Audio: iTunes | Spotify

“Behold, your King comes to you, riding on a donkey.”

᛭ INI ᛭

Christ rides triumphantly into Jerusalem. He rides in like He owns the place. It is, of course, His. In fact, “the earth is the LORD’s and the fulness thereof.” He rides into Jerusalem. He goes into the Temple, “the place where [He] caused His name to dwell.” (2-Sam 7) “My Father’s house,” Christ called it. There He cast out those who didn’t belong. The money exchangers who had turned the Divine “house of prayer into a den of thieves.”

Christ rides in not to conquer a place, but to conquer sin, death, and the devil, but even more personally than that He came to claim hearts. Christ comes to conquer a people for Himself “zealous for good works” (Tit 2), “that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for Him died and rose for them.” (2-Cor 9)

This is what means for Christ to be King and Lord. It means He redeems. It means He is the Hero who saved. He conquers. Indeed,

CHRIST IS THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO.

(I. He conquers with His cross.)

When Christ conquers, He doesn’t come to conquer land. His concern wasn’t for a plot of land. It wasn’t for a city. It wasn’t for borders. It wasn’t for a nation state. It wasn’t for any of those worldly things. We ought to know this well. Christ Himself says it when He’s chatting with Pontius Pilate. “Are you the King of the Jews?” “Are you asking or did others tell you this about Me?” “Am I a Jew? Your own people handed you over to me. What have you done?” “My Kingdom is not of this world.” (Jn 18)

Christ doesn’t wage war in His kingdom as other Kings. Kings raise armies, fight battles, topple kings and rulers and nations and empires. Now, don’t misunderstand. Of course, Christ, according to His hidden will and through His work does this since He’s God. “The Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.” (Dan 4) In His Kingdom, which is His Holy Christian Church, He conquers not by the shedding of the blood of His enemies. He conquers and brings about His Kingdom by means of His own death. CHRIST IS THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO at Calvary. He conquers with His cross.

Christ conquers sin, forgiveness of sins, by shedding His blood and by dying. Christ defeats the devil by the same battle—an apparent loss, is the ultimate victory. Christ destroys death from the inside out. He paid all your sin-debt with His blood. He silenced the devil’s accusations against you. He made your death and grave only a nap. All this on His cross—CHRIST IS THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO.

(Transition.)

Even now, after His death and resurrection, Christ’s Kingdom has nothing to do with borders at all. It’s not a political or social reality. Christ’s reign extends past all human borders and names. His subjects are from “all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues,” (Rev 7) as Christ commands, “Make disciples of all nations [by] baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Mt 28) In fact, Baptism is how God the Father “has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of His belovèd Son.” (Col 1) Baptism is how CHRIST IS still THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO, still conquering through His cross.

(II. He conquers still through the cross.)

CHRIST IS THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO at the Holy Font. In fact, Christ conquers the nations through His cross with Holy Baptism. This is one of the benefits of Holy Baptism. For Holy Baptism unites someone to Christ’s cross and death. Baptism delivers His cross, the forgiveness He purchased there. It makes it personally yours. As Paul says, “As many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.” (Rom-6 NKJV) We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom-6 NIV)

In Holy Baptism, as we heard a few weeks ago, Christ binds the devil and claims you as His spoils. So that He’s not conquering lands and countries by force. Christ is not only David’s Son but Abraham’s and claims “all families of the earth” (Gen 15) one individual, one family at a time. HE IS THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO when He does.

There is much more that could be said, but our Epistle reading today nails it: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” This mind was given in Baptism, strengthened through the Word and Communion, for Baptism is how you “have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer [you] who live, but Christ lives in [you]; and the life which [you] now live in the flesh [you] live by faith in the Son of God, who loved [you] and gave Himself for you.” (Gal 3; Rom 6; Col 2)

It would be nice if we’re better off than the donkey that Christ rode, always delighting in the will of her rider Christ. We all “are like a beast before the LORD.” (Ps 73) But we often are worse off. As the LORD calls us to repentance in another Psalm: “Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you.” (Ps 32) “Let us not turn back to folly!” (Ps 85) Let us not be as dogs, nor “fools that repeat our folly,” (Prov 26) our sins!

The constant prayer of the Baptized is: Lord, have mercy! Our prayer should be a heartfelt: “Create in Me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right Spirit within me.” (Ps 51) “Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. (Ps 86) And He does! “The heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.” (Lk 18) The Holy Spirit first given you in Holy Baptism. (Acts 2) “Thus says the LORD: I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” (Ezek 36)

This continual conquest, of course, He also does through the cross. As Christ promises: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” (Lk 9) As a “father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, worker,” (Small Catechism) friend, teacher, student, citizen, neighbor, “you look not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Phil 2) For by Baptism through faith you “who live live no longer for yourselves, but for Him who died for you and rose again” (2-Cor 5), “presenting your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.” (Rom 12)

(Conclusion)

“Behold, your King comes to you, riding on a donkey.” Christ comes as THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO. He conquers by His cross. He is unlike any other King of the earth. In fact, “the Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the LORD and against His Christ.” (Ps 2) They did with Christ. They still do…

CHRIST IS THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO, not of land or nations or boarders, but people. He comes to claim you as His own. He conquers and claims you. Also by His cross—Holy Baptism! There He would take up you for His service. Ride you not into Jerusalem, but where He’s placed you in your daily life. The living out of His cross, His holy Baptism, in and through you. CHRIST THE TRUE CONQUERING HERO, as He lives in you, that you “live not for yourself but for Him” as your serve others, for “in Him you live and move and have your being.” (Acts 17)

᛭ INI ᛭