God’s Word for You
Mark 11:9b-10 He is the King of Glory
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!
Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna means “Save, please.” Even though it may not sound like it to an English reader, the first two syllables of Hosanna and those of Jesus’s Hebrew name are the same: compare Joshua and Hosanna (and see Numbers 13:16). By this time, Hosanna was a word of praise, and here the crowd was also quoting Psalm 118:25-26. Verse 25 says, “O Lord, save us!” Psalm 118 was one of the Psalms that the Jews sang for the Passover celebration.
Verse 10 emphasizes Christ’s office of King. Almost from the beginning of the Christian Church, theologians have distinguished Christ’s offices of King and Priest. While modern theologians distinguish a third office, Prophet, many of the ancients simply included the characteristics of prophet within the heading of priest. All three offices are described in the Bible: Christ is God’s Prophet: Deuteronomy 18:18; Matthew 13:57; Luke 13:33; John 6:14; Acts 3:22. He is God’s High Priest: Psalm 110:4; Zechariah 3:1; Hebrews 4:14, 5:6, 6:20, 7:17,21, 8:4, 10:21. He is King over all: Psalm 2:1-12, 45:3-7, 72:1-17; Matthew 21:5, 25:34,40; Luke 19:38; John 1:49, 12:13, 19:19; 1 Timothy 1:17; Revelation 17:14, 19:16.
Here we want to consider his Kingship in particular. Just as the Old Testament ideal of a king was to be the shepherd of his people (2 Samuel 7:7), so also Jesus our King is the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). Although many of the people of his time wanted Jesus to give them free bread (John 6:15) and to heal their bodies (Matthew 8:16-17), his kingdom was and is not an earthly kingdom. It is spiritual (John 18:36), and it is eternal (Luke 1:33).
The primary tool or expression of our Lord’s Kingship is his grace, given through the Word and Sacrament. This is why we so carefully want to instruct our people to seek out congregations where the Word is preached purely and the sacraments are central to worship. The devil’s trick in America has been to throw dust in the eyes of God’s people by reversing the emphasis of the sacraments. Today, many put up fences around baptism (which should be open and free for all) and tear down the Bible’s cautions around the Lord’s Supper with the recent and deceptive fallacy of “open communion.” We are commanded to baptize everyone (Matthew 28:19), but we are warned that “a man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Corinthians 11:28-29). And anyone who does not continue in the teaching of Christ (that is, everything the Bible says about him, beginning with his coming in the flesh) “does not have God” (2 John 1:9). “Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work” (2 John 1:11).
Besides Word and Sacrament, Christ our King also uses such auxiliary tools as ministers of the word in the church, officials of the State, and parents and other representatives in the home. In the end, this Kingdom of his Grace will end with the end of the world, but Christ’s rule and power will extend into eternity since the Kingdom of Grace will pass over into the Kingdom of Glory (1 Corinthians 15:24). But returning from the end of his Kingdom of Grace to the present, Christ our King is also described as the dawn, the rising, springing sun: “Because of the tender mercy of our God, the rising sun (KJV, “Dayspring”) will come to us from heaven” (Luke 1:78; Song of Solomon 6:10).
The King approached the City of David like the rising run, the true Dayspring, gracing it with his arrival as it had never been graced before even by the arrival of David as king (2 Samuel 5:9) or the coronation of Solomon by his mother (Song of Solomon 3:11). He was coming to end the tyranny of death and the devil. Our King is our helper in the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4), but more than that: He came to destroy death forever. David had looked forward to such a day as this when he wrote: “Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The LORD Almighty– he is the King of glory” (Psalm 24:7-10).
Oh, come, O Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by your drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!
Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel, vs. 3
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.