Rev. Charles Lehmann + Ad te Levavi + Jeremiah 23:5-8 In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
A good king is hard to find. The people of Jerusalem couldn't have learned what a king was like by looking at their world. If they'd done that, they could have drawn a lot of conflicting conclusions. Looking at the Roman emperor, they could have thought either that a king was a successful military leader or that a king was a dark, somber, and depressed man. Looking at Herod Antipas, they would have thought that a king was a bloodthirsty tyrant who thought nothing of his people and sought only to satisfy his own whims and desires. But neither Tiberius Caesar nor Herod Antipas were true kings. If we move forward two thousand years we find that we're in no better situation to understand what a king is than the people of Jerusalem were. The kings of our day are usually figureheads with no real power. The few kings that do have real authority over their subjects tend to be very much like Caesar and Herod. They are self-absorbed gluttons who live off the pain and toil of their people. None of these examples show us what a king actually is. They are all flawed. They are vague shadows, tarnished by the sin and evil of the world. And so, if you want to know what a real King is like, the only place you can find one is in the Scriptures. There you will meet the true King face to face. There the One who has ruled the universe since the very beginning of time comes to give you His gifts of life and salvation. Jesus, the true King, is nothing like the other kings of history. Though the whole universe is His, the true King is penniless. Though the true King is the very incarnate Word of God and His words are sharper than any two edged sword, Jesus has no blade strapped at His waist. Though the true King could at a word call down thousands of angels to lay waste to all those who oppose Him, Jesus has no army of men. Jesus conquers sin, death, and the power of the devil by laying down His life. He is in His greatest glory when He is crowned with thorns. This is not the sort of king that the world could ever come up with. No worldly king ever freely allowed Himself to be tortured to death. No worldly king has ever been willing to die in order to save all His enemies. Our experience of the sinful world could never point us to the sort of king that Jesus is. He is unique. Only Jesus embodies all that the Scriptures tell us about true kingship. The prophet Jeremiah also knew what false kings were like. All through his life, the Israelites had been the pawns of the ambitious rulers of the pagan nations that surrounded them. When Jeremiah preached what God had revealed about His kingdom, it described something that was different than anything that those who heard it had ever experienced. The beginning of Jeremiah's description of the coming king was fairly familiar. He would be a descendant of David. When Jeremiah received this promise, it probably gave the Israelites great hope. David had been the chief hymn-writer of Israel. His poetry had told the people of Israel great things about their coming Savior. But, the Davidic line had had its glory days many years before. In Jeremiah's time, it looked like David's line was going to end completely, but Jeremiah's prophecy said something different. It said that God was going to keep the promise He made to David. This was good news. But it wasn't all good news. David had not been a perfect king. Though God had said that the king of Israel should not “acquire many wives for himself,” David had fallen precisely because he disobeyed this command. David's lust for Bathsheba led him into adultery, deceit, and murder. His marriage to her sowed the seeds that would eventually divide the kingdom two generations later. But the king would not just be a son of David. The coming king would also be a righteous Branch. This meant that the promised king would be faithful. He would perfectly fit the requirements that God had given in Deuteronomy 17. “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them.” The true king would be a man who carefully studied God's Word all the days of his life. He would write out his copy of the Scriptures with his own hand and have the Levites check it to make sure that every letter was exactly right. Because the coming king would be a righteous branch who was immersed in the Word of God and cherished it in His heart, the true king would also “deal wisely” and “execute justice and righteousness in the land.” He would be the most just and faithful king imaginable. His reign would be filled with all that God wishes His people to have: mercy, the forgiveness of their sins, and safety from all of the slings and arrows of the evil one. Because of this, Jeremiah was able to speak the most amazing promise of God yet, “In His days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.” The days of the divided kingdom would be over. That which was broken would once more be one. All of God's people... all of Israel, both the north and the south, would be united under the gracious, loving, and merciful rule of the one true king. All of that probably struck the Israelites as too good to be true, and for a normal king it would have been. But God had never intended for anyone to be Israel's king but Himself. David and the kings that followed were an interlude. They were a lesson to teach Israel that they could never be ruled any better than when God Himself was their king. And so, the promise to Jeremiah ends on a note that is the most amazing promise that the people of Israel would ever hear. The coming king, the righteous branch of David, descended from his royal line, would be called “The Lord, our Righteousness.” God would again be Israel's king, and He would be descended from David. God and man would sit on the throne of David forever. But it was even better than that. God and man will sit upon the throne and He Himself will be our righteousness. All of our sins will be remembered no more because God Himself will be our righteousness. The one born of the line of David will keep the Law perfectly, and He will do it as our Savior. By faith, all of His righteousness will be given to us. We will be ruled by a gracious and loving King who holds none of our sin against us. He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, and He will carry our sins on His shoulders. His church and the peace He gives it will have no end. He will sit on David's throne and rule over his kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. That, dear Christians, is the hope toward which we all look. It is the promise in which we live. It is the joy for which we prepare during this season of advent. Advent is a season of preparation and of repentance. We repent of our sins as we await the return of our king in glory. We wait in eager anticipation of the day that He will take us, body and soul, to live with Him forever. But we also look forward to the joy we will celebrate less than four weeks from now. We celebrate that God is not a king like the kings of this world. We celebrate that Jesus did not think it beneath Him to be born of a sinful virgin and laid in a feeding trough. We celebrate that Jesus did not turn away from us because of our sins but rather turned toward us in love so that He might cleanse us, make us holy, and give us eternal life. Jesus was laid in the wood of a manger so that some thirty years later He might be nailed to the wood of a cross. Jesus was born so that He might die, and He died that you might live, and He lives that you might be His eternally. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, our Savior and our King. Amen. In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in faith in Christ Jesus. Amen. Rev. Charles R. Lehmann Pastor, Saint John's Lutheran Church, Accident, MD http://www.stjohncove.org ___________________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_ _attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author, as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? Send ANY note to: [email protected] Unsubscribe? Send ANY note to: [email protected] Archive? <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/> For more information on this or other lists offered by Confess And Teach For Unity, you can contact the CAT 41 list administrator at: Rev. Fr. Eric J. 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