Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

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Jesu Juva

“No Weak Soup Christians!”

Text: Luke 3:1-20; Malachi 3:1-7b; Philippians 1:2-11

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Last week we prayed Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come. Fulfill your promise and come again in Your glorious power. Because the threatening peril of our sins is too much for us. Because we need a mighty deliverance by a mighty deliverer. Because we need to be saved from the wickedness in our hearts that is eating away at us, and the evil in our world that threatening to overwhelm us. Come, Lord Jesus! was our first advent prayer.

This week our prayer was a little different. If we want Jesus to fulfill His promise and come again in His glorious power - which we do, if we meant what we prayed - then we better be ready and prepared for Him when He does. So this week, we prayed: Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Your only-begotten Son, that by His coming we may be enabled to serve You with pure minds.

Stir up our hearts. That’s a slightly different image than what John preached, as we heard today. John preached readiness by making paths straight, filling valleys, and leveling mountains and hills. But those things aren’t as big a deal today as they were back then. Today we have bulldozers to make paths straight, bridges to span valleys, tunnels to get through mountains, and airplanes to fly over them. 

So we get a different image in our prayer today: Stir up our hearts, O Lord. And the image there is, at least for me, and one I would like to propose to you today, a pot of soup. A pot of soup where all the stuff of the soup has settled to the bottom of the pot. All the vegetables and meat have settled, and there is only broth on top. That pot needs to be stirred up for you to get soup of any substance or value. Otherwise it’s weak soup at best.

John, as we heard, proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The problem is, our hearts can be like that pot of soup - all our sins can settle to the bottom of our hearts. So if they’re not stirred up, our repentance will be like just ladling off the broth - weak repentance at best. Very little substance or value. While the sins we like, the sins we’ve become accustomed to, the sins that have grown deep roots in our hearts and lives, the sins that if brought to the top and exposed would both scare you and shame you, stay at home on the bottom. What are they for you? 

In the liturgy of Private Absolution, there are some phrases to help us think about this; to stir up our hearts. Such as my favorite, and the one that always strikes me down hard: I have lived as if God did not matter and as if I mattered most. I can usually stop right there! That sums it all up for me! But there are others, too. Like, My Lord’s name I have not honored as I should. Or, I have not let His love has its way with me and so my love for others has failed. And more. This liturgy is in the hymnal. You can read and use those yourself. (Or even better, come to Private Absolution and confess those words!)

So John has come to stir the pot, to stir up your hearts, to dredge up those sins - but not to shame you and scare you, but to forgive you. To get rid of them. Jesus already knows they’re there, so it’s not like you’re hiding them from your all-knowing and all-seeing God anyhow. So to repent of them is for your benefit. It is to prepare you for the coming of your Saviour.

John did that and many people, as we heard, listened, and repented. But some did not. Like King Herod, who stole his brother Philip’s wife for himself, and when John stirred that up, Herod didn’t like it. So he locked John up in prison. And maybe we do that, too, in a sense. Lock John up, lock Jesus up, to keep them out of part of our lives. So the ladle doesn’t go too deep into our hearts.

But if John didn’t stir up our hearts, or if I didn’t stir up your hearts today, we would be no different and no better than those who preach no repentance or weak repentance. Vipers is what John called them, and those who listened to them their brood - those they have given birth to. They weren’t being told to flee from the wrath to come, to repentance and forgiveness - they were being told that being a child of Abraham was enough. If you were, you were in. Which maybe today is like being baptized as a child but then never going back to church, never hearing the Word, never praying or receiving the Sacrament. Presumption we could maybe call it. Or false confidence. And it’s deadly, and why vipers is such a good description of those who preach that. 

John, rather, proclaimed: Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. So repentance comes first. And not weak broth kind of repentance, but the stirred-up heart, ladle down deep, kind of repentance. Then the forgiveness of those sins promised by God and won for us by Jesus. And then that forgiveness producing new life in you. Or, again, in the words spoken in Private Absolution, letting God’s love have its way with you, so your love for others does not fail.

And what that looks like is different for each of us, depending on your place in life and the vocations God has given you. Common people, tax collectors, and soldiers were among those John instructed in the reading today, telling them each uniquely what a new life looks like for them. But what they all have in common is faith toward God, that He will provide for us, and love toward others, that therefore we can provide for them. So who has God given you to provide for? To love and forgive and care for? Have you? Ladle out those chunks of sin from your heart! And live as if God and your neighbor matter most, and as if you matter least.

To say that was a very different message than what the people were used to hearing is quite the understatement! So much so that, as we heard, the people began to wonder whether John might be the Christ. No! John said. I’m only the one preparing the way. I’m only getting you ready for Him. I’m only Malachi’s messenger. He’s the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. He’s the one who will gather His faithful into His kingdom. He’s the one who will refine and cleanse. He’s the one who will put an end to the evil and evil ones in this world. And the people heard this . . . that it was not up to them, but that their God was coming to do this for them . . . and they wanted to be ready for Him when He did. 

As do we. That at the end of this Advent season, we be ready not only to celebrate the birth of the one who has come to do this for us, but ready to welcome Him when He comes again in glory. And not only that we be ready, but all people. Our friends, family, and neighbors, too. That we yearn for them and pray for them and serve them as Paul did the Philippian Christians. That, as Paul said, their love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that [they, too,] may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Which circles us back to our prayer, wherein we asked that we be able to serve the Lord with pure minds - and to which, I would add, pure hearts. Repentant hearts cleansed and purified by forgiveness, which then serve the Lord by serving our neighbor. 

And that all starts by the Lord serving us. The Lord creating us, the Lord re-creating us. The Lord giving us life, the Lord giving us new life. The Lord speaking and we hearing. Just being a child of Abraham doesn’t do it. For as John said, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. That’s easy! But true children of God aren’t so easy. They can only be raised up from the stone-coldness of death by Jesus’ resurrection. And for Jesus’ own resurrection He first had to die. And not just any death, but a cursed death. Cursed by hanging on a tree, on a cross, with not just all our sins, but the sins of the whole world. By Jesus atoning for those sins and paying their wages in full. For only then would death and the grave be overcome. 

So Jesus did. The baby born in Bethlehem grew up to be baptized by John, baptized into our sin and death, to go to the cross to be chopped down and consumed by the fire of God’s wrath against our sin. John told the people to give up their tunics, feed the hungry, not collect more than they were authorized to do, and not to extort money - but what is all that, and what is all that we can do, compared to all that Jesus did for us? To His agonizing death, being forsaken by His Father, and rejected by those He came to save. All so we could live. He died so we could live. He rose so we could live. Not the same old life, but a new life. A life of faith and love. 

And He comes to us now so we can live. He baptizes us so we can live lives washed clean of our filth by His blood. He absolves us so we can live live set free from guilt and shame. His Gospel is preached to us so we can live lives of faith and hope. And His Body and Blood are given to us so we can live lives not hungering and thirsting for righteousness, not of thin soup, but chocked full with His meaty and substantial gifts. So that we shall be among that number of all flesh [who] shall see the salvation of God, and rejoice.

So that we might receive all that, and not a little but a lot . . . Advent. So that we might receive all that, On Jordan’s Bank, the Baptist’s Cry Announces that the Lord is nigh (LSB #344). and calls us to repentance, stirring up our hearts. And so we pray, yes Lord! Yes, Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Your only-begotten Son. Stir up our hearts to repentance, to faith, and to love.Stir up our hearts that we may live.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Advent 1 Midweek Meditation

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Jesu Juva

“Once He Came in Blessing: All Our Sins Redressing”

Text: Isaiah 61:10-11; Luke 4:16-21

 

In the Name of the Father and of the (+) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is only one reason why Jesus advented, or came. It wasn’t, as many would say today, to show us how to live. It wasn’t to show us our potential. It wasn’t to teach us what we should be doing. It was to save us. And to save us by fulfilling God’s Word. 

That’s what Luke recorded for us from the mouth of Jesus. Jesus went home and went to Church. He read from the prophet Isaiah. All eyes were focused on Him. The anticipation was electric. What would He say? And while He undoubtedly said more than what Luke recorded here, Luke recorded the most important thing, and really, the only thing that needed to be said: Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The promised servant of the Lord had come, and was sitting before them in their synagogue. And that fact was more important than anything He would say. His very presence proclaiming that God was now fulfilling His Word, all our sins redressing, as we sang in our hymn. The sins that have kept us in physical and spiritual bondage.

We don’t use the word redress a lot anymore. Now, mostly in legal settings, I think. That in the law, we have the right of redress. To right a wrong. To provide relief. To receive compensation. And Jesus has certainly come to right the wrong of our sins. 

But maybe we can think of that word a little more simply, that Jesus has come to re-dress us. That is, to clothe or dress us in something new. Because what we’re wearing now is filthy and disgusting. The filth of our sins has soiled us. Which we’re good at hiding from one another, but we cannot hide from the eyes of an all-knowing, all-seeing God. Evil thoughts, shameful desires, deeds done in secret, words spoken - or typed! - that should never have been. But as we heard from the prophet Isaiah tonight, He clothes us - with the garments of salvation. He covers us - with the robe of righteousness. And no mere garments are these, but wedding garments. The best of the best. Decked out for a royal wedding. Jesus has come to re-dress us.

But to do so, He must also redress our sins. He must put right the wrong of our sins. And to do that, He came in likeness lowly. 

That word likeness is important there. It recalls the story of creation, when we were made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26). Mortals made in the image and likeness of God. So to restore that image and likeness, cratered by sin, the most holy God now is made in the likeness of mortal man. True man, born of the virgin Mary, but at the same time the most holy God. Two natures, one person. To fulfill God’s Word and redress our sins.

So two things Jesus did. He fulfilled the Word of God in two ways. First, with His active obedience. That is, He fulfilled the Word of God’s Law for us perfectly. For the Son of God did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). Every jot, every tittle. Everything that needed to be done, He did. He led the perfect life that we could not. And then He offered up that perfect life as the Lamb of God in His passive obedience. He opened not His mouth to object, to proclaim his innocence. He was the Lamb led to the slaughter, that by His blood shed on the cross, all our sins by redressed; all our sins by atoned for; all our sins borne by Him on the altar of the cross.

When He died, Matthew reports that the curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). The curtain that hid the most holy place in the Temple. For now there was a new most holy place, where the blood of the most holy Lamb of God was poured out on a new Day of Atonement. And so were the sins of the world redressed, made right, once and for all. Tetelestai. It is finished. The debt of sin paid in full. Signed and sealed in Jesus’ blood.

And with that, hope and freedom gave us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once famously compared the bondage of sin to a prison cell. An apt metaphor, but one made even more appropriate when, as he said, you consider that a prison cell can only be opened from the outside. The person in the cell is completely dependent on someone coming and unlocking that door. There is no other way out. That prisoner can do a lot of things in that cell, but cannot set Himself free.

So Jesus did. Unlocking the door of our prison house of sin and death, with his cross-shaped key. That was the hope of the patriarchs and prophets, fulfilled by Jesus and His freeing forgiveness.

Once He came on blessing, All our sins redressing;

Came in likeness lowly, Son of God most holy;

Bore the cross to save us; Hope and freedom gave us (LSB #333 v. 1).

Johann Horn packed a lot of theology into a few words with this verse of our hymn. And it is what Advent is all about. Our Saviour who comes to bless us. And what greater blessing could there be but the forgiveness of our sins? 

Maybe we don’t always think that way about forgiveness, though, and take it for granted. The season of Advent is to correct that. So it is a penitential season, calling us to take our sins seriously, and calling us to repentance. But not a fearful repentance, but a joyous repentance. A repentance borne of the words and promises of God, that our Lord will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). That a broken and contrite heart will not be despised by God (Psalm 51:17). Because our Saviour has come and already redressed our sins. So there is for us now the joy of His salvation.

Joy, for your prison cell of sin and death has been unlocked and you have been set free. So what now? Return to your cell of sin? Or live this new life you have been given? It doesn’t seem like much of a choice, yet how often do we mess it up? How often do we make the wrong choices? How often . . .

This season of Advent says stop! And, look to the manger, at the Son of God most holy who came in likeness lowly - in your lowliness, to exalt you; to treat you like royalty! Because in His eyes you are. A beautiful royal Bride. And when Jesus advents again, He’s coming not to redress our sins, He already did that. Now, it is to take home His Bride. To which the Church prays this Advent season: Come, Lord Jesus! Come and take us from this valley of sorrow to yourself in heaven. Or as we sang in our hymn . . .

Come, then, O Lord Jesus, From our sins release us,

Keep our hearts believing, That we grace receiving,

Ever may confess You Till in heaven we bless You (LSB #333 v. 4).

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent

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Jesu Juva

“9-1-1”

Text: Luke 19:28-40; Jeremiah 22:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance.

We prayed that earlier. We pray those words on the First Sunday of Advent every year. As the Church has for over a thousand years. It is the Church’s 9-1-1 call to God, to come and save us. Because that’s what you do when you’re in trouble. You call for help. And hope that help arrives in time.

But we also try to protect ourselves from trouble, so we won’t have to make such a call. Which is the sensible thing to do. So we put childproof lids on our medicines, lock up our firearms, put lock screens on our cell phones, and passwords on just about everything. But sometimes those things don’t work. A child eats a Tide pod, the gate at the top of the stairs gets opened, or a danger we didn’t foresee . . . And then you tap out those three numbers no one ever wants to have to . . . and you hear the voice on the other end of the line: What’s your emergency? And you hope that help arrives in time. For our threatening peril.

What do you do, though, when everyone needs help? And there aren’t enough first responders to go around? That’s the situation we’re in. Because the threatening perils we face aren’t just here or there, in a medicine cabinet or at the end of a gun. And the threatening perils we face aren’t just in every community, but in every home; and not just every home, but every heart. Threatening perils that turn, as we heard Jesus say two weeks ago, even brother against brother, fathers against children, and children against parents (Mark 13:12). You’ve seen it yourself. You’ve seen it in yourself. Sinful desires and hateful thoughts that blossom into hurtful words and damaging deeds.

Now maybe you don’t see the peril, or think it so bad. Like those who choose to shelter in place when a major hurricane is about to hit them. Maybe they get lucky, maybe not. But the threatening perils of our sins, the Church knows, because the Word of God has told us, is unsurvivable. On the Last Day, there is no getting lucky. And even in these days leading up to that day, evils and perils are lurking and threatening. 

So we call 9-1-1. 

Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance.

Our Lord has promised to do just that, when the Last Day of this world comes. He will come and rescue His own and take us home. We don’t have to hope that help will come; we know that it will. And we know that it will because it already has. He didn’t come with a blaring siren and flashing lights, but with the roar of a crowd. He didn’t come in firetruck or a police car, but riding on a donkey. He didn’t come with great strength, but in great weakness. But make no mistake about it, Jesus rushed into the danger, into the fire of God’s wrath against the threatening perils of our sins when He ascended the cross, to extinguish that fire and save us by His mighty deliverance. To fulfill the promise He made through the prophet Jeremiah, that in those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. 

Notice he did not say that there would be no more threatening perils. Those are still with us, as you know. The Last Day is not yet. But even so, we are saved and can dwell securely because of Jesus’ saving work for us. Because He rushed into death and it did not consume Him. He rose from death and so is the Lord is our righteousness. The Lord that rescues us from the threatening perils of our sins.

That’s why the crowds were so filled with joy that day in Jerusalem as Jesus rode in, rejoicing and praising God. Because that’s the relief you feel when the first responders show up. 

And that’s why we are so filled with joy whenever we have a baptism - because Jesus is riding in, not on a donkey, but in the water, to rescue and save. And when the fire of sin flares up again in our hearts and lives, Jesus comes to us in the Word of the Gospel and the Words of Absolution, and His forgiveness is poured on us that the threatening perils of our sins not take over or consume us. And even though perils grow greater and evil grows darker, we have the sure and certain hope that it will not consume us, because it could not consume Him. 

Which doesn’t mean an easy life - you know that’s not true. That’s why the Church has prayed this prayer every year on this Sunday for over a thousand years. And not because He hasn’t answered that prayer yet, but that He may continue to answer it, and continue to come to us, and continue to rescue us. Because the evils and the perils are not going to stop on this side of eternity. In fact, they’re going to ramp up as the Day of their final defeat draws ever closer. 

So the Church prays it’s 9-1-1 even more fervently. Come, Lord Jesus! And the voice on the other end of that call doesn’t ask, What’s your emergency? For He knows full well the perils and evils and sins we face. He endured them all Himself. For when the Lord stirred up His power and came, He came and lived among us. Born as one of us. Living among us. In the perils, enduring the evil, suffering under the sins of others. He was the target of evil from the day of His conception until the day He breathed His last, and He arose from the dead victorious. And now He comes to us still in the mix, still in the perils, to save us, too.

Which is why we are going to sing in a moment another ancient prayer of the Church: Hosanna! which means, save us! And then we’ll take up the same words cried out in Jerusalem that day, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! For the same Jesus who rode into Jerusalem that day on a donkey, rides to us here in bread and wine, which He makes his Body and Blood, that He gives us to eat and to drink, to give us His forgiveness, life, and salvation. And against this, the threatening perils of our sins is no match. Because while the threatening perils of our sins is beyond our power to deal with, it is not beyond His. It wasn’t when Jesus was born, it wasn’t when He died, and it isn’t now. Here, too, the Lord is our righteousness. 

And with His saving Word preached into our ears, and His Body and Blood placed into our mouths, and His forgiveness and life poured into our hearts, thus rescued and saved we can return to our lives in a perilous world not in fear but in faith. And not just trying to survive another day or another week, but as we heard the apostle Paul say today as he was encouraging the Thessalonian Christians, increasing and abounding in love for one another and for all. So that it’s not every man or woman for himself or herself, but all of us in this together. 

So Paul told the Thessalonians that he was praying earnestly night and day to come and see them face to face, so that he could supply what is lacking in their faith. To give them that word of encouragement they needed. To be that hand of help and hope. To comfort and reassure them. To listen to their fears and to walk with them in their troubles. To pray for them and with them when they’re empty and words fail. And especially point them to Jesus. And not to Jesus far away, but to the Jesus who comes in answer to our prayer, who comes here and now. That no one have to face the threatening perils of our sins alone.

Who can you do that for this week? Who has done that for you in the past? Who is in your mind right now? Who has the Spirit put in your mind? And yes, how often have we failed to act, failed to pray, failed to increase and abound in love for one another and for all? Too often, is my answer.

But though we fail, the one who comes to us to rescue and save does not. And as Jesus comes to you, He supplies what is lacking in your faith, and gives you the love you need for others. And maybe it will come from an unexpected place. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day, He said that if the crowds didn’t rejoice and praise Him, the stones would! But He will provide what you need, even if He has to use stones! And you know He will because He already has. The promised Saviour of the Nations has come, and is coming, and He will come again.

So this season of Advent is a season of repentance for us, yes, for all the ways we have fallen short in our faith toward God and in our love for one another. But even more is it a season of joy, preparing us for the great joy of Christmas and the even greater joy of Jesus’ return on the Last Day, when the threatening perils of our sins will finally be no more. No more praying our 9-1-1.

So Happy Advent! 

Savior of the Nations, Come (LSB #332)!

Yes, Come, Lord Jesus!

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.