Advent 3
Isa
40:1-8
12/16/18
Last Sunday I talked to the children
about the Advent wreath. Following up on
the previous Sunday when I had introduced the season of Advent and what it
means, I described how the four candles of the wreath correspond to the four
Sundays of Advent. Of course, I
emphasized how the time when we are progressively lighting these candles is one
of preparation as we are getting ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
However, that is certainly not the way I thought about the Advent
wreath when I was their age. Instead,
the candles of the Advent wreath were a countdown to opening Christmas
presents. At a time in life when a calendar had no real meaning - the Advent
wreath at church was the sure and certain indicator of how long it was until I
could open my presents.
Each Sunday I would go to church and
look to see how many candles were lit.
The third candle – the pink one – was always a big deal because when it
was lit I knew that I was almost there.
When the pink candle was burning the presents would begin to appear
under the tree. I would carefully check
each day to see if any new ones for me had been added. Then, when the fourth candle was lit the
excitement was almost unbearable because in just a few days Christmas would
arrive and I could finally open those gifts.
My experience as a boy illustrates
the basic problem we encounter during Advent. Advent is about preparing for
Christmas, and yet as we know, there is already a lot of Christmas going
on. Though not to the same degree as
Lent, Advent is a time of repentance. That is why the Hymn of Praise, the Gloria
in Excelsis, is omitted during both of those seasons. During Advent we consider our sin that
prompted the Father to send the Son into the world in the first place. But it’s kind of hard to think about sin when
its beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere you go. Festive, joyful and fun doesn’t lend itself to
contrition and repentance over sin.
In the Old Testament lesson today,
the prophet Isaiah looks ahead to a time when the people of Judah would have no
problem recognizing their sin. Writing
in the eighth century B.C., he looks ahead to the judgment that Yahweh would
bring upon the nation in the sixth century B.C. The people had turned away from
God and were worshipping the pagan gods of the surrounding nations. They were taking advantage of those who were
weak and helpless. Isaiah announced the
judgment that God sent in the sixth century when the Babylonians destroyed the
temple and took the people into exile in Babylon.
In the suffering of exile, there
would be no ignoring what Judah’s sin had done.
The people would be staring it in the face every day. Yet in our text this morning, the prophet
announces a word of that looks ahead to the end of the exile. Isaiah writes, “‘Comfort, comfort my people,’ says
your God. ‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is
ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's
hand double for all her sins.’”
The prophet
looked to the time when God would act to rescue the people from exile. We hear in our text, “A voice cries: "In
the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a
highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and
hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a
plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it
together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Yahweh
would come to rescue them, and every obstacle would be removed from his way as
he brought deliverance. Nothing would
impede the salvation he was bringing. As the prophet says just after our text:
“Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his
reward is with him, and his recompense before him.”
Yahweh
spoke through the prophet, and he kept his word. In a surprising and unexpected turn of
events, the Persian King Cyrus defeated the Babylonians, and in 538 B.C. issued
an edict that the people of Judah could return to their land. He even said that they could rebuild the
temple.
Yet this
action by God was not the end of the story.
In fact it was just the beginning – a saving action that pointed forward
to something even greater. Matthew tells
us in his Gospel, “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the
wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come
near.’ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: ‘A voice of one
calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths
for him.’”
John the
Baptist was the voice of the one preparing the way for the Lord. He prepared the way, because as Isaiah said,
“The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” His message was simple, “Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven has come near.” He
called people to repent of their sin because the kingdom of heaven – the reign
of God – was about to arrive.
John
sounded like the prophets of the Old Testament as he called the people to
repentance. But there was something new
and different about John’s ministry. In
fact, it was so different that people soon began using it to identify him. In addition to his message, John also called
upon people to receive a baptism at his hands.
Ritual washings were nothing new in Judaism. Yet all of these were self administered. What set John’s washing apart was the he administered it to others. It is for this reason that was known as “the
baptizer” – the one applied the washing to others.
By
submitting to John’s baptism, people demonstrated their repentance and showed
that they were looking for God’s reign to arrive. Matthew tells us, “People went out to him
from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were
baptized by him in the Jordan River.”
As we
prepare again to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Isaiah’s words and their
fulfillment by John the Baptist teach us that we cannot prepare to celebrate
the birth of the Savior if we do not acknowledge that from which he has saved
us. We cannot celebrate Christmas if we
do not recognize why it was necessary for the Son of God to enter the world in
the incarnation.
It was
necessary because of the sin present in our lives. It was necessary because you put other things
before God. It was necessary because you are jealous of what others have and
what they get to do. It was necessary
because in anger you speak words that are meant to hurt your family
members. Christmas may be a festive and
wonderful time, but the reason for Christmas takes you into the ugly parts of your
life.
John the
Baptist proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” We repent and confess our sin before
God. But we do so knowing that God’s
kingdom – his reign – has come upon us.
Isaiah says
in our text, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see
it together.” God’s glory was revealed
in the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ.
His reign was present to reverse all that sin had done in this
world. As Jesus says in the Gospel
lesson: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight
and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are
raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one
who is not offended by me.”
Yet these
saving works were just the beginning. Jesus
Christ carried out the goal of his life and ministry when he died on the cross
for you. He did so to reconcile you to the Father. He did so to remove the sin that separated you
from God. Through his act of atonement you have been restored to God.
Through
faith in Christ, repentance leads to forgiveness. It always
does. It never fails because Jesus is the risen Lord who completed the work
given him by the Father.
There is
great comfort in this. Yet as the
fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, John the Baptist’s message was not limited to
a call to repentance and the forgiveness that was given as people received his
baptism in faith. Instead, he said, “Bear
fruits in keeping with repentance.”
Repentance
means that we also now seek to avoid those sins. The Christian life is not one
of, “I like to sin, and God likes to forgive.”
We do not receive forgiveness so that we can keep on sinning. Instead, repentance involves the struggle
against sin. It means that we actually
identify the things we should not be doing, and seek not to do to them. And by contrast we recognize the things we
should be doing, and we seek to do them more and more. This is good, and
because you are in Christ it is God pleasing.
You will
never be able to do this on your own. It
is only Jesus Christ who can make this possible. And so he calls us to receive the ways his
glory continues to be revealed; the way his reign continues to be present. He calls you to his Means of Grace.
Through
God’s Word, the Spirit gives strength.
It is the means the Spirit uses to change us. If we are regularly reading and studying the
Scriptures, they do not leave us the same.
Instead the Spirit transforms us by the
renewing of our mind so that more and more we live as Christ in the world. And through Sacrament of the Altar the Spirit
feeds the new man who wants to do so.
These days in December are a festive
and exciting time. Yet if they are to be
Advent, they must include a recognition of our sin. We must confess that we are the reason God
sent his Son into the world – that he sent him as the sacrifice for our
sin. This confession draws us to the
comforting truth that our iniquity has been forgiven. During Advent we prepare to celebrate that at
the manger, at the cross and at the empty tomb Isaiah’s words have proven true:
“The glory of the LORD shall be
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has
spoken.”
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