Advent 2 Year A 12/7/2025
Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
We are continuing our series through the Psalms of Advent today.
Last week we looked at Psalm 122…
It was one of 15 psalms known as the Songs of Ascent…
Psalms that were sung by Jewish people as they made pilgrimage up to Jerusalem for a high feast day or a festival like Passover.
The book of Psalms is a collection of 150 Hebrew songs and poetry.
And there are many different genres of Psalms.
There are praise psalms, lament psalms, royal psalms, and psalms of thanksgiving.
There are also wisdom psalms, psalms of ascent (like last week), and imprecatory psalms (which are psalms that call for judgement).
They are placed in these groupings because of their content as well as their structure.
And because they served as the worship songs of Judaism and the early church, they can in some ways be understood like our hymns today or our modern praise songs.
In this way, they serve to implement different themes and various emotions…
They help us remember certain stories of salvation history…
And like our hymns today…
Certain Psalms are better for specific times of the year.
We have Advent hymns, Christmas carols, and Easter hymns…
The Psalms were also written for certain events and festivals.
Our Psalm appointed for today is Psalm 72.
(And I invite you to have it in front of you as we look at it – p. 685)
It is classified as a Royal Psalm.
Or a Kingship Psalm.
We only read part of it…
But it is mainly the same throughout…
Focusing on the power and actions of the king.
Royal Psalms focus on different aspects of the king of Israel such as a coronation, a marriage, or a victory over the enemy.
And Psalm 72 was most likely used for an inauguration…
A prayer for kings that came after David in both Israel and Judah.
Scholar James L. Mays writes:
It is a prayer for the anointed king asking that God bring about his rule on earth through the reign of the king. [1]
And it reads like an intercession…
Like a petition…
Listen to the first four verses again:
1 Give the King your justice, O God, *
and your righteousness to the King’s Son;
2 That he may rule your people righteously *
and the poor with justice;
3 That the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, *
and the little hills bring righteousness.
4 He shall defend the needy among the people; *
he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor.
In these verses we see a petition to God that the king will work out justice and righteousness, particularly among the poor.
There is also intercession for prosperity and defense.
And in the rest of the psalm (that we did not read) there is petition for long life, universal dominion, fame, admiration, and submission from other nations.
More or less, it is a prayer that God will make our new ruler, our new king do all that the ruler is supposed to do and do it all perfectly well.
And basically, that is what is going on in our Psalm appointed for today.
Psalm 72 is an inauguration psalm with the hopeful prayer that the new monarch will do everything perfectly.
Well we know, that there is no such thing as a perfect ruler.
No leader can ever do everything perfectly.
And they also realized this during the Old Testament times too.
No human king ever reached the ideal of justice and righteousness that is described in this psalm.
David’s son, Solomon, had a good start but eventually had major moral failures.
No king of Israel or Judah ever came close to the Psalm 72 ideal.
And although God promised to King David through the prophet Nathan saying (2 Samuel 7.16):
Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me;
your throne will be established forever.’”
The Davidic dynasty came to a crashing end in 586 BC when Zedekiah was carried off in chains to Babylon.[2]
And with this, the faithful Israelites began to realize that the fulfillment of the promise to David, this Psalm 72 king, would be one to come.
One who was coming in the future…
A Messiah.
And the hope remained.
The New Testament authors clearly recognized that Jesus was the fulfillment of these hopes…
And that is what we believe as Christians…
Jesus is the righteous and just king depicted in the Psalm.[3]
Jesus is the Messiah.
Jesus is the perfect king who is depicted in Psalm 72.
And when the King returns he will bring justice and righteousness.
And this is why we have Psalm 72 in this season of Advent…
Because it is pointing to Jesus as the Messianic Hope and the Messianic Answer.
In the first coming of Jesus…
The Christmas story…
We see quickly in the Gospels that Jesus wasn’t just any baby born on that night…
In the second chapter of Matthew, we have a story that we celebrate on the night of Epiphany (always on January 6th)…
Listen to the opening words of the chapter:
Matthew 2.1-2:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
The wisemen came and worshipped the newborn King of the Jews.
Not just a prophet or a priest…
Not just the Messiah…
But a new King…
In the Davidic line…
A king to fulfill the hopes and prayers of Psalm 72.
And the season of Advent also prepares us for the Second Coming of Jesus…
Where he is also depicted as a King…
In the book of Revelation (19.11-16), St. John writes of the second coming of our Lord, he says:
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.
With justice he judges and wages war.
His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. …
“He will rule them with an iron scepter.”
He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
king of kings and lord of lords.
In fact, when Jesus walked this earth, before the cross and resurrection he described his own second coming by saying:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and all the angels with him,
he will sit on his glorious throne.
(Matthew 25.31)
Which clearly has kingship overtones.
So, Psalm 72 is perfect for the season of Advent as it points to the coming of the King of kings…
Both in his birth…
At Christmas…
And in his consummation…
At the Second Coming.
Now, being that Advent is also the season of desire, longing, and hope.
Our Psalm points to the great need for the king to reign down justice, especially in care for the poor,
and not just compassion and mercy…
But the desire to make things right!
To put things the way they should be.
There’s a yearning in Psalm 72 for the King to make things right.
And yet, as we look around in our world, it quickly becomes clear that we live in a world with all sorts of injustices…
There are wars and violence acts…
There is apathy toward the poor and lonely…
There is abuse behind closed doors and abuse out in the open.
Mistreatment of people…
Greed, hatred, the list goes on…
And so, in our Advent wandering…
In our Advent longing and hope…
We pray just as the ancient Israelites prayed…
We pray Psalm 72…
Lord Jesus in your reign bring justice, righteousness, and prosperity.
Come Lord Jesus, and set the world at rights.
May we live our lives as beacons of hope pointing to the coming reign of Jesus…
Just as we declare in our Creed:
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
(BCP, 359)
May we be mindful in prayer as we ask God to use us to spread the good news of His kingdom…
Just as we pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
(BCP, 364)
And through the way we live…
The words we pray…
We live out the hope of our faith…
We live out the promise of God…
As we look to the heavens and declare:
Christ had died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
Alleluia. Christ will come again.
That is the promise and hope that we live.
And all the more in the season of Advent.
May our lives, our prayers, and our words reflect the justice and righteousness that our King Jesus gives us by his grace and love.
And this is why Psalm 72 is appointed in Advent.
Amen.
[1] James L. Mays, Psalms, Interpretation (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1994), 236.
[2] Tremper Longman III, Psalms, TOTC (Downers Grove: IVP, 2014), 273.
[3] Ibid., 273.
