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It’s been looking more and more like Christmas since October, but we’re just a couple weeks into in Advent. And a good thing, too. The message of Advent is just what we need right now. This time of year especially, we tend to focus our eyes on earthly pursuits and pleasures. Shopping, planning, cooking, baking, having parties — these aren’t inherently sinful, but they can distract us from the things of God.
So Advent arrives with this message: “Heads up! King Jesus is coming! Repent!” The Judge is coming on clouds of glory accompanied by His holy angels. Your destiny is to meet Him. It is appointed for all men to die once and then comes judgment. Or judgment could come sooner if He returns. St. Paul says, “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” Jesus Himself says, “Surely I am coming soon.” So heads up! Get ready!
Are you prepared? When you face the Judge, will you be able to do it with your head held high? Psalm 24 asks, “Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?” Then it gives this answer: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.”
Who is fit to come into the Lord’s presence? There are four conditions: 1) clean hands; 2) a pure heart; 3) no lies; 4) no broken vows. Examine yourself. Look down at your hands, soiled from sin. Look into your heart, a cesspool of filth. Look at your tongue, stained with falsehood. Look at the promises toward the Lord and toward your neighbor that you have shattered into a million pieces. Look down at the ground, where God’s Law demands that you must be buried in death because of your sins. Heads down! Yes, because of our sins we should have our heads hung in shame, not only today but forever in the torments of hell.
But heads up! The Advent message isn’t all gloom and doom. I have Good News. Jesus is coming, but not to be your wrathful Judge. Psalm 24 calls Him “the King of glory, the LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle.” He comes with power to conquer your foes: sin, death, the devil, and hell. Throughout the Old Testament, the Lord fought for His people, and this continues in the New.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus approached the city to visit and redeem His people once and for all. The crowds went before and followed Him shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” There is no record that Psalm 24 was shouted, too, but it sure would have fit: “Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory!”
Jesus Christ is Lord, and He is the King whose glory was to be enthroned upon the cross. He alone was fit to ascend to the holy hill of Mt. Calvary because throughout His life He always kept clean hands and a pure heart; no falsehood was ever found on His lips, and He kept all of the promises He had made to His Father and to us. So He was the perfect sacrificial victim, the only one who could reconcile God and mankind. The same Lord who received the shed blood of bulls, lambs, and goats at the Temple now offered the Temple of His body on the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
So heads up! Be sorrowful no more! The Lord Jesus Himself is our righteousness. Always keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, whose clean hands and pure heart, whose honesty and faithfulness, whose suffering, death, and resurrection have fulfilled all righteousness for you. And the promise of Psalm 24 for all believers in Christ will remain with you: “He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.” Amen.
