Daily Advent Reflection: December 4
First Friday of Advent
Friday Psalms 16, 17 · 22
Isa. 3:8-15
1 Thess. 4:1-12
Luke 20:41--21:4
‘How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?’ Luke 20:41
The Steward of Gondor, Denethor, is a hopeless figure in J.R. Tolkien’s classic The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Denethor’s job was to defend the kingdom as steward until the king returned. Through the use of a seeing stone called a palantir, Denethor became depressed at the strength of the evil Sauron’s forces. All he could see was death and destruction all around him when war came and his first-born son, Boromir, was killed. He then ordered his only living son, Faramir, on a doomed mission to defend the White City’s outer defenses. After Faramir returned mortally wounded, Denethor tried to burn both his half-dead son and himself on a funeral pyre, like the kings of old. Denethor lost all hope in the return of the king, so he disregarded the king’s instruction, and did not live as a steward of the king.
This is how we, as Christians, may sometimes feel when awaiting the return of our King. Advent rolls into Christmas, Christmas to Epiphany, Epiphany to Lent, Lent to Easter, Easter to Pentecost, and Pentecost to Advent again. Still, the King has not returned. We run the risk of the ruin of despair too, if we are not careful.
Despair in Latin—acedia—means sloth or discouragement. It is a deadly sin because it lacks the hope that faith provides. Yet hope is not had by having faith in faith. There is a sham version of hope, a hope in hope—hope in a brighter future, hope in more money, hope in a better you. Christian hope is different. Christian hope is found in seeking the King and doing His will in the midst of the joys and sorrows, trials and triumphs of this life. We are told in Scripture that ‘hope does not disappoint’ (Rom 5:5), because of who it is, in whom we believe.
Jesus turns to the crowds, and asks about the Sadducees who were questioning him, ‘How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?’ He then cites Psalm 110:1 where King David wrote:
‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.”’
The promise from old was that the Messiah would come from David’s line. He would be David’s ‘Lord’ because he would be greater than King David himself. How these words of Jesus must have burned in the ears of the Sadducees who did not believe in the coming of the Messiah.
Yet, if we are not careful, we can fall into a similar hopelessness by despairing about the return of Jesus Christ our King. As Christ came once, he will come again ‘to judge the living and the dead’ as 1 Pet 4:5 and the Creed remind us. When Jesus comes again, he will come as the long-awaited King: ‘On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords”’ (Rev 19:16).
Let us not be like the Steward of Gondor, who despaired and lost faith in the return of the King. The King is coming. Are you, steward of the Lord, prepared for the Advent our King?
The Rev. T.L. Holtzen, Ph.D.
St Paul’s Church Ashippun, WI
Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Nashotah House