James L. Price, Jr. - "The Coming of the King" (December 10, 1961)
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| - | Today is the second Sunday in Advent. | 0:14 |
| For some Christians, | 0:18 | |
| Advent connotes the mysterious coming of the Christ | 0:20 | |
| at an hour men do not expect to bring history to its close. | 0:25 | |
| Other Christians limit the meaning of Advent | 0:31 | |
| to Christ's coming into Bethlehem. | 0:36 | |
| Yet the great Christian hymns | 0:40 | |
| and liturgies of all the ages | 0:42 | |
| do not so narrowly view the Advent season. | 0:45 | |
| The four Sundays before Christmas day | 0:50 | |
| herald the coming into the world of God in Christ, | 0:54 | |
| along all of time's corridors, | 0:58 | |
| in the present, as well as in the past and in the future. | 1:02 | |
| The festival of Christ's nativity | 1:09 | |
| can be dissipated into shallow sentiment | 1:12 | |
| unless one bring to it | 1:16 | |
| a mood and a faith nourished by this whole gospel of God. | 1:19 | |
| Christmas carols may be as lightly sung | 1:26 | |
| as one whistles the opening bars | 1:30 | |
| of a great classical symphony | 1:33 | |
| without understanding them. | 1:35 | |
| For as a symphony's initial themes derive their full beauty | 1:38 | |
| and meaning from the composer's total work, | 1:44 | |
| just so the lovely music of Christmas. | 1:50 | |
| It's perennial beauty and its power to move our hearts | 1:53 | |
| are best appreciated | 1:58 | |
| when thoughts of Bethlehem lead to Calvary, | 2:00 | |
| past Calvary to Easter and Pentecost and beyond, | 2:06 | |
| to the innumerable comings of Christ | 2:11 | |
| into the hearts of men in his grace. | 2:14 | |
| To Christians, | 2:18 | |
| all of God's Advents give prescience | 2:19 | |
| of Christ's final coming in glory | 2:24 | |
| to judge the living and the dead. | 2:27 | |
| The coming of God to Bethlehem in the infant to Jesus, | 2:32 | |
| is therefore no isolated event in history. | 2:36 | |
| Nevertheless, | 2:42 | |
| it has remained in Christian theology and devotion, | 2:43 | |
| the crucial Advent. | 2:48 | |
| For the earliest Christians, | 2:51 | |
| this past coming of Christ | 2:54 | |
| became faith fixed vantage point, | 2:57 | |
| for viewing the meaning of all of God's comings | 3:01 | |
| into history in the past, | 3:05 | |
| and all of the comings that were to follow. | 3:08 | |
| This particular Advent, | 3:12 | |
| in the fullness of time, | 3:14 | |
| decisively altered man's understanding of his existence | 3:18 | |
| and the birth of Jesus became the hinge of history | 3:24 | |
| on the calendars of the Christian world. | 3:30 | |
| It is not strange that men | 3:36 | |
| should have remembered the man of Nazareth | 3:38 | |
| and treasured the traditional accounts | 3:41 | |
| of his birth and infancy. | 3:43 | |
| But when we consider how and why | 3:47 | |
| these stories concerning him were preserved, | 3:51 | |
| we notice something which at first thought | 3:55 | |
| appeals strange indeed | 3:58 | |
| in telling and retelling the stories of Jesus. | 4:02 | |
| The early Christians felt themselves his contemporary. | 4:07 | |
| Recent research upon the gospels | 4:13 | |
| has made clear this perspective. | 4:16 | |
| It was Christian worship and the proclamation of the faith, | 4:19 | |
| which provided the original setting of the gospel stories. | 4:24 | |
| As stories of Jesus were told, | 4:31 | |
| Christians knelt before Mary, Joseph and the holy child. | 4:33 | |
| They stood in the company | 4:40 | |
| of the first hearers of Jesus in Galilee, | 4:42 | |
| receiving his blood tidings of the coming of God's kingdom. | 4:45 | |
| First Christians knew themselves | 4:50 | |
| to be the persons Jesus called to be his disciples. | 4:53 | |
| They knew that they were the sick whom he healed, | 4:58 | |
| the sinners whom he befriended and forgave. | 5:02 | |
| The annual return of the Advent season | 5:08 | |
| in the Christian year, | 5:10 | |
| reminds us that this has ever been | 5:12 | |
| the church's understanding of herself, | 5:15 | |
| of her situation before God. | 5:19 | |
| In our worship, we too are called back to Bethlehem, | 5:22 | |
| to see this thing which has come to pass, | 5:28 | |
| which the Lord has made known unto us. | 5:33 | |
| It is no sentimental journey that we take. | 5:37 | |
| Into the long ago, | 5:40 | |
| no pilgrimage to the shrine of a great person | 5:43 | |
| in Pius memory of the dead. | 5:47 | |
| We come now to Bethlehem. | 5:50 | |
| Not does a great admirer | 5:54 | |
| of Abraham Lincoln might visit the site of his humble birth, | 5:57 | |
| rather we seek to be joined in mind and in heart | 6:02 | |
| with those particular men and women who were vouch saved, | 6:07 | |
| the signs of God's coming in Christ. | 6:12 | |
| But we believe that as God revealed himself | 6:17 | |
| in Judea and Galilee, so he is today. | 6:22 | |
| And justice persons received from him then | 6:28 | |
| grace and forgiveness, even so may we, | 6:33 | |
| if only the way be prepared for God's coming. | 6:39 | |
| One does not normally turn | 6:47 | |
| to the opening lines of the gospel according to Mark | 6:50 | |
| to reflect upon God's Advent in Bethlehem. | 6:55 | |
| Matthew and Luke recalled to the stories of Jesus nativity, | 7:00 | |
| but Mark the earliest evangelist | 7:07 | |
| finally sums up the meaning of Christmas. | 7:10 | |
| Jesus came proclaiming the gospel of God | 7:15 | |
| and saying, the time is fulfilled, | 7:21 | |
| the kingdom of God has come near, | 7:27 | |
| repent and believe the gospel. | 7:31 | |
| These words concisely summarize the Christmas message | 7:37 | |
| as well as man's fitting response to it. | 7:41 | |
| The kingdom of God has come new. | 7:48 | |
| Out of Israel arose the faith | 7:53 | |
| that the God who revealed himself unto the fathers | 7:55 | |
| is the Lord of heaven and earth. | 7:59 | |
| And the hope that one day | 8:03 | |
| his rule will be made manifest unto all men. | 8:05 | |
| With intensity of conviction, | 8:10 | |
| Jesus reaffirmed his people's faith. | 8:12 | |
| The Lord God alone is man's rightful sovereign. | 8:16 | |
| He is king over all. | 8:22 | |
| But that was a new and striking note in Jesus proclamation. | 8:26 | |
| For him that long hoped for day had already dawned. | 8:31 | |
| The time when God would establish his rule over men | 8:37 | |
| was actually upon man. | 8:42 | |
| Jesus hearers found this exceedingly hard to believe. | 8:46 | |
| Many of Israel's fondest hopes were not being realized. | 8:50 | |
| Many of the signs expected were not being manifested. | 8:54 | |
| But in the face of this incredulity, | 9:00 | |
| Jesus declared the Kingdom of God | 9:03 | |
| comes not with signs to be observed. | 9:08 | |
| Nor will men say lo! here it or there, | 9:12 | |
| but behold the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you. | 9:17 | |
| Apparently Jesus felt | 9:24 | |
| that men were looking in the wrong places | 9:26 | |
| and in the wrong ways | 9:29 | |
| for the manifestation of God's Kingdom. | 9:31 | |
| God's rule must be believed | 9:34 | |
| and understood in its hiddenness. | 9:37 | |
| Time and again Jesus parables | 9:42 | |
| emphasize this aspect of his proclamation. | 9:44 | |
| Does not the Christmas story at the demise | 9:49 | |
| this truth of the gospel of God. | 9:53 | |
| He came not with his heavenly crown his sceptre , | 9:56 | |
| clad with power. | 10:01 | |
| His coming was in feebleness, | 10:03 | |
| the infant of an hour. | 10:06 | |
| An humble manger cradled first | 10:08 | |
| the Virgin holy birth and lowing her compassion desire. | 10:11 | |
| The Lord of heaven and earth. | 10:17 | |
| Under ordinary folk shepherds on a hillside, | 10:21 | |
| the sign of God's coming was given. | 10:24 | |
| You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, | 10:27 | |
| lying in a cattle stall. | 10:31 | |
| And still today, from pulpits by the manger, | 10:35 | |
| the church proclaims under the world, | 10:40 | |
| behold you're God, the God who reigns. | 10:43 | |
| But one may well ask | 10:50 | |
| who shall see this thing that is come to pass? | 10:52 | |
| How unlike the manger | 10:57 | |
| is the sign of the 50 plus Makaton bomb. | 10:59 | |
| Proud symbol in our time that man rules the world | 11:04 | |
| and disposes its future. | 11:08 | |
| How unlike the rude swaddling clothes of a new born child, | 11:11 | |
| the standard of living symbols, | 11:17 | |
| by which materialists guarantee the salvation of the world. | 11:20 | |
| And these are the signs, | 11:25 | |
| the signs which men discount as weakness. | 11:28 | |
| The sons of God's coming unto men, | 11:32 | |
| sons of his kingdom in our midst. | 11:35 | |
| God's rule must also be believed by us | 11:39 | |
| and understood by us in it's hiddenness. | 11:43 | |
| But Jesus chief emphasis, | 11:50 | |
| lay not upon the dark and mysterious | 11:53 | |
| in the ways in which God revealed himself to men. | 11:55 | |
| Something else was in the forefront of his message | 11:59 | |
| concerning the dawning of God's Kingdom. | 12:02 | |
| A note of joy, | 12:07 | |
| a note of unexpected anticipation | 12:08 | |
| of God's grace to undeserving men. | 12:13 | |
| God yearned even now, | 12:17 | |
| to receive the rebels subjects of his kingdom | 12:21 | |
| in love and patience and great forgiveness. | 12:26 | |
| According to Jesus himself called not | 12:32 | |
| the righteous to repentance, but sinners. | 12:35 | |
| He lived among the sick in need of the physician, | 12:39 | |
| the lost, those who knew themselves lost | 12:44 | |
| where his special care. | 12:49 | |
| And not the time the prophets foretold come to pass, | 12:51 | |
| the blind receive sight, the lame walk, | 12:56 | |
| the lepers were healed, | 12:59 | |
| the poor heard the good news proclaimed unto them. | 13:02 | |
| How wonderfully the Christmas story | 13:08 | |
| reveals the grace of God our king. | 13:10 | |
| Let Bernard, the 12th century Abbot of Clairvaux | 13:14 | |
| speak to us from his pulpit by the manger. | 13:19 | |
| Christ came indeed an infant, | 13:23 | |
| but the word of God become an infant | 13:27 | |
| who is not solicit in his infancy. | 13:29 | |
| Be comforted, be comforted my people, | 13:33 | |
| says your God. | 13:37 | |
| So speaks to us Emmanuel, God with us. | 13:39 | |
| The stable proclaims it, | 13:43 | |
| the manger, the babies cry, the swaddling clothes, | 13:45 | |
| all declare it loud, | 13:50 | |
| the stable proclaims that he is preparing to cure man, | 13:53 | |
| who has fallen among robbers, | 13:57 | |
| the manger proclaims that he will feed men | 14:00 | |
| who have lowered themselves | 14:04 | |
| to the level of the senseless beasts, | 14:06 | |
| the tears and the swaddling clothes proclaim | 14:09 | |
| the man's bleeding wounds will be washed, | 14:12 | |
| that he will be clothed in righteousness, | 14:16 | |
| for Christ needed none of these things, | 14:20 | |
| he needed none of them for himself. | 14:24 | |
| They were all for his chosen, | 14:27 | |
| for those upon whom God's favor rests. | 14:31 | |
| So Bethlehem reminds us once again, | 14:36 | |
| God was in Christ, | 14:40 | |
| emptying himself of his Royal prerogatives, | 14:42 | |
| becoming poor that men through his poverty | 14:46 | |
| might receive unimagined wealth. | 14:51 | |
| The infant form, the manger bed | 14:54 | |
| signs of lowliness and poverty | 14:57 | |
| proclaim to us and you, | 15:00 | |
| the self denying, suffering, pardoning grace | 15:03 | |
| of God our king. | 15:08 | |
| But who shall see this thing that is come to pass? | 15:11 | |
| Surely not men blinded by their pride, | 15:16 | |
| deceived by the illusions of self-sufficiency. | 15:20 | |
| Surely not those among us | 15:24 | |
| who are victimized by the lie. | 15:26 | |
| That all the shame man feels | 15:29 | |
| is an unhealthy guilt complex. | 15:32 | |
| That all sin is in fact a sickness | 15:36 | |
| and that the ill are not themselves | 15:40 | |
| ever morally responsible. | 15:42 | |
| With raw humor Anna Russell, | 15:46 | |
| characterized as the popular folklore of our day. | 15:49 | |
| At three I had a feeling of ambivalence towards my brothers. | 15:53 | |
| And so it follows naturally | 15:58 | |
| I poisoned all my lovers. | 16:00 | |
| And now I'm happy | 16:02 | |
| I have learned a lesson this is taught, | 16:04 | |
| that everything I do that's wrong | 16:07 | |
| Is someone else's fault. | 16:11 | |
| Jesus taught that the blessings of God's rule | 16:15 | |
| could only be realized and received by the penitent. | 16:19 | |
| For those who were prepared to be honest with themselves, | 16:23 | |
| his proclamation arrested his hearers | 16:28 | |
| with a sense of God's judgment upon their ways. | 16:31 | |
| And in this Advent year of our Lord, | 16:36 | |
| I do not see how we can avoid that sense of judgment | 16:39 | |
| or exempt ourselves from it. | 16:44 | |
| In Christian devotion | 16:47 | |
| one normally thinks of the cross of Christ | 16:49 | |
| as the sound which awakens in man | 16:52 | |
| a consciousness of his sin, | 16:54 | |
| and of his urgent need for pardon and grace. | 16:56 | |
| But the Christmas story, | 17:00 | |
| the Christmas story is not alone sweetness and light. | 17:03 | |
| It conflicts us with inexpressible joy. | 17:08 | |
| It delights us only as it humbles us. | 17:13 | |
| For what reason asks Bernard from his pulpit by the manger, | 17:19 | |
| for what purpose did the Lord | 17:25 | |
| the majesty abase himself like this? | 17:27 | |
| If not that we should do likewise. | 17:31 | |
| For what can be more unworthy | 17:35 | |
| now that having seen the Lord of heaven | 17:39 | |
| become a little child, | 17:41 | |
| man should still magnify himself upon the earth. | 17:45 | |
| Repentance and faith, faith expressing itself in repentance. | 17:51 | |
| This is the fitting mood, the fitting mood of Advent. | 17:57 | |
| In the gospel | 18:02 | |
| those who found themselves a shamed | 18:03 | |
| in the presence of Christ, | 18:05 | |
| judged by his incredible goodness and got no further | 18:08 | |
| went away angry and sorrowful. | 18:14 | |
| And that was the end of it. | 18:18 | |
| But those who acknowledged God claim, | 18:21 | |
| the God's love claimed them utterly, | 18:24 | |
| who put that conscience under God's judgment | 18:28 | |
| so that they lost their taste for their former ways, | 18:31 | |
| found that repentance and faith | 18:35 | |
| turned into a miracle of forgiveness | 18:38 | |
| and forgiveness gave them the new life | 18:40 | |
| and a fresh beginning. | 18:43 | |
| Let the coming of the advent season, | 18:46 | |
| remind us of this promise | 18:49 | |
| of this ever present possibility. | 18:51 | |
| God in Christ came then in grace and power | 18:54 | |
| to free men from their past | 19:00 | |
| and to start new things in history. | 19:03 | |
| He has done it before, he can and he will do it again. | 19:07 | |
| For unto us a child is born. | 19:12 | |
| Unto us a son is given. | 19:17 | |
| This is the crux of the message. | 19:20 | |
| This gift, | 19:23 | |
| this coming of God was for us men and our salvation. | 19:24 | |
| Like Mary we can say, how can this thing be? | 19:30 | |
| But like Mary, | 19:35 | |
| we are challenged to believe | 19:37 | |
| that God's promises can never fail, | 19:39 | |
| that God's power is strongest | 19:43 | |
| when men know their weakness. | 19:45 | |
| And like Mary, | 19:49 | |
| we can reply in humble faith and devotion, | 19:49 | |
| here am I, a servant of the Lord, | 19:54 | |
| let it be to me according to his word. | 19:57 | |
| See how God invites you, | 20:04 | |
| writes Luther in his Christmas book. | 20:06 | |
| He places before you are baby, | 20:09 | |
| with whom you may take refuge. | 20:12 | |
| You cannot fear him | 20:14 | |
| for nothing is more appealing than a baby. | 20:16 | |
| Divinity may terrify man, | 20:20 | |
| inexpressible majesty may crush him, | 20:22 | |
| but Christ takes upon himself our humanity | 20:27 | |
| not to terrify us, | 20:32 | |
| but rather with love and favor to console us, | 20:34 | |
| to confirm us, | 20:39 | |
| then come to him, see how great is the divine goodness, | 20:41 | |
| which seeks above all else | 20:47 | |
| that you should not dispel. | 20:49 | |
| Believe that he has come not to judge you, | 20:52 | |
| but to save you. | 20:56 | |
| Draws near the time to celebrate the birth of Christ, | 20:59 | |
| God that then in the long, long ago, | 21:04 | |
| but also the opportunity to welcome him here. | 21:09 | |
| And now let us pray. | 21:15 | |
| Come thou long expected Jesus | 21:29 | |
| born to set thy people free | 21:32 | |
| from all fears and sins release us. | 21:33 | |
| Let us find our rest in thee. | 21:40 | |
| The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, | 21:44 | |
| the love of God the father | 21:47 | |
| and the fellowship of the holy spirit. | 21:49 | |
| Be with us all throughout the advent season. | 21:51 |