Bloghardt's Reflector

To proclaim to you the glad tidings of great joy of the Cross. Yes, the Cross.  

For Here on the Cross, you learn what Advent is about.  Advent is about Jesus coming to die on the Cross.  It’s about Jesus coming to save you.

 “Hosanna to the Son of David!   Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the Highest.”

Hosanna means “Save us, Lord, we pray.”  Not only does Jesus hear that prayer, He answers it!

For on the Cross, Jesus rescues us.   On the Cross, there’s nothing that God has against us that Christ doesn’t bear for us.  For on the Cross, He Hosanna’s us - He saves us!

 Can you get any more adventy than Hosanna?  Save us from our sins, Lord.  Save of us from our failures.  Save us from our successes.  Save us from.... us.

And Jesus does just that saving by delivering to you His Gifts! He takes His Salvation and pours it down your forehead as the water drips down you in Holy Baptism.  All your sins - every last one of them - is washed away. Hosanna!

Then, He fills your ears with His salvation as you hear the frail voice of your pastor absolve you of the evil you do, planned, have planned, and will plan.  Repent. Turn.  It’s all forgiven in Jesus’ name.  Hosanna!

Salvation is placed in your mouth as Jesus comes to you in His Supper - take eat my Body, take drink my Blood.  Be forgiven.  Be saved.  Hosanna in the highest!  

How joyful!  How happy!  How can we not get excited.  I might have to slow down my pacemaker - or get one.  There’s still four Sundays left in Advent to go!  Wew!  However will we make it?

Jesus will carry you.  That’s what He does.  He’s the One that has brought you again to the penitential season of Advent.  

Penitential - that’s repentance.  Thus, the lenty violet color.  Jesus is coming to save you, so He would have you prepare.  Make ready!  

Well, how do you make ready?  Well, for the Lord to save you, you might want to know what He has saved you from...

He comes and by His coming you are saved from the sins you know and feel in your hearts:  your disobedience, your lies, your lust, your coveting, your gossip, your slanderous rumor telling, your disobedience to your parents, your hatred for your neighbor, your two-facedness.  

He saves you from your little grudges, the tacky things you do to each other - getting your zingers in and saying just the right hurtful thing at just the right time for maximum effect and if that wasn’t evil enough, don’t you just love to tell others just how you told that person off!?

He rescues you from your self-centeredness, self-righteousness, your narcissism, and having to have it your way.

Then, His taking on our flesh even redeems you from the sins you don’t feel - your idolatry, how you put everything first in your life other than God, how you trust in your possessions, your health, your wealth, and your works before God.  

He even saves you from coming to church today for some other reason other than wanting to be saved.

And, after all that we do against God, we all still live and think that our good stuff will outweighs our bad.  

That God’s going to look at us and see how we truly are - which is somehow different from what we do.

And we do it all the time and we don’t feel bad about it, do we?  We reason it out.  I’ll tend to it tomorrow.  The movies say that He won’t come back until 2012, so I have some time.  I’ll fix it later.  

But later never comes, does it?  And so the people we wrong or who we think wronged us sit outside our friends list on facebook, or on the “we-don’t-invite” list to Christmas stuff.  

You know, cause if they were there, they’d ruin the thing.

Yet, we know that what we are and how we are is seen by what we do and don’t do.  Leaving us afraid and praying for Him not to come - cause if He came, we’d be lost.

Yet, when Jesus comes, He takes all of that away.  His Blood cleanse us, washes us, makes us clean.  Who we are before God isn’t determined by what we have and haven’t done but by what King Jesus did on the cross in our place.  

Think about that again, dear friends.  Calvary is how God will judge you on the Last Day.  Calvary and Calvary alone.  

All your sins, He bore.  All your transgressions, He answered for.  You truly are forgiven.

So, there is simply no need to do the weigh games any more between the good and the bad you have done.  God has set all of the weight of His Son’s holy life and suffering and death on your side.  That’s the final word for your life.

His salvation enlivens you to set aside the way you used to live and to start today a new - living not for yourself any longer but for others.  His cross is the final word on you - forgiven, forgiven, and forgiven.

Advent is the season to fix it all.  To clean it all up.  To stop doing those things.  To start doing good things.  To be good - even if only for those around you.  And to receive Jesus’ forgiveness for your good and your bad.

Advent is a count down.  Time to change.  Time to turn.  Time to prepare.  There isn’t a reason any more for the grudges, the hatred, the lies, the slandering.  There’s no reason to hold anything against your neighbor any more.  Tis the season to turn from what you have done, be the one to apologize, to be the one who reaches out and befriends the person you have issues with.

Christ is coming.  In the manger, again in the clouds, and in the Sacrament of the Altar next week.  He’s coming to save you and your neighbor too.  You prepare best by clearing the obstacles to loving those around you out of His Way so that His Advent can be all the more joyful for you.

Jesus is come.  Advent is here!  Thank God.  Hosanna. Hosanna. Hosanna to the Highest.  

The countdown is on.  The time is at hand.  Time to repent.  But, more than that, time to receive His forgiveness in His gifts.

Advent, after all, isn’t just about Jesus coming.  No, it’s about Jesus coming to save you.

Rejoice and be glad.  Be stirred up.  Be forgiven.  And all the more, Come quickly, Lord Jesus.  In the name of Jesus. Amen.