The last circumcision worth celebrating

Posted on January 1, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for the Festival of the Circumcision of Our Lord

Galatians 3:23-29  +  Luke 2:21

Merry 8th day of Christmas! On the 8th day of Christmas, we celebrate what happened on the 8th day of Christ’s birth: His circumcision, and His naming ceremony. I’ve mentioned this festival to various Evangelical friends, including an Evangelical pastor, and they all kind of laughed and said, “Huh. I didn’t even know that was a thing. What kind of decorations do you use to celebrate that?” It is a thing. A big thing, actually, and the Church Catholic has celebrated it as part of the Christmas season for a very long time. Without this event in the life of Jesus, He wouldn’t have been the Christ. He wouldn’t have been able to institute the New Testament in His blood, and Baptism would have no meaning at all. So let’s celebrate this day in the life of Jesus and consider its meaning for us in the New Testament.

As you recall, circumcision was not a practice that the Jews just came up with out of nowhere. God instituted it. God commanded Abraham, back in Genesis 17, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your seed after you. Also I give to you and your seed after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant…My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

Under the Old Covenant, if you wanted God to be God for you, if you wanted to inherit the promises made to Abraham and to his seed, if you wanted to be a part of the people of God at all, then you—if you were a male 8 days old or older—had to be circumcised; that’s the way it was from the time of Abraham till the time of Christ. It was the sign of the covenant God made with Abraham.

God never explains why circumcision, of all things, became the sign and seal of God’s covenant with Abraham and his seed. It was certainly a marker pointing to the sin that’s passes down from father to son, showing that sin has to be cut away. And based on the teachings of Scripture, our Lutheran Confessions have provided a good explanation of the purpose of circumcision: (a) that Abraham might have a sign written into his body—a permanent mark to remind him of the covenant God had made with him, to remind him that he was to fear and love God as one who had been made an heir of eternal life; (b) so that, admonished by this, he might exercise faith—so that he would keep trusting in God’s Word and in God’s promises all his life; and (c) that by this work he might also confess his faith before others and, by his testimony, invite others to believe.

So Abraham himself was circumcised. And then, when Isaac was born, the son whom God had promised, he was circumcised on the 8th day of his birth, and so it continued among Abraham’s descendants until the practice was codified in the Law of Moses some 400 years later. It physically marked a man (and his household!) as belonging to the people of Israel, and it signified that the whole life of the circumcised should be lived under the Law.

By the time of Jesus, the Jews had begun to abuse the sign of circumcision. They had turned it into a meritorious good work—something that they did that made them worthy to be God’s people, worthy to inherit eternal life. They put their faith in their physical descent from Abraham and in their obedience to the Law that God had given to Abraham and to Moses. They boasted that, just as Abraham was justified by his good works, beginning with circumcision, they, too, would be justified by their good works.

It was especially the Apostle Paul who demolished their false faith in Romans 4, where Paul points out that, according to the book of Genesis, Abraham was justified long before he was ever circumcised. He was justified, not by any work of his own, but by faith alone. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness…He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

But none of that faith would matter, unless the sign of circumcision had been fulfilled and then set aside by Abraham’s true Seed and Heir.

So along came the baby, born of Mary, exactly one week after he was born, still without a name, because Hebrew boys weren’t given their name until they were circumcised. And Mary and Joseph fulfilled for their Son what the Law required. Since He was the long-promised Seed of Abraham, this was the day that the whole Old Testament had been foreshadowing, the day when the promised Son of Abraham would be brought under the Covenant, under the Testament, under the Law that God had given to Abraham and to Moses, with all of its promised blessings for obedience, and with all of its promised curses for disobedience. This was the day that the Son of God entered into the Old Testament, to fulfill it and, later, to replace it with a New and better Testament: the New Testament in His blood—blood that was first shed on this day of His circumcision, a token of the blood that would be spilled about 33 years later on the cross.

What does all of this mean for us? It means that the baby Jesus, on the day of His circumcision, embarked on a lifelong journey of obedience to the Law, not as an example to us, but as a Substitute for us. As Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter 4, When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

And how do we receive that adoption? You heard it this morning in the Epistle: For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

As those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, believing in Him as your Savior from sin, you now inherit everything that Christ inherits, both as the Son of God and as the Son of Man, and that includes…everything. But first and foremost, it’s the right to be called children of God. It’s the ability to call God your Father. He is not only the God and Creator of the universe. He is God for you. He claims you as His own son—as members of the one body of Christ. That’s why it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, Jew or Greek (or any other race), slave or free, rich or poor, because, in God’s sight you all wear Christ Jesus as a garment; you are all clean, holy, perfect heirs of heaven through faith in Him.

Now circumcision has been set aside as the entrance into God’s family and as the mark of His adoption. It has been set aside and replaced with Holy Baptism. Listen to how the Apostle Paul makes the connection between circumcision and Baptism as he writes to Gentile Christians in Colossians 2: In Christ you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Circumcision used to be all-important for people to receive God’s forgiveness. It was all-important for Christ, in order for Him to be our Savior. But now, circumcision no longer counts for anything. Christ’s circumcision was the last circumcision worth celebrating. Now, if you would have God for your God, if you would be counted among His children, then you must believe and be baptized in Christ Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Abraham. And if you have already been baptized, then you must keep using your baptism, as a sign and seal of the forgiveness of sins that is yours through faith in Christ, and as a constant reminder that, as a member of the New Testament in the blood of Christ, you are to live, not as pagans, not as atheists, not as idolaters who will perish in the judgment, but as baptized children of God who will live eternally with Him, and with your fellow baptized. As Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter 5, Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters…For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.

That is the calling of the Christian: to be baptized, and then to live as baptized members of Christ, in love—in self-sacrifice, in self-denial, in devotion to God’s Word and in service to our neighbor, not in order to earn our salvation, but because we have been made members of Christ Jesus. Jesus. Savior. The name that was given to our Lord on the 8th day of His birth. Jesus. The name assigned to that child from eternity and proclaimed by the angel to Joseph. Jesus. The name that is above every name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Amen.

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Real-life joy of real-life saints at Christmas

Posted on December 29, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Sunday after Christmas

Galatians 4:1-7  +  Luke 2:33-40

It’s the 5th day of Christmas. The Christmas decorations are already starting to come down. The Christmas songs are pretty much gone from the radio now. The Christmas movies are almost gone from the TV lineup, except on the Hallmark Channel, and they won’t be around there much longer. And in a way, I’m glad. Because the picture those decorations and songs and shows paint of Christmas is mostly “fake news” anyway. Whether it’s Santa or the Polar Express or the secular holiday songs that completely ignore the birth of Jesus, or whether it’s the movies that make His birth just one small part of Christmas, or whether it’s the songs (or the sermons!) that tell us what a cute little baby Jesus was or what a wonderful teacher He grew up to be and what a shining example He left us in teaching us to be kind to one another, as if that were the heart of His Gospel—it’s fake. It’s not real, the utopian view of Christmas, the idealistic view of Christmas, the Hallmark Channel view of Christmas. Even the Christmas card view of Christmas is necessarily limited in what it can portray.

So let’s spend this 5th day of Christmas with Simeon and Anna, shall we? In Simeon and Anna we see two elderly, real-life saints who celebrated Christmas with extraordinary faith and extraordinary joy—real-life joy that doesn’t ignore the reality of Christ’s mission or of the opposition that awaits Him and His people in the world.

We meet Simeon and Anna on Jesus’ Presentation Day, 40 days after He was born, according to Old Testament Law. The Feast of the Presentation always falls on February 2nd, which happens to be a Sunday this year. But that day also happens to be Transfiguration Sunday this year, so let’s spend a few moments on the Presentation today, along with the Gospel you heard earlier.

Luke tells us, when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the LORD”), and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” In Leviticus 12, Moses had given the Israelites God’s command about purification after childbirth as part of the ceremonial law. The flow of blood always made a person unclean, but childbirth was a special case. Childbirth made a woman ceremonially unclean for 40 days after the birth of a son, 80 days after the birth of a daughter. At the end of those days, the mother was to take two offerings to the Temple to be sacrificed: either a lamb and a turtle dove, or, if she couldn’t afford a lamb, then two turtle doves, which is the offering Luke indicates that Mary brought. The purification rite was a reminder of original sin, and that the blood of sinners is impure. It was also a sign pointing forward to Christ, to the only baby boy in human history who was not a sinner, but whose blood could purify the whole sinful human race before God.

So they went to the Temple in Jerusalem, first, for the purification of Mary. But they also went for the Presentation of the firstborn. The Law required that the firstborn son of any Israelite be redeemed from God (bought back from Him)—a reminder that God Himself had redeemed the firstborn of Israel by the blood of the Passover lamb, and a sign pointing forward to Christ, the firstborn Son of Mary, by whose blood the whole human race would be redeemed, as Paul wrote in today’s Epistle: Christ was born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons..

But before any lamb could be offered to redeem the true Lamb of God, God interrupted the ceremony by sending Simeon at just that moment.

Who was Simeon? Simeon was an old man, an aged Israelite, a real-life saint, not because he never sinned, but because he lived a life of hope in the true God. Luke says that he was righteous and devout, and waiting for the consolation of Israel. In other words, he was a penitent sinner who was eagerly waiting for the Christ to arrive, to console Israel by making atonement for sin and by offering forgiveness to all who believed in Him. And as Simeon waited, he lived his life in service to the Lord. He faithfully and dutifully carried out his vocations. Somehow, the Holy Spirit had informed him that he would not die, he wouldn’t be “dismissed from the Lord’s service on earth,” until he saw the Christ with his own eyes. And somehow, the Holy Spirit made sure he recognized the Child Jesus as the Christ just as His parents brought Him in, to do for Him according to the custom of the law. And Simeon took Him up in his arms and blessed God with those famous words we know as the Nunc Dimittis.

Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, According to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.

First, Simeon announces that he is ready to depart—to be dismissed from the Lord’s earthly service, to die, in peace. Now, Simeon, Luke tells us, was just and devout, a good man, a godly man. And yet this godly man had no peace and was not at all ready to die except for one thing—except for this Child whom he held in his arms. Simeon was what we would call a “good man,” but even the best of men are sinners before God and will not be let into His paradise, except for one thing—except for faith in the Son of Mary.

Faith in Him, for what? For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation. Sinners need saving, need rescuing from the condemnation we deserve. For that salvation to take place for any sinner, two things are necessary: The atonement or redemption has to be made, and faith in that atonement has to be created. That Child was the atonement; His blood was the redemption price. And He was also the One who would send His Holy Spirit to create faith in it. For whom would He pay the redemption price? “Prepared before the face of all people, a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel.” No one on earth, Jew or Gentile, no matter how sincere or religious they may be, will be saved, unless they believe in this Child, held by Simeon, in Jesus, the Christ, the salvation of God. He was offered for all men on earth, and He is offered to all men on earth in the preaching of this Gospel, so that all might repent and believe in Him, both Jew and Gentile.

That was Simeon’s Song. He was so joyful to be holding the Christ in his arms! And his words caused Mary and Joseph to marvel. Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” This was the first time anyone had told Mary and Joseph that their Child would cause “the fall and rising” of many, or that He would be spoken against. And this omen about a sword piercing Mary’s soul was an obvious reference to Jesus’ crucifixion, with His mother right there watching, helpless.

And so the reality of Christmas begins to set in. It’s the joy of God fulfilling His promise to send His Son to make peace between God and man. It’s also the realization that God sent His Son to suffer and die and to bring judgment on those who do not believe in Him.

Jesus did cause the fall of many in Israel. How many people have stumbled over Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles! Even today, most of the physical descendants of Israel are celebrating Hanukkah, not Christmas. Jesus is, in the words of St. Peter, “a stone of stumbling” and “a rock of offense.” People stumble over Jesus and fall, because He calls them sinners and insists that they abandon their sins. Or they stumble because they trust in themselves and their own works to save them. They stumble over Jesus because He claims that only His words are true and life-giving, and that the only way to be justified before God is by faith in Him.

But, as Simeon said, that Child was also destined for the rising of many in Israel. That word “rising” in the Greek is the same as the word for “resurrection.” This Child is destined for the resurrection of many in Israel! All who acknowledge that they have sinned against God and deserve only His wrath and condemnation, but who look to Christ alone for salvation, are forgiven by God and are raised up by His Holy Spirit to new life, eternal life! As St. Peter also says, Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect, precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.

Anna was one of those who was raised up because of Jesus. Here was this old Israelite woman, a prophetess, Luke says—one of only a few mentioned in Scripture. She was over a hundred years old if you add up the years Luke gives us. She had lost her husband over 80 years ago and had spent those eight decades, not in mourning, not in shaking her fist at God or “moving on,” but in prayer and devotion. She did not depart from the temple, Luke says. So she must have been well-known in Jerusalem. Hardly a trip to the temple could be made without someone saying, “There’s Anna. She’s always here in the temple, praying and prophesying.”

And see how God blessed her on that day. She waited for the Lord, and the Lord made sure that she didn’t miss what she had been waiting for. And coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.

“To all those who looked for redemption.” Clearly there were many who were not looking for redemption. They thought they were doing fine on their own. But to all who recognized their sins and had heard and believed God’s Old Testament promises of a Savior—they were looking for the Lord’s redemption, and how happy they must have been to hear Anna’s announcement: The Christ has been born. Redemption has come!

There was nothing fake about Simeon or Anna. They were real Christians, real saints, who found real joy in Jesus, joy that was still there, in spite of their own earthly trials and the troubles of old age, joy that was still there, in spite of what that Child would suffer later on in His life, in spite of what His Christians would also suffer because of Him. In your real life as Christians, you will not be able to avoid the troubles that are common to mankind, and you’d better not even try to avoid the troubles that come with confessing Christ. But you already know that the joy of Christ is not a matter of finding utopia here on earth. It’s about a God who loved you so much that He entered our non-utopian world in order to redeem you from sin and death, to bring you first into the joy of His Church and then, finally, into the joy of His heaven.

Learn from the example of Simeon and Anna, both in leading serious, godly lives all the way up to old age, and in the joy that they found in finding Christ. When we sing our next hymn in a few minutes, picture Simeon and Anna singing along together with all of us here: Oh, rejoice, ye Christians, loudly, For our joy hath now begun; Wondrous things our God hath done. Tell abroad His goodness proudly Who our race hath honored thus That He deigns to dwell with us. Joy, Oh, joy, beyond all gladness, Christ hath done away with sadness! Hence, all sorrow and repining, For the Sun of Grace is shining! Merry Christmas! Amen.

 

 

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Worship Christ with the angelic forerunners!

Posted on December 25, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Christmas Day

Titus 3:4-7  +  Luke 2:14-20

We’re here this morning to worship the One who was born to us in Bethlehem, the Savior who is Christ the Lord. We heard it announced from the one angel last night. Who better to lead us in worship today than that multitude of the heavenly host who suddenly appeared with the angel, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men! That was the worship of the angels, and it’s our song of worship, too. We sing it throughout most of the year in our Divine Service. We sang it again this morning, after taking a break from it during the Advent season. Let’s ponder these words for a little while this morning, so that we can join the angels once again in worshiping the King who was once a newborn baby.

Glory to God in the highest, they sang. Or, as we sing, Glory be to God on high! “Glory” means brightness, splendor, radiance, and, by way of metaphor, honor, fame, and renown. It’s another way of saying, Praise God, give honor to God in the highest!, that is, to God in heaven, where He dwells visibly with the holy angels and with the souls of the saints who have fallen asleep.

Why do the angels give glory and praise to God? It’s not just that they owe Him worship as creatures owe worship to their Creator. It’s much more than that. When the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest,” it wasn’t a general song of praise. It was a song of praise on the occasion of Jesus’ birth. It was a celebration of the incarnation itself—that God’s Son had taken on human flesh and was finally revealed to the world in His birth. It was a song of praise, not only to God the Father in heaven, but also to the newborn baby who was God.

The author to the Hebrews writes, When God brings the firstborn into the world, He says: “Let all the angels of God worship Him.” So God the Father was the One who sent those angels to worship the Firstborn, the Son of God, to worship the One who, although He was as helpless as any newborn baby, was greater than they, higher than they, even though He lay in a humble manger, even though He was made lower than the angels for a little while, as it says in Hebrews. Glory to God in the highest is a song of worship sung to Jesus just as much as it is to God the Father.

The angels’ worship of the Firstborn came from their love of God for who is, as He revealed Himself to Moses on Mt. Sinai: The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.

The Lord’s chief qualities are mercy, grace, patience, goodness, truth, faithfulness, and a readiness to forgive. And the birth of Christ epitomizes all those qualities: It shows the lengths to which our God went to show mercy to wretched sinners, to give grace to the undeserving. It shows how patient (or longsuffering) He had been with rebellious mankind and how patient He would be still, so patient that He would allow sinners to reject His Son, to mistreat Him and finally to crucify Him. It shows that God is true and faithful to His Word in that He kept that four-thousand-year-old promise to bring His Son into the world, to earn forgiveness for all by one day shedding human blood, which was also God’s blood, so that He would have a basis for acquitting guilty sinners who seek refuge by faith in the blood of His innocent Son.

Most of those qualities of God aren’t even needed by the angels. Mercy, patience, forgiveness—the holy angels have no need of such things. We do. And yet the angels were amazed, astonished, awe-struck over God’s grace and His willingness to do all this, to take on human flesh, to be born into our dark world, in order to save fallen mankind. God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—gets the glory, the praise, the honor, the worship, the credit, the thanks. “Glory to God in heaven” for being such a merciful, gracious God, for showing such mercy, patience, and forgiveness toward the human race.

The angels gave glory to God in heaven when Jesus was born into the world. And then they proclaimed, On earth peace, goodwill toward men! Peace to men. Peace on earth. We know that doesn’t mean what the world thinks it means, an end to war and conflict, or people treating other people kindly. The angels weren’t singing at all about earthly peace. Even Jesus says, Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. He didn’t come to end interpersonal conflicts. He came to receive the “punishment for our peace,” as the prophet Isaiah wrote, to suffer the wrath and condemnation of God in our place, so that all those who are connected to this Child by faith have peace with God. As St. Paul writes, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. The angels were singing about the peace that would one day be purchased with the blood of this newborn Child, the reconciliation of sinners with God through faith in this Child.

In the same way, the angels weren’t singing about the goodwill that men are supposed to show to one another at Christmas time. They were praising God’s goodwill toward mankind, God’s good pleasure with men that was to be found in Christ and in Him alone. This is where God’s goodwill was found on Christmas, wrapped up in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. God’s goodwill toward men was always wrapped up in Jesus. One day, at His Baptism, Jesus would hear these words from His Father in heaven: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” Literally, “In whom I have goodwill.” God’s goodwill toward men was born on Christmas Day. His goodwill dwelt among us on earth for a time. Whoever has Christ by faith has God’s goodwill, has God’s good pleasure, can be sure of God’s love and forgiveness and of God’s good plan to bring you safely into His heavenly kingdom.

That peace and goodwill that were brought to earth when Christ was born are still here where Christ has promised to be, in Word and Sacrament. That’s why we sing the angels’ song so often in our service, because the same peace and goodwill to men that they proclaimed over 2,000 years ago is being proclaimed to you today, promising you peace and goodwill, giving you peace and goodwill in Jesus.

After the shepherds heard and believed the angelic forerunners’ words, they went to the manger where Christ was and worshiped Him, and then they went out and spread the word of God’s peace and goodwill in Christ to everyone they found. So you, too, who have heard the message of the angels, who have come to where Jesus is in His Word and Sacrament and have worshiped Him here, you who have known and received God’s peace and goodwill in Christ Jesus, become forerunners of His goodwill to your fellow man, like the shepherds became, not just by doing charitable deeds, but by leading godly lives, by speaking of God’s goodwill in Christ, by standing firm on your confession of Christ, by not allowing yourself to be moved an inch from His commandments or from His revelation.

Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men! May the song of the angels fill you with joy and peace and wonder, and may it inspire you to worship the King who was once newborn, with your ears and with your hearts, with your lips and with your lives. Amen.

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Share in the joy of all the people!

Posted on December 24, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Christmas Eve

+  Luke 2:1-14  +

On Sunday we talked about forerunners: the ones God sends to run before His Son, to announce His coming and to prepare people for it. John the Baptist was the great forerunner, but, really, all the prophets and apostles, all pastors and ministers of Christ’s Church are forerunners, heralds, who announce the coming of Jesus, both the reality of His coming and the meaning of it.

On Christmas Eve, the famous forerunners are the angelic host, the “herald angels” who teach, not only the shepherds of Bethlehem, but all of us who have ever heard their message, about the coming of God’s Son into the world. So ponder again this evening the message of the angelic forerunners.

We’ll focus this evening just on the one forerunner, actually, the one angel who stood before the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth, surrounded by the brilliant, shining glory of the Lord. He spoke to the cowering shepherds those famous words, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people, or actually, “to all the people.” We’ll come back to that in a moment. First, what are the good tidings of great joy?

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

What do we learn from the angel about the identity of the child born of Mary? He is a Savior, someone who rescues people from terrible danger and makes them safe. The danger that threatens all mankind is well-known to us Christians, but largely ignored or loudly denied by the rest of the world, especially the world we live in today. It’s the danger of hell and eternal death in hell. Even the pagan Greeks and Romans believed that hell was a real place and a real danger, even though they didn’t rightly understand what it was or how it could be avoided. But our modern world has sunk into such deep darkness that even people who believe that heaven is real are more likely today than ever to imagine that hell isn’t a real place or a real danger. If it exists at all, it exists only for a small group of really, really bad people—not for people like me, or like anyone I care about.

But according to Holy Scripture, hell is real and is a real danger for every man, woman, or child who has ever sinned against the Almighty God. And that’s everyone. We’ve all earned it for ourselves, both by actual deeds of disobedience to God’s holy commandments and by the ugliness of the diseased soul with which we’re born, a diseased nature that has no true fear of God, no true love for God, no true trust in God, a nature that is filled with evil, selfish desires. We’re born outside of God’s kingdom. We’re born on our way to hell, dead in trespasses and sins, and so thoroughly unable to save ourselves. We’re in danger of hell, because we are born under God’s wrath and condemnation because of our sins against Him.

But then, into that dark, desperate scene, steps the angelic forerunner, who says, “Wait! There is hope! A hope that has been brewing for some four thousand years. A hope that has finally been given a tangible, visible form: A Savior has been born to you. He is Christ, the Lord.” The Christ, whose coming had been promised since Adam and Eve, the One who would be the true Prophet, Priest, and King, the One who would live as mankind’s Substitute under the Law, to keep it, to satisfy its requirement that salvation—rescue and safety—from sin and death can only be purchased by the sinless life and by the innocent death of One who is not only human, like us, but also divine, like God the Father. And so the angel proclaims the birth of a perfect Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.

He was found, as the angel said He would be, as a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. A baby just like any other. But lying in a manger, unlike any other. Such was God’s compassion on our race, that His beloved Son, who shared in His glory from eternity, would humble Himself to be born in such a lowly way, to lowly parents, in a lowly little town, to live a life of lowliness, until He should lower Himself all the way to the cross and death. For unto you was born that day a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

This birth, the coming of this Child, was the reason for the joy that would be to “all the people.” The sad reality is that Jesus’ birth to be our Savior from sin, death, and hell has not brought joy to all the people of the earth, because most refuse to repent of their sins and be reconciled to God through this Child. Still, God wants all the people of earth to repent and believe in the Savior who is Christ the Lord. He intends the joy of that Savior for all the people of the earth. And yet the ones for whom it is truly joy are only those relative few who acknowledge the danger they’re in because of their sin and who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to save them from it. So, in effect, the angelic message of Jesus’ birth is the joy of all the people of God, those who have become part of the Holy Christian Church.

How many churches are nearly empty this evening or will be empty tomorrow for sure? How many are regularly empty on Sunday mornings? How many people are still sad this evening, still lonely, still hurting, still feeling guilty, still in love with their sins, still unwilling to admit the danger they’re in? Well, before we try to help anyone out there, let’s focus on those who are in here.

Be among those who believe God when He tells you the truth about your sin and the danger it puts you in. But then, oh, be among “all the people” who hear the angel’s words and rejoice that God has given His own beloved Son into the world to rescue you, to make you safe from death, safe from hell, safe from His wrath and condemnation. The joy of Christ’s birth is meant for you! The joy of God’s grace and favor, of His mercy and forgiveness, is meant for you! For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Unto you was born that day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Let that be the joy that fills your heart at Christmas time and throughout the year. Let that be the joy that overcomes all guilt. Let that be the joy that tempers all sadness and hurt and loneliness. This evening God invites you again to believe the angelic forerunner, to share in the joy of all the people who find joy in the birth of God’s Son, to share in the joy of His birth, and in the joy of His salvation. Amen.

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Listen to the Lord’s forerunner(s)!

Posted on December 22, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Advent 4 – Rorate Coeli

Isaiah 40:1-8  +  Philippians 4:4-7  +  John 1:19-28

We’ve spent the Advent season preparing for Christ’s second coming. Today is no different. God prepares us for Christ’s second coming in the same way He prepared the people of Israel for His first coming: by turning our attention to the ministry of the forerunner.

John the Baptist was the great forerunner of Christ, the one announced ahead of time by the prophet Malachi and by the prophet Isaiah, the one announced, at least in private, by the angel Gabriel to his father Zacharias. He was six months older than Jesus, and so we assume he began his ministry at least six months before Jesus began His.

His ministry consisted in preaching God’s message of repentance to the people of Israel and in baptizing those who repented. So the Jews had every right to ask John on whose authority he was preaching and baptizing, as they did in today’s Gospel. No one was allowed in the Church of Israel, just as no one is allowed in the New Testament Church, to just get up and start preaching or administering the Sacraments in God’s name (or, in John’s case, performing a new Sacrament in God’s name) without a rightly ordered call. And since John had no call from the Church of Israel to preach or to baptize, he was either a rogue who deserved to be arrested, or he had a direct call from God.

But no one in Israel had had a direct call from God for over 400 years, since the prophet Malachi. So the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

Well, there were only two possible legitimate answers to that question. The prophet Malachi had indicated that two men would be directly sent by God after him: first, the messenger who would prepare the way before the Lord, and then, immediately following, the Messenger who was the Lord, that is, the Christ. The first messenger would be the forerunner, preaching repentance, or as Isaiah put it, “making straight in the desert a highway for our God.” The second would be our God, the Christ, the One whom God calls “My Son,” the One who would be anointed to be Israel’s true Prophet, Priest, and King, the Ruler over Israel, the One who would perform miracles, who would preach and teach, who would be despised and rejected by the people, who would bear the sins of the world, be crucified, and rise again from the dead. So, if John’s call was legitimate at all, he either had to be the forerunner, or he had to be the Christ.

John narrowed it down for them immediately. He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” That only left one other possibility, according to Scripture. He had to be the forerunner!

But then, the Jews, or at least the Jewish leaders, didn’t understand their own Scriptures very well at that time (which should make us wary whenever we read anything about Jewish interpretations of the Old Testament). They asked him, What then? Are you Elijah? Now, why would they ask him that? Remember what Malachi, the last prophet Israel had heard, had said in the last chapter of his prophetic book: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. Those were the last recorded words of the Old Testament, left ringing in the ears of the Jews for 400 years. It’s true, according to Malachi 4, “Elijah” would come. And according to Jesus, John was that promised Elijah whom Malachi was referring to. But the Jews show here how poorly they were understanding their own Old Testament Scriptures. They envisioned the same Elijah who was taken to heaven in a fiery chariot descending again to preach and perform miracles. And John rightly said, No, that’s not who I am.

Are you the Prophet?, they asked. We assume they meant the Prophet of whom Moses spoke in Deut. 18: The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. But again, they were not understanding their own Scriptures very well. That prophecy was pointing to the Christ Himself, not some other prophet. So again, John said, no.

Who are you, then?, they asked. Since he had already ruled out being the Christ, John identifies himself as the forerunner with the words of the prophet Isaiah: I am The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the LORD.”

See how John at once highlights the importance of his ministry while at the same time minimizing his own importance. His importance lay, not in attracting followers to himself, but in getting people ready to follow the Christ: Make straight the way of the Lord! As Isaiah continued, Every valley shall be exalted. That is, everyone who has sunken down into despair over their sinfulness will be given new hope, will be called up to a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And, every mountain and hill shall be brought low. That is, every high and mighty person, secure in his sin, will be accused, will be brought down by the preaching of God’s Law, will be called down to a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And in that Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, in that Baptism which pointed to the coming Christ, John fulfilled the words you heard in the First lesson this morning: Comfort, yes, comfort My people! Says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, That her warfare is ended, That her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the LORD’s hand Double for all her sins.

How was Jerusalem delivered from her warfare? She wasn’t delivered from earthly war, but from the war she had been fighting with God. Christ is the peace treaty! The Christ was coming with a pardon for all who sorrowed over their sins. The Christ was coming to give God’s waiting people twice as many divine benefits as they had committed sins against God. That was the forerunner’s task, to prepare Israel for the coming of the Lord. Be ready! The Lord is at hand!

John the Baptist may have been the great forerunner, but he wasn’t the only one. St. Paul was also one. He wrote in the Epistle, Rejoice, the Lord is at hand! Now, the Lord no longer stands among us visibly. He will! Soon! But until then, He has sent all kinds of forerunners, starting with the apostles themselves. Ministers, to preach repentance, as John did, to those who are secure in their sins, who think they have something to offer to God. Ministers to preach comfort, as John did, to those who know their sins and are afraid. Ministers to point to Christ, as John did. The Lord is at hand! He is near! He will come again for judgment against the impenitent and for the salvation of His waiting people. For now, He has made Himself near in ways that are just as powerful, if not as glorious. He is near where His Word is preached and His Sacraments are administered. It’s Jesus preaching. It’s Jesus baptizing. It’s Jesus handing out the bread and wine, and together with it, His own body and blood that are truly present, to be eaten and drunk for the forgiveness of sins.

So repent! He’s coming! Take an accounting of your heart, of your life. Don’t let Him find you proud when He comes, but humble. Not mistreating your neighbor, but letting your gentleness be known to all men. Not anxiously worrying about the things of this life, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, letting your requests be made known to God. Listen to the Lord’s forerunner John! Listen to His forerunner Paul! And to all the forerunners whom the Lord sends to point you to the coming Christ! Amen.

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