“HOSANNA ON THE ALTAR”
Saint Matthew 21: 1-9
1st Sunday of Advent: 27 November Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
“Savior of the nations, come, Virgin’s Son, make here Thy home.” The Christ drew nigh unto Jerusalem with the “12.” Even the traitor Judas saw the triumphal entry into a city that was filled, not with peace, but sin, hypocrisy, murder, and death. Peace enfleshed had to enter for true healing. “The Peace of The Lord be with you always.” If Jesus only came to Jerusalem then, you would be without His presence and dead in your trespasses. But this Nazarene is Savior—He has come to be with His people, His lost sheep, and to save—to save the nations. Oh, blessed Gentiles, oh heirs of the Magi, The Virgin’s Son is here—here to make His home!
He entered Jerusalem to fulfill His Holy prophetic word spoken through the lips of His pastor Zecharias: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” [Zech. 9.9] Because of your prodigal whoring, you constantly reject being the beloved daughter. And like the wild ass snuffing her nose at the alluring winds of spiritual adultery, you too often indulge in wanton “street-walking” of self, wearing the wrong red for fallen Adam, fallen Cain, reasons. Repent! Repent of your arrogance and pride, turn from the sin of your Mother Eve, who acquiesced to the fallen angel. Pray to the Spirit for the strength of your new Mother, The meek and lowly Blessed Virgin, who acquiesced to the Guardian Archangel’s Gospel and was given the great honor to bear the lowly One by the power of the same Holy Spirit. Sin that was originated with the first Adam, and all the daily assaults on the precious and holy Word of God that you commit, stem from disobedience and lack of fearing, loving, and trusting Him above all things. Man’s pride, ego, self-aggrandizement is Why the King of Glory came on an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. He is a different kind of king and a different kind of savior. His kingdom is not of this world. No pomp and glitz and glitter, but straw and hay and animals with all that comes with them…the smell of an ass in the Baby Monarch’s manger. And because you too, often refuse to flee from temptation and evil, the Herod of your old fallen natured-heart, the humble God/Man, Baby, had to flee. He fled to the land of the Pharaohs, no doubt, on the back of an ass.
God doesn’t need to use an ass; The Lord doesn’t need to use anything. But He delights and joys in using the good created order of His own design and making. His arrival on an ass is “typological” of His entire Salvation by Grace through Faith. The docile donkey carries the Body and Blood of God the way the pastor’s vocal chords carry Jesus’ Absolving Key of Remission; the way the Holy Chalice and Ciborium carry His precious Sacrament—His very Body and Blood. The Christ’s ways are not grand and awesome but earthy and tactile. Jesus is “for you” not in omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence, but in sweat, agony, riven flesh; in Jerusalem, and in Water, Body, and Blood in His Bride The Church—TODAY. The sacrifice does not take place this somber day but the benefits thereof flow freely, richly, and still humbly.
As Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his ass, to take Isaac his son, to Mount Moriah—The Calvary of old—to sacrifice, it was The Lord and His Angel that provided the paschal ram. Father Abraham’s “worship” was to receive from God His son’s life and The Life of The Son of God!
As the Great Moses took his wife and sons and set them upon an ass to return to Egypt [Ex. 4.20] to be God’s instrument in delivering the Law, He Who is greater than Moses, for He kept all the Law perfectly, allowed His Disciples to set His own immaculate Body upon an ass to return to the true fleshpots of Egyptian sin—Mount Calvary—wherein The Law would finally be administered in all its severity upon the innocent substitution Savior. As the “apple of God’s eye,” King David rode out of Jerusalem [1st Sam. 16.20] to escape certain death at the hands of the usurper Absalom, on the back of an ass, The True King, David’s Son and David’s Lord, the True Solomon, rode an ass, and that colt the foal of an ass, INTO the mouth of hell at Jerusalem’s fulcrum of your sin and all mankind’s sin. The most conceited and braggadocio of Judges, Samson, may have killed a thousand pagans with the new jawbone of an ass, but Only The Judge Who separates the goats from the lambs at the Eschaton killed the power of all pagans, demons, and Satan himself, when He hung His own sacred jawbone in death and uttered “it is finished.”
“The scepter shall not depart from Judah…” for He Who is one with His Crucifx ensign says: “lo, I Am with you till the end of the age.” “Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come…” for the Law has been fulfilled by He Who walked the way of suffering and is Himself The Way; Whose precious and pierced feet crushed the skull of the ancient enemy—Shiloh of Samuel no more but ever New Jerusalem with His Holy spotless bride. “And unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine…” for He has bound Himself to his people by taking their flesh and blood into His Godhood, and uniting His life-giving flesh to the Bread of His presence in Holy Supper. “He washed His garments in wine, and His clothes in the blood of grapes,” for He bled from His precious wounds—His spear-torn side—to wash His own robes of righteousness white in His blood that they might be placed on you in Baptismal regeneration, and drunk deeply this morning at Mass. [Gen 49. 10-12]
“Hosanna:” God save the King, God the King Saves…Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of The Lord.” He comes in His own + Name to save you—This is My Body for you; this is MY Blood for you.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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