Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

"Come to." That's what the word "advent" means. It comes from the Latin word that means "to come to" (advenire). So in our Gospel reading, when Jesus arrives at Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, it is His "advent," His "coming to" that city as her King. Once you have come to know the meaning of the word advent, you can understand why the first season of the Christian Church Year is called Advent. If God's Son had not come to earth and become a Man named Jesus, who God sent to be the Christ or Messiah of Israel, then there would be no Christianity.

So the first season of the Church Year, Advent, focuses us on the basic message of Christianity, the wonderful truth that God has not abandoned His creation that we ruined by our sin, but that He Himself has come to save it. And the way He would bring all this about was through three advents that have occurred over many centuries and one final advent that we are still awaiting. First, in the Old Testament God promised His people that He would send them a Christ who would come to save them, a promised advent; then this Christ would come to this world to suffer, die, and rise—this is the advent of Jesus 2000 years ago; then this Christ would promise His Church that He would continue to come to her through Word and Sacrament until the Last Day—this is the advent of Jesus still today; and finally, He promised that He would come again to judge the living and the dead—His final advent on the Last Day. These four advents or "coming-tos" by our Lord are what the season of Advent is all about, and it is all essential to God's plan of saving you. This morning we'll hear what our Lord teaches about all four of these advents.

First we'll look at the Old Testament's promised Advent. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and then He came to visit Adam and Eve in the Garden. And what did He find? That they had already rebelled against Him by giving in to Satan's temptations. Instead of them being happy with God coming to dwell with them in peace and eternal harmony, Adam and Eve chose to try to become like God by eating the forbidden fruit. And what was the consequence? As punishment for their sin, God cast them out of the Garden and told them that death would come to them. But He did not leave them without hope of salvation, because He promised that someday an Offspring of the woman would come to crush Satan underfoot.

After centuries had passed, God came to Abram and told him that this Offspring would be a descendent of him and Sarai, and that all nations would be blessed through Him. Centuries later God promised the great King David that this Offspring would come from his household. Our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah describes what will happen when this Offspring finally comes: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The LORD is our righteousness.'"

Every Christmas we celebrate the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham, David, Israel, and Judah when the Lord did finally come to take up human flesh in the Incarnation. St. Matthew's Gospel begins, "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham," which shows that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament. A few verses later the angel Gabriel announces to Joseph that the salvation promised to Judah had come, for the child who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and would be born of the Virgin Mary had come "to save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). And then the angel explains that Jesus was not only a human but also the Son of God when He says that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel (which means, God with us)" (Matthew 1:23). We also see a glimpse of the divinity of Jesus when on Christmas Eve the angel of the Lord came to the shepherds near Bethlehem and said, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11). The King, the Lord Himself, had finally come to save His people.

Ah, the Christmas story. It is lovely, isn't it? It's easy to get caught up in the beauty of it and forget that Christmas is only a small chapter in the whole Christian story. We're still four weeks away from Christmas itself but already the world around us is filled with Christmas music and decorations and festivities. The world wants to make Christmas the whole story of Christianity, but Advent won't let us do that. This morning the New Christian Church year comes to wake us up a bit, because the Gospel reading for the first Sunday in Advent actually happened during Holy Week, the week when Jesus would be crucified. On Palm Sunday Jesus came to Jerusalem as her King, but was rejected a few days later and executed by His own people.

It is no wonder that our annual Holy Week is so much less popular than the Christmas season, and it is no wonder the world doesn't celebrate Advent but skips right to Christmas, because the Church Year doesn't start with Jesus being born, but with Him preparing to die. To the world, the birth of Jesus seems so much more joyful than Him being killed. But the birth of Jesus wasn't enough to save us from our sins, to save us from eternal death. The whole reason Jesus was born was so that He could grow up to live a perfect life under God's Law, lay down His life for the sin of the whole world, and rise on Easter morning to declare you righteous and holy. So Advent actually comes to us this morning with an even more joyful message than the Christmas season alone, for Advent comes to give us the whole story, the full Gospel, all of our Lord's gracious "comings-to" us, not just one of them.

And Advent preaches that our Lord Jesus still comes to save us today. After He had risen, Jesus told His Church that He would not leave her behind when He ascended to His Father's right hand, but He promised, "Behold, I am with you always, to very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). And so this morning we celebrate not only Christ's promised coming in the Old Testament and His coming to the world at Christmas, not only His coming to Jerusalem to die and His coming to the mountain in Galilee to ascend into heaven, but we also celebrate His continual coming to the Church through the Word and the Sacraments.

Jesus Christ still comes to you today in the Words of the Holy Scriptures, where He continues to speak into your ears about His love and forgiveness in order to create and sustain saving faith in Him. He has come to each of you in Holy Baptism to unite you with His death and resurrection, to cover your sins with His robe of righteousness and make you holy and acceptable to God the Father. He comes to penitent sinners who have confessed their sins and speaks Absolution through humble ministers, "I forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." And Jesus Christ still comes to you in the Lord's Supper, where blesses you with forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation as you eat His true body and drink His true blood in the bread and the wine. And as the crowd greeted King Jesus on Palm Sunday with joyful Hosannas, we also greet Him by singing to our Lord who comes to give us His body and blood, "Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!" It is Palm Sunday and Advent every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper and our King comes to us.

And as our King continues to come to us in the Word and the Sacraments, He also announces that He will come back visibly on the Last Day to judge the living and the dead. At the end of the book of Revelation, Jesus says, "Surely I am coming soon." And the Church answers: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" And so the season of Advent also calls us sinners to another sort of "coming to": we all need to "come to," wake up from our slumber, regain consciousness of His imminent coming, when He will send unbelievers to hell and bring believers into His everlasting Kingdom in the resurrection on the Last Day.

The secular world's Christmas season has no interest in the final coming of Jesus, and this can lull us to sleep if we let it. We can get caught up in the fun, the partying, the preparations, and lose consciousness of our Lord's return. We can get lulled to sleep by disappointment and depression if the Christmas season reminds us of lost loved ones, or broken relationships. And so this morning Advent announces to us in our sinful drowsiness: "Come to! Wake up! Repent! Get ready to meet your Lord, who is coming soon!"

St. Paul puts it this way in the Epistle reading: "You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."

It is not wrong to enjoy all the preparations and festivities of the Christmas season, but don't let those things cause you to put off repentance and preparation for your Lord's final coming. So come to, wake up, repent, put off all the sins that keep dragging you down, put your guilt onto the back of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who died for every one of your sins, and as St. Paul says, "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ," who comes to you again this morning through the Gospel with His righteousness, His forgiveness of all your sins. He says to you, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30). And He promises to those who come to Him in faith, "Whoever comes to me I will never cast out" (John 6:37). In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.