First Sunday of Advent

November 30, 2025

Matthew 21:1-9 + Jeremiah 23:5-8 + Romans 13:8-14

One problem with transgenderism is it embraces the lie. A man presents himself as a woman (or a woman a man), and demands others go along with the illusion, or delusion.

But we must confess: we all present a lie, an illusion, to the public. We’re not that pious, we’re not that Christian.

Our public life, and even what we present to our closest friends and family, is filtered. Like your house, the public areas are clean for company, while there may be roomfuls of detritus hidden from view.

The Lord Jesus condemns our hypocrisy:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Mt. 23:27f)

The Lord Jesus condemns our hypocrisy. But it’s not a parting shot. When Jesus says to us, “Woe to you,” He invites us to renounce the lie. He invites us to abandon our filters. Jesus calls us today to leave behind what’s fake. Advent begins on our knees. Once again, Jesus calls us to repent.

He sees the unfiltered version of us. He see the darkness in our hearts. He sees what we hide from pastor, spouse - even what we hide from ourselves. He sees you for who you really are behind the mask – and still He comes to you.

He comes as King. He comes to set things right. But not now as King with drawn sword. The sword is sheathed, the stallion set aside. In its place, the donkey. Jesus enters Jerusalem the same way He now approaches you: “Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly.” He comes this way to let you know His purpose: not to condemn, but to rescue. “Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly.”

The help looks insignificant. Who can He fight? He has no army, no horses, no weapons.

What Jesus offers seems so weak. Words, water, wine and bread … what can these do, when our maladies run so deep?

All our problems – financial, relational, medical, political, familial – all our problems have a single root. The corruption of death infects the world. The corruption of sin infects the human race.

All your life you’ve heard the question when calamity strikes: Why? “Why would a man shoot National Guardsmen?” “Why did I lose my baby?” “Why does that certain relative always ruin the holiday?”

God’s Word teaches us the source: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Why are you surprised when bad things happen? You may as well be surprised when milk spoils. It’s embedded in the nature of the fallen world. All your problems, all the world’s problems, have the corruption of sin as the root cause. The second article of our Augsburg Confession, right after the doctrine of God, is original sin. Our confessions call it Seuche, Erbseuche - “inherited contagion/disease.”

The ultimate answer is not better ethics or better government – as much as I want those things, as much as we should work for those things. But ethics and government won’t heal the world, they’ll just, at their best, keep it from raging too far out of control for a time.

The Advent of Jesus brings a fundamentally different ethics, a completely different government. Today the prophet Jeremiah tells us what Jesus brings and gives: “This is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”

It’s not just that Jesus is going to enforce righteousness, or teach righteousness. Jesus is righteousness. He brings an alien righteousness, a righteousness from the outside.

Christ’s righteousness is the antidote for our contagion. You see, God’s Law demands we be perfect. “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5.21). We must strive for holiness. We are called to condemn and renounce all perversion. It is not to be tolerated in the church. No pastor or church or school can allow, much less endorse, open rebellion against God’s design for marriage and family. “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” [1 Pt 4.17]. Will we escape that judgment? Jesus says also to us: “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt. 5.28). Our righteousness before God is insufficient.

The Advent of Jesus is in judgment of us. We stand condemned. Advent must begin with this truth. Advent must begin on our knees.

Advent can only be good news when we confess His righteousness as what we desperately need. “This is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” Jesus does not come to comfort us as we are. He comes to remove us from our old life.

We must greet the Lord Jesus with the same word the crowd used in Jerusalem. Hosanna! It means, “Save us now!” It’s the happy side of Kyrie, Eleison! It’s expressed in confidence that He is merciful, He does save. He does this first by imputing to us His righteousness, crediting it to us like a credit on an account. And then He leads us to become righteous ourselves, beginning to do the works of Jesus as His disciple.

I received a great note of thanks from one of our students at Immanuel Lutheran School. “Thank you for leading me through the Bible…. You have taught and helped me understand what I want to do as a Christian.” It’s an unexpected phrase: “What I want to do as a Christian.” That’s what the new life, the life of regeneration and rebirth, the life of sanctification, looks like. Not a list of demands imposed upon the unwilling, but a cheerful new obedience of a heart that wants to love, wants to serve, wants to follow Jesus.

St. Paul describes what that life looks like for us today. It’s a transition from sleeping to wakefulness, from darkness to light. “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Hosanna!—“Save us now!”—says, “Yes, Lord, save me from my concupiscence, save me from my darkened heart, help me be a noble husband and father, a loving wife and mother, a child who honors father and mother, a good friend and faithful neighbor. You have called me to be a saint and given me Your righteousness. Now work that righteousness out in my life, as I grow into the new man remade in Your image.”

Today Jesus comes to you lowly, that is, humble and hidden—but not without power. He will do what He promises. He is your righteousness. +INJ+