A Sermon for
Advent (30 November 1844)
The Rev. C.A.J. Smith, Chaplain to the Floating Church,
London
[it
is not clear whether this published sermon was preached at the Floating
Church or elsewhere]
Matt. xxi. 4, 5. All
this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh
unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
The
church selects the narrative of our Lord's riding into Jerusalem as the
gospel for this Sunday. She sufficiently indicates, by the selection,
her own view of that transaction. She regards it in the light of a
symbolical representation of our Saviour's advent, and directs our
attention to it in that character. Let us meditate, then, upon it in
this view, and consider, in humble dependence on God's blessing—
I. The triumphant nature of Christ's
advent.
II. The peculiar feature which
distinguished it.
III. Its effects.
I. The triumphant nature of Christ's
advent.
It
was this which was represented by the royal progress which the Redeemer
is recorded in this narrative as making towards Jerusalem. Rejoice, says Zechariah, greatly,
О daughter of Zion: shout, О daughter of Jerusalem; for, behold, thy
King cometh unto thee. He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and
riding on an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. It was, then,
the advent of the Saviour which it was the object of this narrative to
represent. It accordingly directs our attention to the light in which
his humiliation is to be considered. It tells us that, from the womb to
the cross, and from the cross to his ascension up to glory — it tells
us that, in all the circumstances of his helpless infancy, of his
youth's obscurity, of a ministry in the exercise of which he had not where to lay his head,
and which he prosecuted amidst taunts and contumely, and terminated
amidst the agony and ignominy of a death of crucifixion — it tells us
that, in all, he was alike the King of glory, making his triumphal
progress towards the throne which was his own, towards those
everlasting doors which were ready to fly open at his coming, and admit
him to the palace of a glогу not less excellent and infinite than that
of the light in which God dwells, and which no man can approach unto.
All
the circumstances of his humiliation in our nature were nothing but so
many steps by which he was continually ascending into the hill of the
Lord, continually rising up into his holy place. Yet, said Jehovah, have I set my King on my holy hill of Zion.
And do the heathen rage accordingly, and do the people imagine a vain
thing; Do the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take
counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed? They are
but lending themselves as an instrumentality for carrying forward a
design which they think to counterwork: they are but illustrating and
ministering to a glory which they think that they have clouded with a
stain which is indelible: they are but swelling the triumph which they
think they have converted into the most signal and ignominious of
defeats: they are but making a platform for the Conqueror's progress
the more elevated and imposing by all the obstacles which they seem to
have succeeded in crowding up to heaven in the way of his advance. Ride on,
is the word which is still coming from above to him; and every
circumstance of humiliation and of suffering does but bring him nearer
and nearer to the temple of a glory which is infinite — does but go to
swell the train of his disciples — does but gather round him an
increasing and increasing multitude of wondering, loving, and confiding
followers — does but cause our world to echo to a louder hosanna, and
to wave with the palms of spiritual triumph, diffused over a wider
circuit, and continually rising in a thicker grove.
That
Infant of Days, that poor working Carpenter, that Son of Joseph and of
Mary, whose brethren and sisters were known, and all about them; that
crucified Being, hanging (under the solemn and judicial sentence of the
holy Sanhedrin) in the agonies of crucifixion between two thieves,
crucified along with him, on either side one - it is the King of Glory
that we witness in each instance — the King of Glory making his
triumphal progress through the territory of our bondaged nature, and,
in traversing, emancipating, and subduing it — the King of Glory
realizing in continually increasing fulness the likeness of the Son of
man, preparatory to his coming in that likeness in the clouds of
heaven, and coming to the Ancient of Days, and being brought before
him, and having given to him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all
people, nations, and languages, instead of being the servants of sin
and Satan, should serve him; his dominion, moreover, an everlasting
dominion, and his kingdom one that shall not pass away. The Redeemer,
brethren, did not bury in our suffering clay the glory ef his deity. Hе
did just the contrary: he stamped on its meanest condition a dignity
that was divine; and, along the path of its acutest suffering, diffused
behind him, at each step of his advance, a blessing that was infinite.
To the Son of God the carpenter's shop was the Bethel of a communion,
and the chamber of a presence the like of which was unknown among the
angels; and to him the vегу cross itself (I mean in the moment in
which, exclaiming, It is finished,
he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost) may be believed to have been
the field of an enjoyment which was new and strange and satisfying as
no previous pleasure even to himself.
The more that his
humiliation deepened, and the more that his sufferings grew exquisite,
the brighter about his pathway was the blazonry of deity — the louder
the voice that heralded to the nations the coming of their Saviour, and
exclaimed to the church of the true Israelites, Behold your King!
For it was proportionately our griefs that he was bearing, and
our sorrows; and when, accordingly, after descending from the opposite
elevation of a divine glory into the very depths of the valley of our
miseries, he was seen climbing again, in his resurrection and
ascension, the acclivity of Zion's mount, it was then our feet that
stood within thy gates, О Jerusalem! it was our sins which he had
buried in the grave from which he was emerging, and the throne of a
people forgiven their iniquity which he was thenceforward to assume.
Such is the first advent of the Saviour, according to the idea of it
suggested by the narrative which makes the gospel of this day. We turn,
II. To direct attention to the
peculiar feature of this advent as noticed in that narrative.
It was, we are told by the evangelist, on an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass,
that Jesus made that royal progress towards Jerusalem which he designed
to be expressive of the character and circumstances of his advent. It
was not for want of the means of entering Jerusalem in greater state
that he entered it riding on an animal so humble; for even that poor
animal was not his own, nor was it the property of any who were
friendly to him. And thus the same almighty influence which alone
disposed some rude and wondering villagers to part, without a murmur,
on the application of a couple of poor strangers, with this little
property, could of course as easily have collected around our divine
Lord, for the occasion, the wealth, whether of Judea or the universe,
could as easily have sent him forward in his progress with the pomp of
monarchs and the insignia of command. And why, then, the humble and
unimposing animal selected for this service? There was, brethren, a
design in the selection. All
this was done, says the evangelist, that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Say ye
to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and
sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
It
was the triumph of meekness which the Saviour celebrated in the
circumstances of this advent. He came to visit us in great humility. It
was not his glory to come to Zion upon this occasion on the milk-white
war-horse of the many-diademed prince of the kings of the whole earth,
but on the lowly ass of the meek teacher. Pride — the pride of
the first man — had been our ruin: meekness — the meekness of the
second man — was to be the salvation and recovery of the ruined. A
creature of the dust, the first Adam, was not to be bribed even to
obedience by the pleasures of a paradise: the Lord from heaven, the
second Adam, is content to do the will of his Eternal Father at the
loss of his own heaven, and to the sacrifice, at once, of all that
makes the happiness of creatureship. him, to do the will of God is meat
and drink; as not even the participation of his sovereignty, as not
even the enjoyment of his love and presence and communion with him, is.
In compliance with it, he does not part with his coequal glory, and
appear among us in the likeness of flesh merely, but of sinful flesh.
He has not prepared for him a body merely, but a mortal body. He does
not descend merely to the degradation of universal empire, and an
earthly monarchy; but to the state of one whose cradle is a manger,
whose condition a mechanic's, and his end a cross.
And thus was
his progress through our state of being a triumphant one? It was the
triumph of meekness which he celebrated in that progress. It was
meekness which brought him down into our valley, and meekness which
carried him up into our Zion. He rode on, because of the word of truth,
and meekness, and righteousness. He exhibited an example of depending
upon God, divinely glorious in its manifestation, and eternally
momentous in its consequences and results. He celebrated a triumph; but
that triumph was the triumph of indomitable meekness. It was meekness
his dying for our sins: it was the reward of meekness his rising again
for our justification; and the world, which was destroyed by the pride
of the first man, had a Saviour given to it through the meekness of the
second.
We notice —
III. The effects which attended our
Lord's advent. They are studiously comprehended in the
circumstances of the narrative; for
1. Jesus, we are told, went into the temple, and cast out
all them that sold and bought in the temple; an act typifying
the fulfilment of that prophecy of Zechariah (xiv. 21): There shall be no more the Canaanite
(which is by interpretation the 'trader' — those who buy and sell) in the house of the Lord. And here
is, accordingly, brethren, the immediate effect of our Lord's advent.
All
the approaches which we naturally make to God, or think to make to him,
are made on a footing of traffic and self-interest. We have not any
heart for God; but we know of his existence, and we are willing to
cheapen his favour, to pay a kind of black-mail for exemption from the
effects of his displeasure and hostility. It was to this principle of
our fallen nature that the legal dispensation was adjusted. It admitted
the Canaanite into the house of the Lord. Not, indeed, that God was to
be served, in fact, by those whose service was a calculating and a
carnal one; but that he was pleased to meet them in a way of bargain,
in order that, by the terms that he proposed to them, he might teach
them to despair of being saved by their own works; in order that, from
the blood of bulls and goats, which could never take away sin, their
thoughts might be carried forward towards that Lamb of God who was
indeed to take away the sin of the world. In the meanwhile the
Canaanite was in the house of the Lord. Those that bought and sold had
access to his temple, and seemed to have a shelter for the selfish
traffic which their fallen nature prompted them to carry on under the
cover of its roofs. But this abuse was one that had not a shadow of
countenance afforded to it from the period of Christ's advent. Christ's
advent was the casting out the bondwoman and her son. It was the
setting the stamp of an authoritative condemnation on all carnal
service. It was the separating the precious from the vile. It was the
rescuing from the desecrations of an abused law the service of the
sanctuary. The buyers and sellers were cast out of the temple as the
effect of our Lord's advent. It disentangled principles that were
previously intermingled and confused. It made the doctrine of faith no
longer matter, as it were, of remote inference, but of immediate
intuition. It wrote it with a sunbeam, though in characters of blood,
on the cross of the Lord Jesus. It denounced all traffic in God's
temple. It put an authoritative and indignant ban upon the entrance
there of any except those of whom it could be said, Behold, he prayeth. It pronounced,
as in a voice of thunder, that, except
a man is born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
It drove as thieves and robbers out of the family of God all those who
had climbed up into the fold of it by works, and to serve sinister and
carnal objects of their own, instead of coming in at the door of faith
in a divine Redeemer, and, accordingly, in the marriage-garment of his
loving and meek Spirit. And, accordingly, notice —
2. Another effect of our Lord's
advent. For the blind and lame,
we read, came to him in the
temple; and he healed them.
We are all, indeed, naturally Canaanites in the house of the Lord; but
some of us become Rahabs in his family. We become persons who feel our
Canaanitish extraction and relations as our misery. Our carnality is
felt by us as we should feel a natural misfortune, such as blindness or
lameness, falling on our persons; we are intent on the removal of it;
we are alarmed about the consequences which it threatens; we regard it
as the one thing standing between us and the enjoyment of existence; we
want the pardon, we want the cure of it more than we want anything.
Observe,
then, that the effect of our Lord's advent is to give us what we want.
We have encouragement to go to him in his temple; and he will heal us
as the consequence. The blind
and lame, we are told, came
to him in the temple; and he healed them.
And, brethren, if the felt misery of a physical evil was a plea for his
compassion, can that compassion fail to be drawn forth towards those
who groan under a feeling of their sinfulness? It was for sinners,
remember, that he came — sinners that he lived and died and rose again
to save. And what sinners, if not those who feel painfully the
condemnation lying on their nature and their practice; sinners who,
instead of going up to traffic in the temple of the Lord, go to Jesus
in that temple, go in faith to him and go in penitence, go to be
accepted in their persons through the efficacy of his sacrifice, to be
sanctified in their souls by the almighty power of his Spirit?
Are
these, brethren, the objects that have brought you into the temple of a
Christian profession, or are you the Canaanite in the house of the
Lord? Is yours a religion which is intended to compound for the sin
which it does not prompt you to forsake? a religion by which you turn
the house of prayer into a mart of traffic, by which you seek to make
the service of the sanctuary itself subservient to your cupidity and
selfishness? How aggravated, were this the case, would be the
condemnation in which you would be perishing! How delightful, on the
contrary, if knowing that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked, to think that the blind and lame have only to go
to Jesus, in his temple, and he heals them! to think that you may buy
of him gold tried in the fire that thou mayest he rich, and white
raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy
nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou
mayest see! to think that he casts out none that come to him, and
that he is able to save to the
uttermost all that come unto God through him, seeing that he ever
liveth to make intercession for them!
And
do you trust that he has forgiven all your iniquities, that he has
healed all your diseases? Allow me to direct your attention, in
conclusion, to a circumstance in the narrative which has not hitherto
been noticed. The disciples,
we are told, in celebration of Christ's triumph, strewed their garments in the way.
They carpeted the platform of his progress, as they could, by lining
the road with their own garments. And you, if you are his disciples,
brethren, will do likewise. You will devote to him — to the design of
glorifying Jesus — whatever you possess. He has clothed you with the
righteousness in which you are accepted; and you will cast the crown of
it, in honour of him, at his feet. He has given you all things richly
to enjoy: your primary enjoyment of them will be using them for him,
for his service and his glory. It is little, you may think, that you
have the opportunity of doing for him. You will do, however, what you
can. You will strew your garments in the way; you will deny yourselves;
and you will exult in doing so, to do him service.
What a
contrast, brethren, this, to the Canaanitish spirit which is natural to
us! Can we doubt our union with our Saviour, if the language of our
heart and of our life to him, in the midst of all our many corruptions
and infirmities, still is, Lord,
thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee?
Could we think, on the contrary, that we were Christ's disciples, were
all forced, compromising, Canaanitish, in the service that we rendered
him?
In
the (perhaps unlikely) event that this has whetted your appetite for
more, here are some of his other published sermons and writings:
1837: Baptismal
Blessing & Obligation (preached while he was a curate in
Plymouth)
1838: Discourse on Missions
[on Matt. xiii. 38], delivered before the Evangelical Lutheran
Ministerium of the State of NewYork
1850: The Ground of National
Consolation and Hope: a sermon on Psalm xxxiii. 12
1852: The Lord gave: and the Lord
hath taken away: a sermon preached in the old Church,
Macclesfield, on Thursday, Nov. 18, 1852,
before the Worshipful the Mayor and
Corporation of that borough on occasion of the interment of His Grace
the Duke of Wellington
1852: Discourse delivered on the
occasion of the Birth of Washington before the National Guards
of Easton, Pa
1852: Christianity the source of
Freedom, a sermon on John viii. 36
1856: Ministerial duty: a
sermon preached at the triennial visitation of the lord Bishop of
Chester, Sept. 25, 1856, in the Old Church, Macclesfield
1859: Thoughts on the intercession
of Christ (Part I) - Christ's intercession not an 'offering for
sin'.
1860: The atonement, considered in
reference to Catholic antiquity and existing controversy
(Rivingtons)
1862: Anselm scriptural and catholic:
a letter (Rivingtons)
1864: Propitiatory Sacrifice and the
Sacrifice of Christ: According to Scripture and Catholic Antiquity
[reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, LLC]
1864: National religion: a
sermon preached in the Old Church, Macclesfield on Sunday,
November 13, 1864
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