Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

The words of our Old Testament Reading for today are quite familiar. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). We sometimes hear these words on Passion Sunday, after we have had our Palm Sunday procession in remembrance of the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem just as the prophet Zechariah prophesied, humble and mounted on a donkey. We also hear them quoted in the Gospel Reading for the first Sunday in Advent.

 

But today we hear these words of Jesus following the Sundays when the Gospel readings were taken from Jesus’ address to the apostles whom He sent out to the towns and villages to which He was coming. And particularly last Sunday we heard how Jesus warned those apostles, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Dr. Kellerman expounded about the peace that Jesus brings being different than what the world might hope for.

 

World leaders have tried to broker peace deals between Israel and Palestine; Russia and Ukraine; North and South Korea; and many other places. Do we dare to hope for a world leader who can bring a lasting peace between the nations of the earth, in answer to our prayers for “the peace of the whole world, the well-being of the Church of God, and for the unity of all”?

 

If that is it what you hope for, today’s Old Testament reading has some great news for you. The prophet bids the daughter of Zion to rejoice; the daughter of Jerusalem to shout for joy. These are the children of God’s faithful people. Today we call them the Christian Church. Those who are the children of Abraham are those who have inherited the faith of Abraham in the God who justifies by faith apart from works. And for the children of Abraham (the daughter of Jerusalem, the holy Christian Church), the LORD lays out His peace program: Who executes it; the extent of it; and its effect for you.

 

 

Who executes the LORD’s peace program?

The prophet Zechariah announced that the LORD has raised up a world leader in order to execute His peace program. “Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey.” A king executes the peace program. But not a regular king. Whereas the world leaders who would vie for a Nobel Peace Prize today soon have their flaws exposed, this king is righteous. He is right with God in all that He does. He is sinless in deed and in motive. He executes this peace plan purely out of love for the heavenly Father and for mankind, without any selfish motives on His part. He is holy. He is divine.

 

And yet, He is a man. He comes riding upon a donkey. He sits on an animal. In fact, His divine and holy righteousness is in sharp contrast to the means in which He comes. He comes humble and lowly, not as we might expect of a deity or a superhero or even an army commander. This king comes riding upon a donkey, like Solomon came, not upon war horses but upon a donkey, symbolizing a contrast between King David of ancient Israel who was continually at war and his son Solomon, who ruled after him in the peace that had been attained and whose name means “peace.”

 

This human king, the Son of David, our Lord Jesus Christ, does not come with war machines or even upon a war horse. He comes humbly, mounted upon a donkey as He entered Jerusalem; just as He came humbly in the womb of the virgin Mary and was humbly laid in a manger at His birth. He humbly carried His own cross toward His crucifixion and was humbly laid to rest in death in a borrowed tomb (borrowed because He rose from the dead and had no further need of it after the third day).

 

This King who is coming to you is righteous, humble, and He brings salvation. That is the meaning of His name. The angel told Joseph, “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:18). That is what the death and resurrection of Jesus accomplished. He died for the sins of the world and your sins are forgiven in Him. He is coming to bestow that forgiveness upon you. The humble King is coming, righteous and having salvation.

 

And He still comes to us in humble means. He uses the humble voice of a pastor to pronounce the absolution of your sins and to proclaim His holy Gospel. He comes in the plain water that is transformed by His Word into a saving Baptism, a lavish washing away of sin. He comes in ordinary bread and wine, a humble wafer and an inexpensive blended wine in which His words of promise bring His body and blood, crucified, raised, and exalted to this meagre table. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God and the incarnate Son of David is the one who executes the LORD’s peace program.

 

 

The extent of the LORD’s peace program

But what is the extent of the LORD’s peace program? Does it include you? Does it include your loved ones? Who is not included?

 

The prophet Zechariah, shocked the LORD’s people in Judah when he proclaimed the extent of the divine peace program. They were very concerned about peace. Their years of exile were just ending after having been conquered by the Babylonians. They were weak and devastated and under threat from the surrounding peoples.

 

The northern kingdom represented by the tribe of Ephraim had already been completely destroyed. The Assyrians had wiped them out. They took their crops, their livestock, and their people. And they settled in those fields, farms, and towns whoever they wished. These people were then threatening the exiles returning from Babylon to Jerusalem.

 

When would the next attack come? Could this not be averted by some brokerage of peace with Egypt or Syria? Would the Persians honour their promise of peace and support for the returning exiles? The people of Judah had little hope for peace. What about you? Will the LORD’s peace program do anything for you? Do you have any hope for peace?

 

The LORD, through Zechariah, declares that His King who comes on a donkey to execute His peace program will keep the horse drawn chariots from entering Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem. Peace will come to Jerusalem and all of the kingdom of Judah even though the surrounding peoples were threatening. And peace would come to Ephraim and throughout the kingdom of Israel even though it had already been destroyed.

 

But even more perplexing is the revelation that all instruments of war will be broken as the King executes the peace program for all nations, the Gentiles in addition to the physical descendants of Abraham. In fact this Prince of Peace will rule “from sea to sea and from the river to the end of the earth” (Zechariah 9:10).

 

On Canada Day just past, you probably heard of the reference of our nation stretching from sea to sea, and sometimes even another sea is added (the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean and also the Arctic ocean, which act as geographical borders for Canada). The prophet may have been referring to the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Galilee, or the Dead Sea; and the Jordan River or maybe the Euphrates or Nile rivers. But the deliberate addition of “the ends of the earth” make it plain that this King will bring the LORD’s peace program throughout the whole world.

 

According to this peace program there will be no threat from any of the nations of the earth. Rather, there will be peace for all the nations of the earth. And the rule of this King will be universal. He will reign in His righteousness through His humble means and bring salvation for the whole world. He did that through His suffering and death upon the cross for the sins of everyone. And His peace is in effect for all who believe that He has accomplished it all, for all who have faith in the King who comes humbly.

 

This can leave no doubt that the LORD’s peace program through Jesus Christ is for you. Just as the people of Judah could not mistake that this promise of peace was for them as they recovered from exile in Babylon and were under threat from their neighbours as they strove to rebuild the city and the temple, so the LORD means for you to know and live in the confidence that He has established this peace for you. If you are within the bounds of the ends of the earth, then Jesus comes as King for you to execute the peace that the heavenly Father wishes you to have, the forgiveness of your sins and a clean conscience before Him.

 

No worldly power can take that peace from you. The holy Christian Church extends throughout the world, from sea to sea, to the ends of the earth. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the peace program of this King who comes in righteousness, who comes in humble means, who comes with salvation, has been executed through His working in His Word and Sacraments wherever the Church gathers around them. And so too, right here where you gather around them.

 

 

 

The effects of the LORD’s peace program for you

So what are the effects of this peace program for you? For as we noted last Sunday, this is peace of a different kind. It is a peace that is executed by Jesus for everyone throughout the world, but not a peace that is forced upon anyone. In fact many people not only resist this peace, but are actually hostile against it.

 

Zechariah described this peace as a freeing of prisoners. This King will set you free. Free from “the waterless pit” (9:11). That is a place of no refreshment, a place where you feel dry inside, like the life is evaporating from you. Because the peace of King Jesus is offered to all, this waterless pit is something that we all experience. Water is required for life. Without water you will die. The waterless pit is a place where you are dying.

 

“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). St. Paul described this imprisonment in the waterless pit of sin and death in our Epistle Reading for today. “I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7: 14b-15, 23-24). We need to be set free from our sins, and that is exactly the salvation that King Jesus brings. He is coming to you to rescue you from sin and death through the humble means of delivery in His Word and Sacraments.

 

In place of a waterless pit, you have the living waters of your Baptism, which washes away your sin and gives you the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus’ saving death and resurrection for you. He has purchased, ransomed, redeemed, and restored you by the blood of His covenant; not the old covenant of circumcision or the covenant of the laws of Moses, but the blood of the covenant that He instituted when “He took the cup after supper, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them saying, ‘Drink of it all of you. This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins’” (1 Corinthians 11:).

 

Jesus is the King who executes the LORD’s peace program throughout the extent of the holy Christian Church. The effect of this peace program for you is the peace that comes with the forgiveness of your sins, freeing you from sin and death, and removing every threat from the kingdoms of the earth; in fact, uniting you with Christians around the world in every nation of the earth. You have peace with God, peace with them, and peace with yourself, more than double what you were even hoping for.

 

 

Return to the fortress in hope

And so Zechariah, the prophet of the LORD, bids you as a prisoner of hope to “Return to your stronghold” (9:12). Return to the fortress of the Church, where “your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble” and executing peace for you. As He comes to you, your King bids you to come where He promises to be. “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). His rest is the peace of knowing that He has executed the LORD’s peace program for you. You can rest in that peace.