Familiar [Advent 1; St. Matthew 21:1-9]

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Jesus speaks to us on this first Sunday of the Church Year, through His Gospel and says,

“This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet”

To dispel any annual myths that rise against you this season: Advent and Christmas are not pagan holy days that have been co-opted by the Church. It is the other way around. The pagans have co-opted Christian themes and words and celebrations in derision of it. Christ was here first.

It really is as simple as that. Even though it took the Church awhile to catch on to what God was doing in life, does not mean that these celebrations did not exist within the Church, even the Old Testament Church.

And that is really what we celebrate during Advent, at the beginning of the Church Year. We go back to the beginning. Back to the Creation of the World and remember from that time forward all the things that have prepared God’s people for His coming in the flesh.

One of the ways the Church recognizes and teaches this is in the Advent wreath. If you noticed, we light each new candle before the reading from the Old Testament. In other words, the candle is lit to remind us that the Old Testament is about Jesus and every prophets’ witness to that fact.

What’s funny is that for the rest of chapter 23 in Jeremiah, the Lord is lamenting over His false prophets. His heart is broken because of their lies to His people. Even the land mourns (v.10) because both prophet and priest are polluted (v.11). They dream their own dreams and speak from their own imaginations. They prophesy peace where there is no peace. They say calamity will not befall you, but it is all around.

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord.  Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.  Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.  I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. (Jer 23:1-4)

It is not simply the occurrence of future events that prove the prophets true, it is the appearance of the Shepherd Who gathers. Who gathers to a place where no more fear, trembling, or waywardness occurs. A perfect place of peace, if you will.

Repent! You read the Old Testament, if you do at all, and completely pass by the Coming of Jesus. You instead look for quaint stories, inspirational quotes, or even rules to live by. When none of those things come to hand, you pass it off as too hard to understand or worse yet, you deem it holds no value for you today.

The hour has come for you to wake from such a slumber of sinful death, where constant doubts assail you and the winds of fads and popular speakers rock you to and fro. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, St. Paul says. In other words: remember your baptism.

Remember your baptism, in which is your hope, because it was there that Christ saved you and brought you out of darkness, clothing you with Himself. This is the secondary function of our candle lit on the Advent wreath. This candle should remind you of your own baptismal candle lit at your baptism, igniting hope within you. The hope of everlasting life.

Traditionally, this first candle on the Advent wreath represented “hope”, Hope in the fulfilled prophesies of God, from the Old Testament, in Christ. Our Sundays in the Church year make it easy for us. Just look at the Old Testament reading next to the New Testament and compare.

See how your King comes for you, righteous and having salvation? See how the Branch Who is King will rise up as a mighty ruler, employing humility rather than force? See how the new Judah is saved in sacrifice and the new Israel dwells securely in her baptismal garments?

And Christ has not just gathered out of Egypt, or the north countries, or even throughout the whole world. He has even gathered from the dead; those long dead and those recently dead. His Word is the Word of Life that awakens the slumbering sinner to new life before God. His prophesies are of Himself coming quickly to rescue His people from the clutches of sin, death, and the power of the devil.

The King of Righteousness and Justice rides on a lowly beast of burden. He chooses the lowest seat. He dwells on the hardest couch. He refuses neither crib nor cross in order to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify His people. He snuffs out His own light, that the light of faith would shine brightly for eternity, for you.

For the light of the world; the Righteous Branch hangs on a tree. Salvation, security, and redemption come in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is the first and primary responsibility of the prophets: to make sure that God’s people hear and know this promise, but not just so God can predict the future.

No behind all the fulfilled prophesies, behind all the mighty acts and wonders, behind all the connected-ness of Scripture, is familiarity. The Prophets preach God’s promise because it doesn’t change. They can hand it down, generation after generation, and it be the same so that when people hear it, they say, “Oh yes. I remember.”

Each prophet repeats what previous prophets have spoken and each time faith is created and memorization encouraged. If God says it enough, its gotta stick one of these times, right? This is how Holy Scripture gets to you and this is how the holy prophets preach to you: through familiarity.

Because, now it is your church. But not just yours, also your parents’, also your grandparents’, great-grandparents, and on and on till you get to Jesus. God is not a God of the dead, but of the living. Those living in faith, right now, who have died before us. They hear the same Word of God, they sing the same songs of the angels, they pray and commune in the same way: with God and with us.

This small, man-made candle represents all of that and more. That in this tiny bit of flame that God gives us, we see the entire Church, throughout all time, wrapped in swaddling clothes with Christ. That the repetitious Service, ceremonies, and readings are a beautiful reminder of what our ancestors heard and did. That God not only gave us prophets, but fathers and families stretching back to the beginning of time.

The Church is designed to be familiar so that when we hear the prophets we also say, “Oh yes. I remember.” We should know her ceremonies, Services, and hymns like the back of our own hands. And when we look at that hand, we should also see there the marks of nail and cross and remember the Son born to us, Who wins for us such wonderful gifts.