Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent - Gaudete - Isa 40:1-8

 

                                                                                                Advent 3

                                                                                                Isa 40:1-8

                                                                                                12/13/20

 

            Our family moved to Marion in 2006. During the last fourteen years we have seen many changes as Marion has continued to grow and develop.  Our initial view of Marion has only been enhanced during this time.  Marion is big enough to have everything that you need to live very comfortably. But it is also still a small enough to have a small town feel.  And as an example of the latter I would offer the homecoming parade that goes right by our church every year.

            Marion has continued to develop, and one of my favorite recent developments has been the extension of Halfway Road from where it used to end at Old 13, further south to Westminster Dr on which our church is located.  We can now get from the area around the church where we live out to all of the stores and restaurants that are on State Road 13 and the Hill without having to drive down Carbon St. It is so much faster and easier.

            It was fascinating to watch the extension of Halfway Road being built. Although the road still climbs a hill as it goes south, a lot of earth was moved in order build the road.  Each time as I drove buy, I could see the progress that was being made as the large earth moving machines were at work.

            This recent memory came to mind as I read our Old Testament lesson for today.  In our text, we also hear about the building of a road - a “highway for God.”  But this road is not about mere convenience.  It instead is a reference to the rescue God is going to bring to his people. And even this rescue is not the thing of ultimate importance in our text, because it points to something even greater that God has done.

            Our text from Isaiah this morning begins with the words, “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.”

            Isaiah wrote in the eighth century B.C.  During his lifetime Yahweh rescued Jerusalem and the southern kingdom of Judah from the Near Eastern superpower, Assyria.  At the end of the previous chapter, God had granted healing to King Hezekiah when he was about to die.  We learn that the king of Babylon sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered.  In response Hezekiah gave them the grand tour – he showed them everything. We learn, “And he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.”

            Needless to say, this was not the smartest thing Hezekiah could have done. When Isaiah heard about it he told Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD.” 

            Isaiah said the God would allow Babylon to conquer Judah. Because God’s people were unfaithful and worshipped other gods Yahweh did indeed use the Babylonians as instruments of his judgment.  In 587 B.C. they destroyed the temple in Jersualem, tore down the city’s walls, and took the people into exile in Babylon.

            Writing in the eighth century B.C., in our text the prophet speaks about what God would do in the sixth century B.C. Yes, God would allow the people to be taken into exile. But then, he would act to bring them back.  Isaiah begins by saying, “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 very first words God speaks through Isaiah are words of comfort.  Notice that it in the sentence Yahweh calls them “my people” and refers to himself as “your God.”  God’s calling, covenant and love had not been ended by their sin. Yes, their sin had brought God’s judgment.  There is an important reminder here for us that God does judge and punish his people when they sin.  The Ten Commandments are not “the ten suggestions.”  As the Small Catechism says about the Close of the Commandments: “God threatens to punish all who break these commandments. Therefore we should fear his wrath, and not do anything against them.”

            But like a father who disciplines his children, punishment does not mean that love is absent. God’s uses his law to bring about repentance. And now, God was going to bring his people back from exile.  Isaiah says 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.”

            The imagery here is that of God coming to his people to rescue them.  It describes a highway for God from which every obstacle has been removed.  And the result of this action would be dramatic.  Isaiah says, “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

            Isaiah speaks of the dramatic and unexpected rescue that God provided through the Persians and their leader Cyrus.  They defeated the Babylonians, and in 538 B.C. Cyrus issued an edict that allowed the Judahites to return to their land and rebuild the temple.  This rescue was the revelation of God’s glory, and it is described by Isaiah like the mighty work of the exodus that God carried out when he brought his people out of Egypt.

            But this revelation of God’s glory was just the beginning, and it pointed forward to something far greater. Matthew tells us, “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 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 the Baptist was preparing the way because the glory of the Lord was about to be revealed in a dramatic new way – a way that was the fulfillment of everything God had done in the Old Testament.  The kingdom of God – the reign of God was about to arrive. And in preparation for this, there was only one thing to do: repent.  John called people to confess their sins and submit to a baptism – a washing - that he administered to others.

            By receiving John’s baptism people demonstrated their repentance in preparation for the arrival of God’s reign.  Mathew tells us that people were coming from all around as “they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”  John proclaimed that people needed to be ready because someone even greater was coming. This One would bring God’s end time 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. 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.”

            During Advent we are preparing to celebrate the revealing of the glory of God as the Son of God entered into our world.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary, Jesus Christ was everything that John described.  Yet we know that his entrance into the world was very humble – as an infant laid in a manger. And we know that the humility of his entrance into this world was a indication of the work he had come to do.

            Jesus was born at Christmas, not to bring judgment, but to save us from God’s final judgment.  He came to win the forgiveness of sins, and to redeem us from Satan, sin and death. The One born in the humility of a stable had come to die in the humiliation of the cross. Though he was the promised Messiah descended from David, he also was the suffering Servant described by Isaiah later in his prophecy. He was the One who came to receive God’s judgment against our sin.

            Crucified, dead and buried, Jesus carried out the Father’s saving will for us.  But John the Baptist was not wrong about Jesus.  For on the third day God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and forty days later he was exalted to the right hand of God as he ascended into heaven.  Truly he was the saving glory of the Lord being revealed.  And as we heard in last week’s Scripture lessons the One who came in humility will come a second time in glory.  He will bring the final judgment exactly as John the Baptist declared.

            So how do we prepare to celebrate Jesus Christ’s first coming?  We listen to John the Baptist who was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words: Repent!  We examine our lives and confess our sin. We cling in faith to Jesus Christ who was crucified for us and rose from the dead.

            And we recognize that this life of repentance and faith is not merely about “getting off the hook” for our sins.  John told the Pharisees and Sadducees that came out to hear him: “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”  Or in the poetic words of Isaiah from 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.”  Those things in our lives – those sins – that are opposed to God need to be removed.  Repentance and faith receive forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit is at work through this faith to lead us to turn away from sin, and instead to live in ways that reflect God’s will and the love he has given us in Jesus Christ.

            In our text today we hear: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” Isaiah says, “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”  God comforted his people and revealed his glory by bringing them back from exile in Babylon. 

            But during Advent we prepare to celebrate the fact that God has comforted us in an even greater way.  He has revealed his glory by sending his Son into the world, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem. We prepare to celebrate this birth by repenting of our sins, confident that the baby in the manger grew up to die on the cross for our sins, and then rise from the dead. And because Jesus has risen from the dead and ascended, we have the living hope that the glory of the Lord will be revealed in all it fullness one last time.  It will be when the Lord Jesus returns in glory to raise us from the dead and pronounce the judgment of the Last Day - a verdict that we already know will welcome us into eternal life with God because we have been baptized into Jesus Christ’s saving death and resurrection.

           

             

 

Sermon for second mid-week Advent service: Gen 28:10-17

 

                                                                                     Mid-Advent 2

                                                                                    Gen 28:10-17

                                                                                    12/9/20

 

            The youngest child has it the best.  That is a complaint that is often voiced by older siblings. Undeniably, there is an element of truth to this.  Parents tend to be very careful and far more strict with the first child.  As a parent, by the time you have had a several children you have learned that you don’t need to be quite so uptight about everything.  And then there is the fact that even if you wanted to, you couldn’t because there are other children who also require attention.

            It’s also true that youngest child tends to get to experience things earlier.  When older siblings are already playing video games or watching movies, it becomes hard to exclude the youngest child.  They are just naturally in the mix of everything that goes on in the house, and so they often end up getting do and see things at an earlier time than their older siblings.

            If this is how things work in our modern world, the ancient world of the Near East was very different. There the first born son – the oldest brother – had things best. There was no doubt about who was number one and who would be treated best.

            At least, that is how things were supposed to work.  Tonight as we consider the patriarch Jacob we see that nothing turned out as they were “supposed to.”  The story of Jacob is that of a dysfunctional family over the course of two generations.  Yet when things didn’t turn out as they were supposed to, it was God who was still in charge as he worked out his saving purposes.

            Abraham’s son Isaac had married Rebekah.  Like Sarah, Rebekah also had fertility problems until finally God answered Isaac’s prayer on behalf of his wife.  And in this case, God richly blessed them because Rebekah conceived twins!

            While this was a source of joy, Rebekah soon became concerned. She noticed something unnatural about the way the children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” She inquired of the Yahweh about this and he told her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.”

            God said that things were not going to work as they were “supposed to.”  In this case, the older brother would serve the younger. Things were going to work in God’s way, even if was not expected.  In Paul’s letter to the Romans, God’s choice of the younger – of Jacob – is used by the apostle as an illustration of God’ grace and election.  He writes that God did htis, “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls.” 

            Esau and Jacob were born.  Immediately there was favoritism.  Esau was an outdoors kind of guy.  Jacob, was a quiet man dwelling in the tents.  And so Isaac loved Esau, and Rebekah loved Jacob.   This dysfunction extended as first Jacob took advantage of Esau by having him sell his birthright for a meal when he was famished.  And then Rebekah instructed Jacob about how to deceive his nearly blind father so that he received the blessing that rightfully belonged to Esau.  Esau sought vengeance, and formed that plan that once Isaac died, he would kill Jacob.

            Now this is one messed up family!  Yet remember, this is the same family through which God promised he was working to bring the Savior of all nations into the world.  You may not have children planning on murdering each other, but your family is messed up by sin too. There is favoritism.  There is the perception of favoritism. There are personalities and age differences that clash and produce anger, and deep seated resentment. There are children who have been taught what is true, and yet make choices that take them away from the Church and life that pleases God.

            Rebekah learned of Esau’s intent, and so she convinced Isaac to send Jacob to her brother Laban in the area of Harran from whence Abraham had come, on the pretense that she did not want their son to marry one of the Hittite women in the area.

            This is the setting for our text tonight.  Jacob was being sent away from his family because his brother Esau wanted to kill him – something he had brought upon himself by his own sinful actions.  Surely he was frightened.  His world has been turned upside down.

            We learn that as he travelled to Haran, he stopped for the night, sleeping out in the open with a stone for a pillow. As he slept Yahweh revealed himself in a dream.  Jacob saw a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. The angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Yahweh stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”

            At a moment when everything seemed to be going wrong, Yahweh revealed himself to Jacob and reaffirmed that the patriarchal promise made to Abraham and Isaac was true for him as well.  Yahweh promised to give the land to Jacob’s offspring. He promised to make Jacob into a great nation of many descendants. And he promised that in Jacob and his offspring all families of the earth would be blessed. He promised that the Savior would descend from Jacob.

            At that particular moment, those promises probably sounded like a pipe dream. But then Yahweh added: “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  God promised to be with Jacob and to do what he had said. 

            When Jacob awoke from his sleep he said, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

            God was with Jacob. He blessed him with thirteen children – twelve sons and a daughter.  He changed his name to Israel and brought Jacob to his family in Canaan.  There, Esau forgave him.  And Yahweh said to Jacob, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.”

            It would be great if I could stop there and say, “everyone lived happily ever after.”  But this is the story of sinners, just like you.  Jacob showed favoritism toward is son Joseph.  It caused so much resentment among his brothers that they wanted to kill him.  Finally, instead they sold him into slavery in Egypt. Then the brothers faked evidence and told Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.  Jacob was crushed by grief.

            He lived thinking his beloved son was dead, while God was using Joseph to make preparation that would save Jacob’s family from a famine.  When finally Jacob’s family learned that Joseph was alive and in a position of great power in Egypt, Joseph wanted to bring the family to Egypt where he could care for them.  God spoke to Jacob in a vision and said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.”

           In Jacob we see sin manifested in a dysfunctional family.  Yet God worked through Jacob to create what would become the twelve tribes of Israel.  He worked during his lifetime to bring Israel to Egypt, where they would become the nation Yahweh would rescue in the exodus.

            In our text God promises Jacob that in his offspring all families of the earth would be blessed. During Advent we prepare to celebrate how God fulfilled this promise. Through Jacob, God created the nation of Israel.  As God had promised, kings came forth from his offspring.

            In our text when Jacob wakes from his dream he says, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” The mystery of God’s presence would be revealed in a new and profound way when the Son of God entered into the world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  She would give birth to the One who is true God and true man.  The baby in the manger would be the Lord present in that place, even if it didn’t look like it.  The same can be said of the man Jesus nailed to a cross on Good Friday.

            In our text, Yahweh promises Jacob, “For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” God is the God who is faithful.  He keeps his word. He does what he says he is going to do.  Jesus died on the cross to win forgiveness. But because sin brings death, God raised up our Lord from the dead on the third day. He won the victory over Satan, sin and death that God had promised in the Old Testament.  Luke tells us that on Easter the risen Lord opened the disciples’ minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” We see in Jacob how God worked through a sinful family to win forgiveness and life for all who are repentant sinners.

 

Second Sunday in Advent - Populus Zion - Mal 4:1-6

 

                                                                                    Advent 2

                                                                                    Mal 4:1-6

                                                                                    12/6/20

 

            Are you tired?  Do you feel worn down?  It’s understandable if you are.  For starters, there is the obvious reality of this pandemic with which we have been living.  It has changed so much of life as the response has imposed all kinds of restrictions and alterations to life.

            You know what I miss?  I miss that time after the announcements and before the processional hymn, when the congregation members greeted one another.  It gave me such joy and satisfaction to see the warmth and care for one another expressed as members interacted.  I was so pleased to see the way Good Shepherd members sought out new faces in order to greet them and welcome them to the congregation.

            But its more than that. We look around a see a culture that is moving against us in every possible way. Things have changed, and you can’t ignore that fact.  A piece I recently sent out to the congregation discussed the fact that today one third of people in our country are strongly committed to the Christian faith.  One third of people are secular and have no use for religion.  And one third have drifted away from the faith into a mushy middle that is no longer Christian in faith and practice. They may have some ideas about “spirituality,” but they are not Church anymore.

            The one third that is secular may claim that they are not religious.  But man was created to live in relationship to God, and so he will always have a god even if it is a false one.  Their god is a vision of how they think the world should be. Not surprisingly, in this vision man is god.  There is no natural law – no ordering of the world that has already been established and is to be followed. Instead, individuals can define who they are and what they do – even if it means rejecting the fact that they are male or female. The individual defines the self on the basis of sexuality, and can use sex however and with whomever they want. And make no mistake this is a religious view.  It has a creed – I just described it. And it is fueled by a truly religious fervor to destroy anyone who holds a different view, because the existence of a belief that rejects and condemns their understanding of self can only be viewed as an existential threat.

            These changes are new to us.  But we are not the first to live in times when people just felt tired – when they lived in a culture that was opposed to God’s will for life.  The prophet Malachi wrote in just such a time, around 450 B.C.  The people of Judah has been allowed to return from exile in Babylon by the victorious Persians.  The temple had been rebuilt – but it couldn’t begin to compare with Solomon’s temple that the Babylonians had destroyed. The people no longer lived as a nation.  Instead, they were one small province in the massive Persian empire.

            As you read through the book of Malachi you find a whole list of sins that demonstrate a basic apathy. People were going through the motions. They were offering sacrifices. But instead of animals without blemish, they were bringing blind, lame and sick animals – the ones they didn’t want. People weren’t bringing the tithe as an offering to God, so Yahweh says through Malachi, “you are robbing me.”  These may be words written in the fifth century B.C., but they continue to address us as well and call us to consider whether we are being faithful in returning to God an offering that appropriately corresponds to the blessing he has given us. 

            The people were committing adultery – they were using sex as they wanted. The men were divorcing their wives, and Malachi writes, “So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. ‘For I hate divorce,’ says the LORD, the God of Israel.” 

            Malachi confronts us with the ways we think about and use sex. Do we look at pornography? Do we have sex outside of marriage? Do we accept it as normal when a man and a woman live together who aren’t married?  Do we accept as normal when couples get divorced because “they have fallen out of love”? Do we accept it has normal when people live in homosexual relationships, and even get “married”?  And this isn’t just an abstract intellectual exercise. How do we speak and act when this involves our own family members?  

            But the worst thing was that the people thought none of it mattered.  Just before our text Malachi says, “You have wearied the LORD with your words. But you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ By saying, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” 

            People ignored God’s will, and yet they prospered. And this made the Judahites think that God didn’t care – in fact he seemed to delight in them. After all, they were doing so well.  Others looked at the sin and evil going on and questioned whether God mattered at all. They asked, “Where is the God of justice?”

            This may sound very familiar. After all what areas of our country are the wealthiest and have the most influence? They are the large cities like Chicago, and those on the coasts that also are the most secular.  The majority of the culture in those places has little use for God, and yet they sure seem to be having their best life now. 

            And on the other hand we see in our nation that millions of babies continue to be murdered every year through abortion.  The murder of babies in abortion is called a “reproductive health care service” – an utterly obscene oxymoron.  And one of the major political parties of our nation has stated in its official platform that it believes “every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion,” and has promised to defend and advance abortion in every way possible. This is evil.  We see abortion continue and even defended in our nation, and we want to ask, “Where is the God of justice”?

            During Advent we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, as the Son of God entered in our world in the incarnation.  When we think of Christmas, the image that comes to mind is the sweet and tender scene of the little baby Jesus nestled in a manger, surrounded by the adoring the Mary, Joseph and the shepherds.  And by the way, if your image has the wise men present, you get an “F” this morning because they have nothing to do with Christmas. But I digress….

            Yet last Sunday’s Gospel lesson about Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week prompts us to recall that the purpose of Jesus’ coming was to die.  The helpless baby in the manger came to be the helpless man tortured and nailed to a cross.  He came as the sinless sacrifice offered in our place to atone for our every sin.  Jesus Christ was conceived and born to be the suffering Servant.  He came to fulfill Isaiah’s words: “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.”

            Dead and buried in a tomb, on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead. He vindicated Jesus as the Christ.  Jesus passed through death in order to defeat it forever. Jesus lives! And he will never died again. God raised him with body transformed so that it is immortal and incorruptible. And then he exalted Jesus when he ascended and was seated at the right hand of God.

            During Advent we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ coming when he was born in Bethlehem.  During Jesus’ ministry we see him as a helpless baby in a manger and a helpless man nailed to a cross. But Advent also calls our attention to the fact that this will not be his only coming. And today’s Scripture lessons declare in absolute terms the Jesus will never appear helpless again.

            Advent always points us also to Jesus Christ’ second coming on the Last Day.  Our Lord says in the Gospel lesson this morning, “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”  When the Lord Jesus returns on the Last Day, he will bring the Day of the Lord. 

            He will bring exactly what Malachi describes in our text this morning when he says, “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”  The arrogant and evildoers of our world reject Jesus now.  They seem to be on top, confident that the “arc of history” is on their side and that everything is moving toward the outcome they envision. But their so called arc will be smashed by the return of Jesus.

            And lest we lose heart and say “Where is the God of justice,” Advent announces the he will come.  He came in the first century A.D. to win the forgiveness of sin. And the risen Lord will come on the Last Day to judge all who have rejected him and his forgiveness. He will annihilate them in the eternal judgment of hell.

            Yet for us who believe and trust in him the outcome will be completely different.  Malachi writes, “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.”  God’s saving action to put all things right is described like the rising sun whose rays greet us at the start of a new day.

            The Lord will bring the healing of the resurrection because as we learned recently in Revelation, he is the first born of the dead.  Jesus Christ has begun the resurrection of the Last Day, and when he returns he will transform our bodies to be imperishable and immortal like his own.

            And just as the resurrection of Jesus was God vindicating Jesus as the Christ, so the return of our Lord and the resurrection he will give will vindicate us for trusting and believing in him. At the Last Judgment every knee will bow before Jesus Christ – our Lord. Malachi says, “And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.” Because of Jesus Christ, the risen and ascended Lord, God’s people get the last word.  The appearances of the present change nothing.  They don’t because Jesus Christ was born, died for us and rose from the dead. He is the risen and ascended Lord, and he will return. 

 

 

 

                       

             

 

           

           

 

           

             

           

           

           

           

 

Mark's thoughts: Advent - What if there is no Christmas this year?

 

So how are your Christmas preparations coming along? Do you have your tree up and decorated?  Do you have your Christmas lights hung, beautifully illuminating the night?  Is your house or apartment bedecked with all of the various Christian items that you have collected over the years, or have been passed down in your family?  Do you have your Christmas shopping done?

 

We exert so much effort during the month of December (and truth be told, some of us even start before Thanksgiving!) in order to get ready for Christmas.  Yet what if it turns out that all of this work was completely and utterly pointless? What if it turns out that there is no Christmas this year?

 

The focus during December is on Christmas.  But in the Church, until the evening of December 24, December is not about Christmas.  Instead, it is the season of Advent.  The name Advent is derived from the Latin world adventus which means “arrival” or coming. Advent prepares us to celebrate the arrival of our Savior Jesus Christ as he was not only conceived by the Holy Spirit, but also born of the virgin Mary.  It prepares us to celebrate the incarnation as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

 

Advent prompts us to think about why God sent forth his Son into the world in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4).  The one year lectionary establishes this in a beautiful way as the Gospel lesson for the First Sunday in Advent (Matthew 21:1-9) describes Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week.  The first thing we hear about is Jesus entering the city in order to die on the cross.  We are reminded that Jesus’ arrival was caused by our sin, and God’s gracious and merciful plan to give us forgiveness.  The world treats December as a time of merriment, but we cannot observe Advent without confronting the sin that is present in our lives.  We cannot avoid the reason that the Son of God entered into this world – our sin. Advent will always be a time that calls us to repentance.

 

Jesus Christ died on the cross as the ransom for our sin (Matthew 20:28). Our Lord won forgiveness for us.  Yet from the start, God said that sin would bring death (Genesis 2:16-17). It did (Genesis 3:19; 5:5) and the apostle Paul tells us that it has ever since (Romans 6:23).  God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day.  Jesus passed through death in order to defeat it.  God raised Jesus as the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).  After winning forgiveness and defeating death in a resurrected body that can never die again (Romans 6:9), our Lord then ascended into heaven as He was exalted by God to His right hand (Acts 2:33-35; 1 Peter 3:21-22). 

 

However, at His ascension the angels announced, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).  Jesus himself had spoken of this future return: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27).  Advent leads us to the recognition that we cannot think about our Lord’s first coming, without also thinking about his second coming.  Advent is the season that reminds us that there may be no Christmas this year.  In fact, it leads us to pray that there won’t be one.  It prompts us to pray: Come Lord Jesus!

So during Advent we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We prepare to celebrate the miracle of the incarnation.  We do so knowing why the Son of God entered into our world, and what he did for us through his death and resurrection.  We do so knowing that the risen, ascended and exalted Lord will return on the Last Day. If Jesus Christ is the focus of our preparations in this way, then even if our Lord returns and there is no Christmas, everything we will have done during December will have been truly beneficial preparation.

 

Commemoration of John of Damascus - Theologian and Hymnwriter

 

Today we remember and give thanks for John of Damascus, Theologian and Hymn writer.  John (ca. 675–749) is known as the great compiler and summarizer of the orthodox faith and the last great Greek theologian. Born in Damascus, John gave up an influential position in the Islamic court to devote himself to the Christian faith. Around 716 he entered a monastery outside of Jerusalem and was ordained a priest. When the Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian in 726 issued a decree forbidding images (icons), John forcefully resisted. In his Apostolic Discourses he argued for the legitimacy of the veneration of images, which earned him the condemnation of the Iconoclast Council in 754. John also wrote defenses of the orthodox faith against contemporary heresies. In addition, he was a gifted hymn writer (“Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain”) and contributed to the liturgy of the Byzantine churches. His greatest work was the Fount of Wisdom which was a massive compendium of truth from previous Christian theologians, covering practically every conceivable doctrinal topic. John’s summary of the orthodox faith left a lasting stamp on both the Eastern and Western churches.

Collect of the Day:

O Lord, through Your servant John of Damascus, You proclaimed with power the mysteries of the truth faith.  Confirm our faith so that we may confess Jesus to be true God and true man, singing the praises of the risen Lord, and so that by the power of the resurrection we may also attain to the joys of eternal life; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 

Sermon for first mid-week Advent service - Gen 12:1-8

 

                                                                                                Mid-Advent 1

                                                                                                Gen 12:1-8

                                                                                                12/2/20

 

            Matthew begins his Gospel by writing, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”  He then proceeds to lay out the genealogy of Jesus which ends with the words, “Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.”

            Matthew gives us the family line that led to Jesus – and wow, it is impressive!  I mean, we are talking biblical blue bloods here.  You have Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You have Judah, and the kings David, Hezekiah, and Josiah. There are the patriarchs of the nation of Israel. There are the kings of Israel beginning with David.

            But what Scripture tells us about some of these individuals reads more like an insider “tell all” book written about some European royal family.  Actually, it’s worse than any book like that could be.  In fact as we dig a little into Jesus’ heritage we find ourselves asking: “A Savior came from this family?!?

            Tonight we look at the patriarch – Abraham.  Things begin very well with Abraham. Abraham’s father had been taking the family from Ur in what is today Iraq in order to go to the land of Canaan – what we now know as Israel. But for some reason they didn’t complete the trip.  Instead, they stopped in Haran, what is now Turkey just north of Syria, and settled there.

            But God had plans for Abraham, and so in our text we hear: “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”

            God told Abraham to leave everything – to leave his home and extended family, and to go to a new land that he would show him. But God also made incredible promises to Abraham.  He promised to make Abraham into a great nation.  He promised to bless Abraham and make his name great. And he promised that in Abraham all families of the earth would be blessed. He promised that the Savior – the seed of the woman who would defeat the devil – would come forth from his family line.

            Abraham believed God. He believed his promises and he headed south into Canaan.  While there the Lord appeared to Abraham and said “To your offspring I will give this land.”  God promised to make Abraham into a great nation, and he promised to give Canaan as the land in which they would live.

            God had identified Abraham as the unique individual through whom he would work to create a nation and bless all people.  He had said, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.”  Yet immediately after this we learn that a famine in the land of Canaan prompted Abraham to travel to Egypt. When he arrived there Abraham feared that the Egyptians would find Sarah beautiful and kill him in order to have her.  Abraham convinced Sarah to claim that she was his sister.  Pharaoh, the leader of Egypt took an interest in Sarah.  He paid a dowry to Abraham and took Sarah as his own.

            Only after God afflicted Pharaoh with great plagues did he become aware that something was very wrong. Eventually he learned who Sarah really was.  He summoned Abraham and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.”

            You can’t get much worse than this!  Not only had Abraham failed to trust God’s promise, but in order to save himself he had done something absolutely appalling to Sarah. Right out of the gate, after God calls Abraham, this is very next thing we learn about him. Frankly, it is shocking. This guy is going to be the source from whom the Savior of the world will descend?

            God had promised to make Abraham into great nation, but Sarah had not given birth to child.  Later, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” Abraham protested that he was in fact childless and said, "Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”

            But God replied, “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” God brought Abraham outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” We are told that Abraham “believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” He believed God’s promise, and because of this faith God considered Abraham to be righteous in his sight.

            Abraham was a sinner, just like you are.  There have been times in your life when you have have failed to trust God. There have been times when you have used and taken advantage of other people.  But the apostle Paul tells us that in his faith Abraham is a model of how God deals with us.  He told the Romans “But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 

who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

            Abraham had displayed great faith in God’s promise to give him descendants. But then in the very next chapter we learn that Sarah continued to be barren.  So she told Abraham to take her servant Hagar, and to have a child with her.  Sarah ignored God’s promise, and Abraham went right along with it as he ignored the promise too.  Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, and as always happens when you ignore God’s word, there were great hardships for everyone.  If you think back at your life, you will find the same thing is true for you.

            Finally, when Sarah had entered into menopause and was no longer capable of having children God came to Abraham and said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” Sarah was listening from behind the tent and laughed at the idea that she would have a child.  Yahweh said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”

            As we learn about Abraham’s life, we see failure to trust God and shocking sin. We are in the season of Advent preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ – the Savior.  The truth is that we see in Abraham, the very same thing we see in ourselves – we see the reason that the Son of God had to enter into our world as the Savior. We see sin.

            We see that God worked through sinners as he began to fulfill his promise to bring forth the Savior in whom all nations – all sinners would be blessed.  We also see that God always remained in control, because nothing is impossible for God.  He worked a miracle – he used the barren and dead womb of the elderly Sarah in order to give Abraham a descendent; to give him Isaac.

            And in this action we are reminded that while God worked through the line of Abraham – through a bunch of sinners - to bring forth the Savior, he gave us a sinless Savior.  He did so by another miracle as he used the womb of a young woman, Mary who was a virgin.  When Mary asked how she as a virgin was going to have a child, the angel Gabriel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God.”

            Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, Jesus Chris was the sinless Son of God.  True God and true man, he came to be the Savior of sinners by dying for us.  And this returns us to Abraham one last time. Yes, Abraham was a sinner. But Abraham was also a man of faith.  In Genesis chapter twenty two Yahweh said to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

            Abraham was faithful.  He was ready to obey God and sacrifice his only beloved son, when the angel of God stopped him, and in his place a ram was provided as a sacrifice.  Yet this event in the Old Testament points forward to what God has done for us.  Born in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ grew up to be the sinless sacrifice for us. God the Father offered his beloved only begotten Son in our place.  He the sinless Son bore our sins – be became sin for us – in order to win us forgiveness.

            But as Yahweh told Abraham, “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” And so on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead as he defeated death. This is what God had done through the line of Abraham.   As the apostle Paul told the Romans, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 

For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” This is how God has fulfilled his promise to Abraham: “and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”