Advent 3
Isa
40:1-8
12/15/24
“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.” In our text today, God
speaks a word of comfort and encouragement through the prophet Isaiah.
It was a word that would be needed because the
nation was being unfaithful to God.
Isaiah began his prophecy by writing: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear,
O earth; for the LORD has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up,
but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey
its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Ah,
sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers,
children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the
Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.’”
Isaiah wrote during the eighth century B.C. He
lived at a time when God’s people were divided into the northern kingdom of
Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.
Yahweh had warned in Deuteronomy that if the people were unfaithful they
would be removed from the land. He called his people to repentance through the
prophets, but they would not turn away from their false gods and sinful ways.
Yahweh brought judgment upon the northern
kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C. when he used the Assyrians to conquer them and
take the nation into exile. Judah was
spared at this time by God’s intervention to save Jerusalem. But she did not learn from what had happened
to the northern kingdom. She continued sinning despite God’s warning that such
action would lead to exile for the nation.
In 587 B.C. Yahweh used the Babylonians as his
instrument of judgment. They destroyed
the temple in Jerusalem, and took the people into exile in Babylon. Yet already through Isaiah God had provided a
word of hope. Yes, the nation would go
into exile. But God would act
dramatically to bring them back to their own land.
In our text, God speaks comfort to his people
because the time of their judgment has ended. Isaiah writes, “A voice
cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight
in the desert a highway for our God.’”
The prophet describes how God is coming to deliver his people using the
metaphor of a highway.
God was coming, and every obstacle needed to be
removed. The prophet says, “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.” Isaiah described this
deliverance by saying, “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all
flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
The Lord kept his word. In 539 B.C. the unexpected occurred as the
Persians under King Cyrus defeated the Babylonians. Then in 538 Cyrus issued a decree that the
Judahites could return to their land and rebuild the temple. God had acted dramatically through his
instrument Cyrus to bring the people back.
Like the deliverance of Israel from Egypt in
the exodus, the rescue of Judah from exile in Babylon was the saving action of
God that revealed his glory. And this
action by God in the Old Testament pointed forward to what God would do in
Jesus Christ as he revealed his glory to bring salvation to all people.
God prepared the way for Jesus through the work
of John the Baptist. Matthew tells us
that John came preaching in the wilderness of Judea as he declared: “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” John called people to repentance
because the kingdom of heaven – the reign of God – was about to arrive.
Matthew explains that John the Baptist was the
fulfillment of our text from the prophet. The evangelist says, “For this is he
who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, ‘The voice of one
crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his
paths straight.’”
John called upon people to confess their
sins. He administered a baptism of
repentance which people received from him.
By receiving John’s baptism people demonstrated that they were repentant
as they looked for God’s reign to arrive.
They removed the obstacles that stood in the way of receiving God’s
saving glory, just as Isaiah says in our text: “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.”
John the Baptist announced that he was
preparing the way for One more powerful than he who would bring God’s
reign. He said, “I baptize you with
water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than
I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit and fire.”
This mightier One would bring God’s reign. He would bring God’s end time judgment. John proclaimed, “His winnowing fork is
in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat
into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
John prepared the way for Jesus Christ. During the season of Advent we are getting
ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Son of God. In the fullness of time God sent his Son into
the world. But when he arrived, he did not look like John expected. He did not come as a mighty and powerful
figure bringing the Last Judgment. Instead, conceived by the Holy Spirit and
born of the virgin Mary, he entered into the world as a helpless infant.
Jesus Christ entered the world in a way that
John did not expect. And then he brought
God’s saving reign in a way that could not have been a greater contrast from
John’s preaching. Though he had no sin,
Jesus received John’s baptism of repentance.
He did so in order to take on the role of being the Servant of the Lord
– the suffering Servant who would bear the sins of all.
From the moment of Jesus’ baptism his ministry
was directed toward one goal – the cross.
After Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, Matthew tells us, “From
that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem
and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and
be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
Our Lord explained why he was going to
die. He said, “the Son of Man came not
to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom
for many.” Jesus offered himself on
the cross as the sacrifice for our sin.
He received God’s judgment in our place in order to win forgiveness for
us.
The dead body of Jesus was placed in a tomb. It
appeared that he could not possibly be the One about whom John the Baptist had
spoken. But on the third day God the
Father raised Jesus from the dead. God
vindicated Jesus and showed that he had been powerfully at work in the
cross. And in the resurrection God
defeated death and began the resurrection of the Last Day.
Our risen Lord has now ascended into
heaven. He has been exalted to the right
hand of God. And as we heard last
Sunday, he has declared that he will return in glory on the Last Day. Jesus Christ is the coming One John
the Baptist announced. He is the One who
will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the
barn, but burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. He will do so in his second coming.
As we prepare during Advent to celebrate Jesus’
first coming, and as we look forward in anticipation to his second coming,
Isaiah’s words fulfilled in John the Baptist’s preaching continue to address
us. Isaiah says, “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.”
These words lead us to consider the things that
we place before God – the things that our actions demonstrate to be more
important to us. They cause us to ponder
the ways that we put other activities before the reception of God’s Word on
Sunday and during the week. They cause
us to consider the recurring sin that we take for granted. They call us to
repent and remove these things.
We repent and turn in faith toward Jesus
Christ, for in him the saving glory of God has been revealed. Our Lord has given us forgiveness and eternal
life. In Holy Baptism our sins were
washed away. There we were born again of
water and the Spirit. As a new creation
in Christ we already possess eternal life with God. Death cannot end this life – it cannot
separate us from God.
Through the Sacrament of the Altar we
experience the glory of God as Jesus Christ, who is still true God and true
man, comes to us in his body and blood.
Here the Lord gives us the very price he paid for our forgiveness – his
body and blood given and shed for us.
The Lord comes bodily to us in the Sacrament and this action points
forward to his return in glory on the Last Day.
The risen Lord gives his body and blood into our bodies as the pledge
and assurance that our bodies will be raised and transformed to be like his when
he returns in glory.
The Spirit of Christ uses these gifts to
strengthen the new man in us. He prompts
and enables us to share Christ’s love with others. We do so by serving others and putting their
needs ahead of our own. Jesus told his
disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among
you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever
would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to
be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom
for many.”
Advent leads us to prepare to celebrate the
birth of Jesus Christ by repenting. We
confess the sin that is present in our life.
We turn away from and remove those things that stand in the way of our
life with God. We turn to Christ and his
Means of Grace by which the saving glory of God is revealed to us. As Isaiah
says this morning: “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.”
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