death and risen from the grave and ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on high, now lives and rules all things both as its Creator and its Redeemer. So we say, now in Advent and pretty soon at Christmas, and through the telling of the rest of the gospel, “Blessed is the King! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Continue reading “Blessed is the King Who Comes in the Name of the Lord”