1.
Grace, mercy,
and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Amen. Many years ago, before I became a Pastor, I
can remember singing Paul Gerhardt’s hymn “O
Lord, How Shall I Meet You,” wondering why on earth we were singing a Palm
Sunday hymn just weeks before Christmas. It was stanza 2 that caused confusion.
Even though the hymn is regarded as an Advent hymn, stanza 2 speaks of Zion
strewing palm branches before the coming Lord, and, to my young mind, that said
“Palm Sunday,” not “Advent.”
2.
As the years
went by, I came to find in this hymn not confusion but understanding. Advent is
a season in which to contemplate all the ways our Lord has come, continues to
come, and will come to us: through the Word of God, through Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper, through Jesus’ birth, ministry, and His coming in glory at the
end of the age. The presence of these themes together brings perspective.
Beyond that, Gerhardt’s hymn has come to be not only a cherished part of Advent
singing but also an important Advent reminder. Gerhardt asks a very personal
question in his hymn directed to his Lord. It’s a question that reminds me that
Advent serves a much more important purpose than to guide my yearly attempts to
get ready to celebrate Christmas. And it’s this question that I need to ask
myself again every time Advent comes: O Lord, How Will I Greet You?
3.
Matthew’s
description of our Lord’s royal entry into Jerusalem, like that of the other
Gospel writers, gives a picture of a crowd that’s anything but united. This
point is often lost on us who are used to Gospel narratives about Jesus versus the crowd. Look at our
Gospel again and notice that almost everything we associate with Palm Sunday
happens before Jesus enters the city. Notice that
the crowds who shout “Hosanna to the Son
of David!” aren’t the crowds of people from Jerusalem, but crowds of people
who’ve followed Jesus there, people who’ve been traveling with him—many, all
the way from Galilee. Jerusalem’s cry isn’t “Blessed is he!” but “Who is
he?” So there were two crowds that day: one who had no idea who Jesus was
and another who thought they knew exactly who he was.
4.
The entrance
of Jesus into Jerusalem that day was an earth-shattering event. The whole city
was shaken up. And we can almost picture the two crowds I just mentioned
shouting to each other across a great divide, caused by the “earthquake” of
this man’s arrival. Zechariah had foretold the coming of the king to Jerusalem.
He had spoken of the day when the simple donkey would be preferred to the bloodied
warhorse. Malachi had promised that one day the Lord would suddenly appear in
his temple. And still, Jerusalem wasn’t ready. Still, Jerusalem couldn’t read
the signs of the times. The Lord had come to his city, but the world didn’t
know him; his own didn’t receive him.
5.
And what of
the other crowd, the crowd that was running before and following after Jesus,
the crowd flinging coats and waving branches, the crowd that hailed Jesus as
their king? We know they were right to honor Jesus of Nazareth, the Galilean,
as Son of David, the One who comes in the Lord’s name. We also know that they
were still far from realizing how this Son of David would ascend to the throne
and how appropriate their hosannas were. The closest of his followers, his
disciples, would all soon abandon him and run for their lives. Contrary to all
their promises to Jesus, not one of them served as a character witness at his
trial; neither did they surround his cross in a vigil of support. There wasn’t
a heart among them that awoke with gladness that first Easter morning (to
borrow another Gerhardt hymn). Although their hearts were being prepared, they
couldn’t imagine what God was doing then or about to do next.
6.
And still, “the Son of Man goes as it is written of him”
(Mt 26:24). Even though no one was ready with the kind of greeting he deserved,
Jesus still came. The way wasn’t straight. The path wasn’t smooth. And still he
came. And Jesus accomplished what he came to do.
7.
Please turn
with me for a moment to Paul Gerhardt’s hymn, LSB 334: “O
Lord, How Shall I Meet You.” If all you knew of this hymn were the title,
you might expect it to be a hymn all about “me.” Many of us can be tempted to think that the
seasons of Advent and Christmas are all about “me.” But, skim through the
stanzas of this hymn, and you’ll discover how good a theologian Gerhardt was. He
can’t get through the first stanza without letting the focus fall upon the work
of his Lord. It’s his Lord who must “kindle”
the lamp. It’s his Lord who comes to set him free; his Lord gives him an
eternal treasure (st 3). Although Jesus is his heart’s desire, it’s his Lord’s
love, his Lord’s thirsting for his salvation, that has brought him down from on
high, down into flesh, to embrace the fallen, to win for us liberty. Jesus has
come so that all this might be ours. He has come so that hearts may be ready to
receive him when he comes again to judge the nations, so that he might be a
comfort to us rather than terror in his return. Jesus has come to teach us how
to greet him.
8.
Although we
hear throughout the Church Year the call to return, although the love of God shown
to us in Jesus does make it possible for us to be born again, the pattern of
the Christian life isn’t a cycle. The turning of the seasons isn’t meant to
bring us back to the place where we were this time last year. Nor do we keep
Advent as if we were the shepherds or the crowds of Bethlehem, the sages in
Jerusalem or the traveling Wise Men; we don’t keep Advent as if we were they,
wondering what we would’ve done. Gerhardt doesn’t ask “How would I have greeted you?” He asks “How will I greet you?” “How will I, dear Lord, for whom you rode into
Jerusalem, for whom you bore the cross and were born by it? How will I, dear
Lord, for whom you died and rose again? How will I greet you?” This question
isn’t a poetic way of asking myself whether I’ll be “ready for Christmas.” This isn’t a question of whether heart and
mind will be where they should be in the candlelight of Christmas Eve. Advent
forces me to ask again how I will greet Jesus when not just Jerusalem but
heaven and earth are shaking, when the nations of the earth are mourning, and
the Son of Man comes on the clouds of heaven. “My Lord, how will I greet you?”
9.
Gerhardt’s
question all but answers itself: How shall I meet you, “my hope, my heart’s delight?” I will greet you with a heart made
new by you, with a heart you have taught to know and love you, to hope and long for
you. I will greet you with the new heart you’ve given me. But this would all be
little more than pious poetry if not backed by the words of Jesus himself. That
he will be a “light of consolations”
for us and the “blessed hope” (st 6)
he’s promised. When sun is darkened and moon empty, when trumpets are sounding
and stars falling, Jesus will come to gather us from every corner of the earth.
Because his promise is certain and his words won’t pass away, we will lift up
our heads and shout for joy, “Blessed is
he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
10.
Does
all this mean that Advent no longer has any real purpose for us? What meaning
can Advent have for people who begin the season with Jesus’ royal entry into
Jerusalem, for people who already know how Matthew’s Gospel ends? Gerhardt’s
question remains important. St. Paul tells us that in
the fullness of time God’s sent-forth
Son was born of a woman (Gal 4:4). God had made everything ready, but Bethlehem
and Jerusalem were caught sleeping. And everything was ready and waiting for
the Lord who had need of them as Jesus prepared for his entry into Jerusalem,
but Jerusalem was caught off guard. Advent calls us not only to make sure we’re
ready to meet him, but also to make sure we stay ready to meet him. This isn’t
the time to doze off, to turn the lights off and go to bed. As you’ll hear
again, the Advent readings are filled with encouragement to stay alert and be
watching, to be ready and waiting.
11.
When I
returned to Gerhardt’s hymn this year, as I was reliving those childhood
memories and enjoying again the beautiful message of this hymn, I noticed
something I’d never seen before. John is the only Gospel writer who
specifically mentions that palm branches were spread before Jesus. It’s his account that gives the Sunday its
name. Both Matthew and Mark mention branches, and all three suggest they were
freshly cut, but no Gospel account mentions a color. That’s why it struck me as
odd that Gerhardt should speak of “green
boughs” in stanza 2. What the English singer doesn’t realize is that the
idea appears a second time in the stanza. We sing “My heart shall bloom forever For You with praises new”; what Gerhardt
wrote might be woodenly translated from the German: “My heart shall green for You in constant praise and exaltation.” What
a beautiful way to begin another Advent! How shall we greet him? We shall greet
Jesus as the ever-praising, ever-watchful, ever-faithful, evergreen people of
God. Amen.
